Philippines booters narrowly miss ASEAN Cup finale

MANILA, Philippines — Gritty Philippines came knocking – hard – but fate deemed it’s not yet time and kept the gates to the Asean Mitsubishi Electric Cup finals shut.

Unable to cash in on their one-goal edge from Leg 1 and land the killer blow in a grueling 120-minute return match Monday night in Bangkok, the Pinoy booters yielded a 1-3 defeat to holder Thailand that cost them a historic trip to the Last Dance.

The two-goal loss put to waste the advantage the Filipinos gained from their sensational 2-1 upset of the seven-time champions in Friday’s opener as the War Elephants came away with the finals-clinching 4-3 victory on goal aggregate.

“I’m very proud of my players. We will come back stronger, I can promise you that. We came here to Thailand and we played against them face-to-face until the last minute of extra (time),” said coach Albert Capellas, echoing the pride felt by Pinoys back home who stayed up until midnight to catch the game’s broadcast.

Capellas swelled with pride for his squad, which achieved so much with little time together and with its best players not yet on board.

“We just arrived at this level. For a lot of years, we couldn’t play these types of games – to fight until the last second against Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam,” said the Spanish coach, whose crew beat the Indonesians, 1-0, and drew with the finals-qualified Vietnamese, 1-1, in Group B action.

“Thailand has been here a lot of years; they have much more experience with this. For this generation of players, this is the first time. I can promise we’ll learn from this and we’ll become stronger.”

It’s a tough loss to swallow, considering how the Filipinos fiercely fought back from a 0-2 deficit and even gave themselves a fighting chance to steal the tie.