Booters in better draw, open bid vs Thais

The Philippine football team, tasked to claim a first-ever medal whatever its color, made the most of the draw Sunday for the centerpiece event of the 23rd Southeast Asian Games, being bracketed with defending champion Thailand but avoiding the Games Group of Death.

Aside from Thailand, the event’s top seed, the national team also drew Malaysia, among the seeded teams due to its third-place finish in the Vietnam Games, and Cambodia.

The men’s squad begins its campaign against defending champion Thailand in Bacolod on Nov. 24, the same day the women’s squad clashes with the Thais at the Marikina Sports Complex.

Football competition actually starts a week before the Nov. 27-Dec. 5 sportsfest formally begins.

Vietnam takes on Singapore on Nov. 20 at 4 p.m. set either at the Paglaum Sports Complex or at the Panaad Field, to be followed by the match-up between Myanmar and Laos at 6:30 p.m. in men’s division action.

Undoubtedly, the tougher group was the other side with Vietnam, Myanmar, Indonesia, Singapore and Laos in the list.

"It couldn’t have been any better because actually we had a choice and our parameters in being in Group A is to be next to the weakest team which is Cambodia and going on a group of four where we would need lesser number of wins to advance," said Johnny Romualdez, president of the Philippine Football Federation.

Being grouped with the defending titlist could also work for the national booters’ campaign for a medal since it would avoid meeting the Thais in the event they reach the semifinals.

"We were ecstatic at first but the bottom-line is we are still the underdog so we still have to work hard to earn a medal. But it’s a better place than the Group of Death," said Romualdez.

Two victories are needed to make it to the semifinals from Group A and the national team would need to overcome Malaysia and Cambodia in the preliminaries. The Malaysians were still smarting from a 1-0 shocker in the 1991 SEA Games in Manila but Romualdez said that was "light years ago and we have to deal with the mission at hand with different teams and players."

But the Filipinos have had some encouraging results against the Malaysians, losing with identical 2-1 scores in a pre-SEA Games tune-up match and in the Bolkiah Cup.

Even Cambodia poses tremendous challenge for the Filipinos who could only draw with the Cambodians in an encounter in the mid-90s while absorbing one defeat in an Asian youth tournament contest, recalled Romualdez,

" To be realistic about it, we still have to work hard to achieve our goal but still our chances of moving to the semifinals are better in this group," said the PFF chief.