Azkals to go full-strength vs Cambodians today

Match tonight (Rizal Memorial Football Stadium)

7:30 p.m. – Philippines vs Cambodia

MANILA, Philippines - Azkals coach Michael Weiss seeks to unleash a pack raring to attack as the Philippine booters go for a big victory tonight in the AFC Challenge Cup Group E Qualifiers at the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium.

The Azkals, just like the remaining teams Turkmenistan and Cambodia, had picked up outright three points as a result of the pullout of Brunei. But Turkmenistan’s 7-0 spanking of Cambodia at the start of action Friday put the Central Asians in a better position in the race for a slot to Challenge Cup’s main tourney next year.

“It’s clear we’ll go with full-strength and full power against Cambodia,” said Weiss after he and his wards scouted both the Cambodians and the Turkmen in Day One of the qualifiers.

“We will cause them a lot of problems and pressurize them early on and hopefully score a lot of goals. We’ll use that as preparations for (our game against) Turkmenistan (on Tuesday),” he added.

The Azkals and the Cambodians last met in a friendly over in Phnom Penh in the buildup for the 2012 AFF Suzuki Cup and settled for a scoreless draw. 

But Cambodia’s coach Prak Sovannara believes the Azkals side has gotten stronger since.

“This is a new team with different players. We cannot compare the previous results to this team. We are expecting them to be strong,” said Sovannara, who vowed to prepare against the home side.

Phl XI will use what it learned from the Cambodia-Turkmenistan match to get the result they needed tonight.

“We have to break the opponent down. The opponent will be tired after this game (Cambodia vs Turkmenistan) coz they’ll only have 48 hours to recover and we’ll be fully fresh,” said Weiss, also hopeful his offensive line led by Phil Younghusband and new recruit Javier Patiño will blend together well as they try to shoot the lights out.