Dooley’s experiments work as Azkals rout Chinese Taipei

MANILA, Philippines – In his efforts to make the Azkals more flexible and adaptable, coach Thomas Dooley utilized striker Kenshiro Daniels as right back and winger James Younghusband as center forward in Wednesday’s match against Chinese Taipei in the PFF Peace Cup at the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium.

Daniels and Younghusband acquitted themselves well outside their usual positions and helped the Azkals score a 5-1 rout for a spot in the gold medal match on Saturday.

“They both played very well,” said Dooley.

“I told the players during the week that every session counts, and I could see the change in the performance in the positions I never had them tried them yet. I saw [James Younghusband] playing hard as a forward, scoring goals and being dangerous. I had a good feeling about that.

 “The other one was Ken [Daniels], because you want to play out of the back with speeds and trying to put some kick behind the defense and was somebody has fresh legs. It worked. You want to play out of the back with speeds and trying to put some kick behind the defense and was somebody has fresh legs. It worked,” he said.

Dooley felt the opening fixture of the short four-nation tourney provided the opportunity to try something new.

 “If you want to try a player, a young player who never played in a different position against a team, then you have to do it now. You cannot do it in the Suzuki Cup or in the final on Saturday. This is a perfect situation to try something out,” he said.

The Azkals waxed hot on a wet Wednesday night, clobbering Chinese Taipei in a rain-hit match to gain a shot at a three-peat.

Captain Rob Gier and Younghusband struck to early give the Azkals the headstart then sub Mark Hartmann scored a brace for the finishing touches to the rout that somehow provided solace to a nation hurt by the sorry loss of Gilas Pilipinas in the FIBA Basketball World Cup over in Spain just hours before.

The Azkals will gun for their third consecutive Peace Cup diadem Saturday night against Myanmar, which advanced after pulling the rug from under an off-form Palestine, 4-1, in the first game of the short tourney.

“We are happy with the result, and we played great in the first half. We created chances and we could have had one or two more goals in the match. We let the ball run very well, we were very clean in the back,” said Dooley, who posted his first win at Rizal Memorial.

Gier scored his maiden international goal – a diving header at the 24th minute. Younghusband, back in the starting lineup after riding the bench in the Challenge Cup, tapped in a nifty feed from Misagh Bahadoran to double the lead 13 minutes later.

The match was suspended at the 57th minute due to heavy downpour, but the hour-long delay and stoppage didn’t cool the Azkals down.

Phl got a free third goal as Chen Yi-wei’s lousy clearance went into the net.

Eight minutes after coming in, Hartmann fired home a delivery from fellow sub Patrick Reichelt at the 74th for 4-0. The Taiwanese pulled one back via Yen Ho-shen at the 80th, but Hartmann negated it eight minutes later  with a pinpoint blast from the edge of the penalty area off a low cross from Curt Dizon.