Azkals unfazed, see AFF Cup breakthru

MANILA, Philippines - Reeling from another heartbreaking setback to their historic bid in the Asean Football Federation Suzuki Cup, the Philippine Azkals take on the positives from their latest experience and look forward to the next battle.

“Have to get this out of the system and take the next step,” said veteran midfielder Jerry Lucena, whose team will compete in the qualifiers for the Fifa World Cup in 2015.

For the third straight time, the Azkals got stuck in the semifinals of Southeast Asia’s premier competition, getting the boot after a 0-3 setback at the hands of Thailand before 50,000 Thai fans in Wednesday night’s second leg. The Thais will dispute the crown with Malaysia, which stunned Vietnam in Hanoi Thursday night, 4-2, to win their semis duel on goal aggregate, 5-4.

Top scorer Phil Younghusband and skipper Rob Gier expressed belief the steadily improving Azkals remain on the right track.

“I think we showed that we can pass and create chances by passing the ball. There’s still a barrier we need to get over and it’s the same barrier we can’t get pass through several tournaments. We’ve fallen short again and this is something we have to change,” said Younghusband.

“Improvement’s been big this year… we proved that we can pass the ball. A lot of people thought we couldn’t do that as we got a lot of youngsters in the side as well. Hopefully, this experience will be good for them; some of them like Amani (Aguinaldo) and (Daisuke) Sato could actually have five Suzuki Cups to learn from and get that elusive victory,” said Gier, who also hinted that he’s contemplating leaving Suzuki Cup duties to young legs after this one.

The Pinoy booters entered the away game confident especially after a 0-0 draw at home four days before but stumbled against a Thailand side that left little doubt as to why they’re tagged as the tournament favorites.

“Thailand was the better team. We didn’t take two of our chances and I feel in our homefield, we should have scored one or two and then have a better result last Wednesday,” Lucena said.

“We knew there would be 15-20 minutes where they will be pushing everything on us, with the fans, putting a lot of pressure on us. They scored after five minutes and it’s always difficult once they score they have the ascendancy and chance plus they’ve got the fans behind them,” said Younghusband.

He maintained that crowd support and the Thais’ experience in playing big games like that spelled the difference.

“We can hardly fill 13,000 (at Rizal), they can fill 50,000 easily. And they got a strong league; their players probably play big games with full attendance every week and we’re not yet there,” said Younghusband.