The Philippine Azkals won against Bangladesh with a 3-0 score, placing them in the top 2 of the Group A. The team is now qualified for the 2012 Asian Football Confederation Challenge Cup.
The first goal was scored by Ian Araneta and the remaining two goals were by Angel Guirado Aldeguer.
Many Pinoys were actually quite confident that the Azkals would win the match because Bangladesh proved weakest when it was defeated by Palestine and Myanmar in their first two games.
The Azkals, though undefeated, was able to sum up 5 points from the three games they played in the group qualifying tournament. They got 1 point each for draw games against both Myanmar and Palestine. Luckily, they won against Bangladesh giving them 3 points.
Palestine, also undefeated, only had 1 draw game, and that's the game against the Azkals. They won against Bangladesh and Myanmar giving them a total of 7 points.
As of the moment, the countries that qualify for the 2012 AFC Challenge Cup are:
Group A – Palestine and Philippines
Group B – India and Turkmenistan
Group C – Maldives and Tajikistan
There will be 8 teams that will qualify but the top 2 from Group D are still not determined.
Only the 8 qualified teams for the tournament proper can bid to host the finals. [Wiki]
It would have been great if the Philippines had at least one state-of-the-art football field in Manila. I'm kinda sure we can't host the finals.
Members of the Philippine football team will be back in Manila on Sunday. I'm sure there'd be much media hype and a lot of sponsored victory parties for them. They have a year left before the finals. Let's just hope Neil Etheridge would be available to play by then.
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