By NIKOLE JAVIER
Philippine national men’s football team captain Neil Etheridge believes in the squad’s fighting chance to make it through the next round of the 2026 FIFA World Cup Asian Qualifiers come the June window.
The 34-year-old Birmingham City goalkeeper remained hopeful after finding himself and the Nationals in a must-win situation with two road games ahead against Vietnam and Indonesia.
With no moniker to embody or identify with, the Filipino booters conceded back-to-back matches against Iraq that sunk them deeper to the Group F standings with no victory but a lone goal to a draw and three losses.
The Nationals resumed action in the qualifying tournament on the road last week, conceding a late goal to Iraq, which showcased a promising new era under debuting coach Tom Saintfiet.
However, it didn’t take long for the cracks to show as the Filipinos yielded to the Iraqis anew — only this time suffering a 5-0 whipping in front of the 10,000-strong home crowd, proving much work in the program needs to be done.
“Any loss is tough take, but today it’s a learning curve for the players including myself. I feel that we came up against a very strong team in Asia. Not just that but those were clever individuals. I think they were very clinical, they had a few chances but they took every chance,” Etheridge said.
“It’s tough coming off the back of traveling to their place (Iraq) and only losing narrowly. And then coming home to lose such a significant scoreline,” he added.
However painful should it be, the Filipinos, ranked 134th by FIFA, needed to confront their massive gap with the rest of the world and only way to do that is by beating the odds and qualifying to the third round.
If chances run out, the Philippines could be looking at a relegation to the AFC Asian Cup.
“Of course we know we’ve got a big task ahead of us. Realistically, we need to win both games. I do think that we will move forward and we’ll learn from the mistakes that we made in this game,” he said.
“We showed that the heart and spirit we gave over in Iraq, we have it, it’s there and it needs to come out.”
“Yeah, there is pressure. There always is whenever you put on the jersey whether it’s a friendly game or a World Cup qualifier. But I believe in this group, and we have to come out fighting strategically. Not stupidly,” he added.
