Could this be the year of the U17 team?
It is a bit premature, but the Under-17 Philippine Women’s National Football Team (PWNFT) is looking like a very formidable squad—a lot like their older Filipinas counterparts.
The young Filipinas just notched their second win in the 2024 AFC U17 Women's Asian Cup qualification, blanking Lebanon, 2-0, on Wednesday at the GFA National Training Center in Guam.
After a tight, intense defensive battle in the first half and the first few minutes of the second, midfielder Isabella Alamo finally broke through, opening up the scoring at the 68th minute with a goal that Alamo credit to great teamwork.
"I'm proud of my team working together in my goal, combining to create that finish and pushing until the final whistle," Alamo told the PWNFT post-game.
The Filipinas would hang on to that 1-nil advantage up until the 90th minute, when Nina Mathelus added another goal off a penalty kick. With her late goal, Mathelus finished the first round with 4 total goals on the strength of her impressive hat trick against Guam last Saturday.
With the win, the Alen Stajcic-led group, which ramped up its preparations only recently, will move on to the second stage of the competition. It will be another round of group play to determine the top eight nations that will advance to the tournament proper, where they will then battle for the four spots up for grabs.
This is not the first time an U17 Philippine women's squad marched on to the second round of the qualifiers, as the country did the same in 2017. That group, however, failed to move on to the main tournament.
After two impressive victories, one has to wonder: Maybe this is the year of these young Filipinas, after all.