The lady booters are ready to open the chapter after their historic FIFA Women's World Cup campaign.
The Philippine women's football team will be under a new regime following the appointment of Mark Torcaso as the team’s new head coach.
Torcaso is set to assume control of the Filipinas after their groundbreaking performance in the FIFA Women's World Cup.
Having guided Melbourne-based Western United to the A-League Women grand final, Torcaso, who also is league's reigning coach of the year, brings his coaching prowess to this new role.
Speaking to the media in a press conference on Wednesday, Torcaso said he already spotted something that he wants to extract further from the Filipinas.
"This team, you can see plays a lot of passion,” said Torcaso. “They're very respectful of their heritage and that's something that I think you can really harness more and more out of a player, the more and more that they play for their country.”
The Filipinas displayed their heart and passion during their FIFA Women’s World Cup campaign, where they proved that they can compete against some of the top nations in the world.
“You can see that they're absolute fighters for each other and we want to probably create a bit more of that mentality of togetherness and that mentality of we want to go out there and fight for each other and fight for our nation,” Torcaso explained.
“That's the type of mentality that I want to bring in,” he added.
Torcaso said that he is also open to bringing in more local players from the U-17 and U-20 squads, given that he’s seen some talented individuals already just by looking at some highlights.
“There's some fantastic players all around the world, but we shouldn't just look at all around the world, we should also be looking within the Philippines,” said Torcaso.
The 42-year-old gaffer is set to lead the Filipinas to the 19th Asian Games scheduled to take place in Hangzhou, China, next month. Come October, the Filipinas will compete in the AFC Olympic Qualifiers in Perth, Australia.
Safe to say that he likes the talent he has in his arsenal.
“There's technically gifted players, there's players that will play for their shirt, play for their heart. It's about bringing them all together and making sure that we get the balance for each camp and each tournament,” said Torcaso.
(GM)