The Philippine women’s football team is set to face highly-ranked Sweden on July 17 in an unofficial match before the start of the Fifa Women’s World Cup.
The Philippine Football Federation (PFF) said that the meeting described as an “unofficial closed training match” will take place in Wellington, New Zealand where the Filipinas will be based for the duration of the World Cup.
“We thank our friends from the Swedish Football Association for working with us in making this match happen,” PFF general secretary Edwin Gastanes in a statement. “It’s a great opportunity for our Filipinas to test themselves against a world class team before the Fifa Women’s World Cup.”
Both federations have been working on arranging the exhibition for weeks in a bid for the two teams to have one more match before the World Cup opens on July 20.
It is expected that the match will not be the standard two 45-minute halves.
Sweden is among the top nations in women’s football, currently third in the Fifa rankings, with strong showings in recent major competitions.
The Blagult, Sweden’s nickname, was third in the 2019 World Cup, settled for silver at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and reached the semifinal of Euro 2022.
The Filipinas are currently in Sydney, Australia for a month-long training which serves as the final phase of preparations for the World Cup.
They’ll fly to New Zealand in the second week of July while their first group stage match is on July 21 against Switzerland in Dunedin.