Filipinas eyes homegrown talents as camp opens

Filipinas during a friendly with South Korea in Incheon.–CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

The direction of the Philippine women’s football team under new management is set to take shape next week with a six-day training camp aimed at tapping more local-based players to its talent pool.

Coach Mark Torcaso will stage the camp at Rizal Memorial Coliseum on Aug. 17 to 23, the first activity of the Filipinas since the Philippine Football Federation (PFF) took over the role of managing the national women’s side.

“The main objective of the upcoming camp is for the coaching staff to build our local player pool and to provide our local players the opportunity to be seen and assessed by the coaching staff,” national teams director Freddy Gonzalez said in a statement after the camp was announced by the federation.

“This is very important, as we need our locally based players to be aware of the game model we are building for the Philippine women’s national football team. In the case that any of them are called up, they will be ready to perform.”

Quiet calendar

The Filipinas have a quiet calendar compared to last year when they made a historic appearance in the Fifa Women’s World Cup, apart from reaching the quarterfinals of the Hangzhou Asian Games and the second round of the Paris Olympics qualifier.

Torcaso remains under contract to call the shots for the Filipinas, who won’t play until November with a pair of friendly matches, while tapping Riedoh Berdien of South Africa and Filipino Aris Andrey as strength and conditioning coaches.

About 25 to 30 players, the release the PFF sent to football beat writers, will be invited to the camp.

The final day of the Filipinas camp, meanwhile, is open for fans and the media.