Azkals fail to reach AFC Cup finals

Turkmenistan banked on a late surge in the final 10 minutes to score a come-from-behind 2-1 victory over the Philippine Azkals in the Asian Football Confederation Challenge Cup 2012 yesterday at the Dashrath Stadium in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Turkmenistan, a 2010 finalists in the tournament, will now face the winner between defending champions DPR Korea and Palestine, who were still playing their own semifinals match as of presstime.
The Philippines started the scoring spree when Phil Younghusband netted a goal in the 25th minute. That proved to be the country’s only goal.
The Philippines took control of the game early on with Misagh Bahadoran stepping in for James Younghusband in the front and Paul Mulders playing in the midfield to cover for Angel Guirado.
Younghusband and Guirado were suspended after booking two yellow cards in the group stages.
Jason Sabio also sat out the match after injuring his knee and had Juan Guirado dropping to the back four.
The Azkals also played good defense early. In the 30th minute, Amanov Arslanmyrat was awarded a free kick on a foul from Carli de Murga but this was headed away by Rob Gier.
The Philippines continued to refuse to give the Turkmenistan the space to set up for a goal and continued to take control of the match with superb ball possession.
However, five minutes into the second half, the Azkals defense started to loosen a bit and was jolted with another free kick attempt by Arslanmyrat, which was headed by his teammate right into the net. Fortunately, it was offside and the match went into halftime with the Philippines having the upperhand.
The second half saw the Turkmenistan applying the pressure on the Philippines, whose midfielders and defenders started to commit lapses after they became overly aggressive in trying to score a second goal.
Noting this, the Turkmenistan started to fight for ball possession in the midfield and started to fire long range attempts. They did not let up until the 80th minute when Arslanmyrat’s attempt finally hit the net.
From there, it went downhill for the Philippines as Turkmenistan scored its second goal just six minutes later with Chonkayev Gahrymanberdi eluding four Azkal defenders.