Little Azkals off to hot start, notch 2 victories

The Little Azkals or the Philippine Under-14 football team opened their stint in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Under 14 Festival of Football 2012 Southeast Asia Region with two wins and one draw yesterday at the Stadium Likas in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah Malaysia.

The Little Azkals blanked Cambodia (2-0) and Australia (3-0) before drawing against Myanmar.

No champion will be declared in this event as it is purely a festival type not a competition. It is designed this way by AFC as a developmental for the kids and the coaches.

In fact, there are 12 teams participating but the Little Azkals will only be playing nine which means they won’t be playing against one or two countries.

There are two formats for the festival. The first will be played from May 30 to 31 while the second format will be on June 2 and 3.

Each participating team will be divided into two sub-teams—team 1 and 2.

The first format will have teams 1 and 2 playing for 30 minutes straight with no substitutions except when there is an injury, while the second format will have the teams playing 60 minutes with team 1 to play for the first 30 minutes with 3 substitutions from team 2, while team 2 will take over in the remaining 30 minutes also with 3 substitutions from team 1.

Scoring for the Little Azkals against Cambodia are Shanden Vergara Jovan Marfiga.

Goalkeeper Jose Anton Yared also had two spectacular saves in the game which also contributed a lot to the Little Azkals win.

In the match against Australia, team captain Darius Joseph Diamante scored the first goal on a cross followed by a goal from Dimitri Lionel Limbo. The third goal was scored by Javier Romero-Salas.

The match against Myanmar would have gone the Little Azkals’ way but they were not able to convert the four attempts that they had.

Today, the Little Azkals will face Singapore, Indonesia and Timor Leste.

Other teams who won their matches yesterday were Malaysia over Brunei, 2-0; Timor Leste vs. Vietnam, 4-0; Thailand vs. Malaysia, 2-0; Indonesia vs. Vietnam, 1-0; and Vietnamn vs. Laos, 2-1.

The Little Azkals played without Moiselle Angelo Alforque who was downed with food poisoning yesterday. Marco Alessandro Casambre and Josh Albert Miller had to play twice to cover for Alforque’s absence.