The Filipinas' window to reach the 2024 Paris Olympics closed with Uzbekistan's 3-0 win over India.
The second round of the AFC Olympic Qualifying Tournament exposed a weakness in the Philippine women's national football team's preparation, and head coach Mark Torcaso got frank about it following the 1-0 win over Iran.
"The fitness level between our players and some other teams, particularly the Australian team, is what I'm thinking about going to the next games, the next tournaments," Torcaso said in the postgame press conference.
"Making sure the players are well-prepared coming into that. Even today, we had players running out of legs," he noted.
Captain Tahnai Annis scored the lone goal of the match against Iran, bouncing back from the 8-0 beatdown the Filipinas absorbed from the Matildas.
But the -4 goal difference was too much to overcome, as Uzbekistan edged out the Philippines with a 3-0 win over India for the last ticket to the third round. Torcaso says the Filipinas need to have more time to get together before a stretch of games such as this one.
"Just want to make sure they're conditioned better, and that obviously requires time prior to the competition. We had three days, we can't do much in three days," he admitted.
"Just have the players probably much more probably much more prepared and ready. We just roll with the punches, back and ready for the next competitions."
For now, the players will be dispersing once again to play for their clubs and schools. They will definitely be better conditioned then.
(CF)