The Philippine women’s national football team will have six players returning from the 2022 championship team for the 2025 edition of the MSIG Serenity Cup.
Filipinas head coach Mark Torcaso will seek the assistance of holdovers from the 2022 championship squad as the team looks to retain the MSIG Serenity Cup beginning later this week in Vietnam.
Due to the tournament being outside of a FIFA window, only six members of the 2022 team that won in the Philippines are available. Meanwhile, forwards like Katrina Guillou and Sarina Bolden are recovering from their respective injuries injuries.
Regardless, Torcaso is eager to have the remaining players share their invaluable experience to a fresh batch of Filipinas — especially as a handful of them are new to the team completely.
[READ: Filipinas target MSIG Serenity Cup title defense with youthful squad in Vietnam]
“These types of girls, they’re really really important for our group… They’re gonna be really important, to share their experiences as winning the AFF tournament, but also, their experience of being at a World Cup, being in Asian Cups,” Torcaso said.
“They’re gonna share that for our young players and there’s no doubt that they’ll have open arms in talking to the young girls and I’m sure that our young girls will be very very accepting of the information. That’s gonna be a really good time to have our young girls working with our senior team players that have been to tournaments,” he added.
The holdovers include long-time skipper Hali Long, Inna Palacios, Olivia McDaniel, Kaya Hawkinson, Malea Cesar, and Quinley Quezada.
More experienced Filipinas will also be in Vietnam, like World Cup players Chandler McDaniel and Bella Pasion, Janae Defazio, Charisa Lemoran, and Dionesa Tolentin.
Newcomers include Isabella Alamo, Lyka Cuenco, Jaycee Defazio, Azumi Oka, Aaliyah Schinaman, Tea Pidding, and Adelaide Wyrzynski.
For Cesar, the team will be eager to bring their winning culture from 2022 to their current campaign where they will face Timor-Leste, Australia U-23, and Myanmar.
“One of the most important things I think from the last campaign was the belief that we had. We had a meeting before and we were like, we’re not here to just play, we’re here to compete, and we’re here to win and that’s what we think that we’re definitely going to bring back to this campaign,” she said.
Rounding up the Filipinas squad are Nina Meollo, Nina Mathelus, Rhea Chan, Alessandrea Carpio, and Nina Mathelus.
The Filipinas open their campaign on Thursday, August 7, against Timor-Leste.
They will need to finish in the top-2 of Group B to move on to the knockout rounds.