Philippines gamers rejoice following the Ladies’s World Cup Group A soccer match between New Zealand and the Philippines in Wellington, New Zealand, Tuesday, July 25, 2023. (AP Picture/John Cowpland)
The group stage of the continuing Fifa Ladies’s World Cup has been fairly a trip, crammed with twists and turns which have seen perceived minnows do magical issues and some perennial contenders surprisingly being proven the door.
The Filipinas can take pleasure in being a part of that storyline.
“It’s nice,” Katrina Guillou mentioned throughout a meet and greet session with media and followers at an Adidas retailer in Makati Metropolis on Thursday, when The Inquirer requested her in regards to the Filipinas being among the many underdog tales within the greatest showpiece for ladies’s soccer.
Guillou and the Filipinas even flirted with the potential for doing the unthinkable: Making the round-of-16 regardless of low expectations as one among eight debutants within the World Cup.
A 1-0 win over New Zealand, a landmark consequence, gave the Filipinas that chance, however the dream got here to an finish with a 6-0 pounding handed to them by former champion Norway.
As soon as the World Cup ends, the Filipinas’ marketing campaign shall be amongst these to be remembered, one of many unimaginable runs that included fairy-tale performances from Jamaica and South Africa, who each reached the knockout part.
Jamaica, brandishing maybe the good moniker within the match—The Reggae Girlz, performed pragmatic in battling the good Marta and Brazil to a scoreless draw, sufficient to get out of Group F and eradicate the normal soccer energy from South America.
Gorgeous exit
The Philippines’ Olivia McDaniel throughout a match in opposition to Switzerland on the Fifa Ladies’s World Cup. Picture from Philippine Ladies’s Nationwide Soccer Staff
South Africa’s 3-2 triumph over Italy in Group G despatched the workforce generally known as the Banyana Banyana into the final 16 for the primary time in two World Cup appearances.
It was not simply Brazil that had a surprising early exit, with Olympic champion Canada additionally lacking out on the subsequent part and cohost Australia and defending champion United States barely advancing.
“I feel it’s a testomony to how laborious the workforce has been working. We accepted the problem and we put our greatest foot ahead and it actually took every part for us,” mentioned Guillou, whose nullified purpose in opposition to Switzerland attributable to an offside, she mentioned, proved that the workforce may be “a risk.”
The Filipinas additionally confirmed they may maintain their very own in opposition to the largest names of their sport, like Switzerland’s Ana-Maria Crnogorčević, New Zealand’s Ramona Bachmann and Lia Walti, Hannah Wilkinson, Jacqui Hand and Ali Riley and Norway’s Caroline Graham Hansen, Sophia Roman Haug and Frida Maanum.
“Truthfully, going into the video games, I don’t give it some thought an excessive amount of about who my opponent is,” mentioned defender Sofia Harrison, who confronted lots of high quality gamers. “I strive to enter the sport with the identical mentality, ensuring I’m doing my half.
“After which after the sport, I look again and say ‘I marked Hannah Wilkinson.’ So it’s undoubtedly cool and loopy to see that we are able to compete in opposition to gamers like that,” she added.
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