MANILA, Philippines – In the lopsided match against Singapore, the Philippine women’s football team seized its second straight clean sheet in the AFF Women’s Championship 2022, but head coach Alen Stajcic was more satisfied with the Filipinas’ performance on the offensive side of the pitch.

“I’m pleased with the clean sheet, but I’m more pleased with what we did on the ball,” said the 48-year-old Australian tactician after the Philippines’ seven-goal romp against Singapore.

Stajcic said in the past six to seven months, the Filipinas have proven to be a good defensive team, so to exhibit a free-scoring form was an absolute plus for him.

“One of the parts of our game that we’ve always had a need to improve is on the ball, and there were large chunks of that game where I thought we were good on the ball,” he said.

“There’s still a lot more to work on in terms of our passages of play, but I certainly felt a lot of good passages of play where we carved them open with good football and combination play which I was pleased to see.”

Following the goal-frenzy encounter against the Singaporeans, the Filipinas now have a total of eight goals in two games.

In comparison to their goal tally in the AFF Women’s Asian Cup 2022, it’s a massive improvement as the Filipinas only scored eight goals – excluding the penalty shoot-out – in that memorable tournament.

Starter and player of the match Jessica Miclat said “it was a great team performance,” just two days after their 1-0 triumph over Australia.

“We worked on a lot of the things that we weren’t able to in the first game – worked on a lot of on the ball things, moving it around – although, it could’ve been a lot better,” the 23-year-old midfielder said. 

“I think it’s definitely an improvement from previous games and it’s something to build on for the next three games to move on.”

The Philippine women’s football team will look for a third consecutive victory in the group stage as it takes on Malaysia on Friday, July 8, at 7 pm, in the same venue. – Rappler.com

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