AZKALS Coach Thomas Dooley is keeping a positive approach on the national football team’s 2016 Asian Football Federation (AFF) Suzuki Cup campaign despite his predicament of having all of the 24-man pool members practice together as a team.
“I don’t have all the players yet. We don’t have enough training yet. We have a long way to go,” American Dooley told the BusinessMirror on Wednesday.
The Suzuki Cup will be played at the Philippine Sports Stadium in Bocaue, Bulacan, with the Azkals taking on Singapore on November 19, Indonesia on November 22 and Thailand on November 25.
But Dooley expressed confidence the Azkals would rise to the occasion come game day.
“I am always positive. I know what the team can do. We will need some magic stuff and then hopefully make it work out,” Dooley said.
The national team will have one last friendly on November 9 at the Rizal Memorial Stadium against Kyrgyzstan, which the Azkals beat also in a friendly, 2-1, in September. The Azkals had two other friendlies against Bahrain and North Korea, losing both with similar 1-3 scores.
“The games against North Korea and Bahrain were very important,” Dooley said. “We got some great eye-opening information.”
The pool is composed of skipper Phil Younghusband, Stephan Schrock, James Younghusband, Misagh Bahadoran, Amani Aguinaldo, Roland Muller, Patrick Deyto, Nicholas Michael O’Donnell, Luke Woodland, Dennis Villanueva, Kevin Ingreso, Martin Steuble, Manny Ott, Mike Ott, Iain Ramsay, Paolo Bugas, Daniel Gadia, Junior Muñoz, Kenshiro Daniels, OJ Porteria, Fitch Arboleda, Simon Greatwich and Dom del Rosario.