The Philippine Women’s National Football Team faced a crucial test in their FIFA friendly against world no. 42 Chinese Taipei, a match that, despite ending in a narrow 1-0 defeat for the Filipinas, served as a vital prelude to the upcoming 2026 AFC Asian Cup Qualifiers. This friendly, held at the Rizal Memorial Stadium, underscored the team’s ongoing development and the pivotal challenges they faced in their bid for Asian Cup qualification.
Head Coach Mark Torcaso, while acknowledging the loss, emphasized the “opportunity” to the young recruits of the Philippines “to play on the international stage.” The friendly saw the international debuts of U20 national team star Chayse Ying and fellow teenager Megan Murray, who both started, and 22-year-old Julianna Barker, who came off the bench.
“We worked really hard today. I feel like we’re still moving around with a new team, trying to find out our rotation. But I think that once we did find it up top, we were really dangerous. So I think we just need to [capitalize] on that and keep working on that for Cambodia,” Murray, a 19-year-old forward from Marquette University said.
The need to integrate these new talents and adapt the team’s attacking strategy is a crucial challenge the team would need to face head on. As Torcaso noted, “It’s not the result obviously that we would want because we want to win every single game but it’s a good preparation game for our Asian Cup qualifiers.”
“Yeah, there’s obviously a lot of young girls here, there’s a lot of young girls that we are also still looking at and this was an opportunity to finalize our squad and our roster for the Asian Cup qualifiers,” he continued.
Saki Matsunaga, a naturalized Taiwanese of Japanese descent, scored the winner in the 27th minute, intercepting Sara Eggesvik’s ball inside the Filipinas’ box and beating Olivia McDaniel for the lone goal.
The Filipinas had three chances at tying the game. In the 42nd minute, Chandler McDaniel had a good ball off a Janae Defazio right cross but was tackled by defender Su Sin-Yun. Defazio, Makati FC’s prized right back playing on her fifth international, had two shots in the 80th minute but was blocked twice by Li Ye-Wen.
“It’s always tough losing any game in any sport but you probably saw the character of what our girls are actually about in that last sort of 35 minutes and I can’t doubt the fight in these girls and that’s something that we’ve been doing for the last six months is constantly fighting and working hard for each other and I’m extremely proud of them,” Torcaso emphasized.
“I just told the girls that this was a really good performance in the second half in particular. And we’re getting to the point that we want to, and we know that if we deliver a performance like that against, in particular the second 35 minutes, against Hong Kong, Cambodia or Saudi, we’re going to win. And I truly believe that,” he continued.
For her part, Angie Beard cherished her first-ever game on Philippine soil saying, “I love it so much. I love the noise, I love the drums, I love the girls that walk out with us.”
“We love everyone. We hope that everyone loves us. We want to represent the people, the country, the flag as best as we can, and we put our heart and soul into the game. We hope the fans do the same for us,” she concluded.
The Filipinas will fly to Phnom Penh in a bid for a third straight return to the Asian Cup that will kick off on June 29 against newcomer Saudi Arabia. They will next battle host Cambodia on July 2 and conclude the tournament against familiar foe Hong Kong on July 5.
