THE FILIPINAS sealed their entry into the second round of the AFC Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament with a smashing 4-0 shutout of Hong Kong Tuesday in Hisor, Tajikistan.
Sarina Bolden netted twice in the first 41 minutes then Meryll Serrano and Quinley Quezada joined the scoring fray as the Philippines completed a three-game sweep of Group E without conceding a goal to advance. They previously blanked Pakistan (4-0) and host Tajikistan (8-0).
The Filipinas now join fellow group winners Uzbekistan (Group A), Iran (Group B), Vietnam (Group C), Thailand (Group D), Chinese Taipei (Group F) and India (Group G) in Round 2 along with seeded squads North Korea, Japan, Australia, China and South Korea Republic.
The next stage will see the teams divided into three groups with the three group winners and the best second-placed side then moving forward to the third and final round. Two pairs of home-and-away matches will be played in Round 3 with the two victors punching a ticket to Paris 2024.
“I thought we played well. We controlled the game well; probably our best control we’ve had this week here against a good opposition, an opposition 15 months ago we beat only 2-1 in the last minute,” said coach Alen Stajcic who also reached a milestone in coaching the 100th international match of his career.
“It just shows how much we’ve improved. A large part of the game was pretty good, but our finishing has to be better if we want to compete with the big nations in Asia. We’ve improved a lot but there’s still a lot of hard work to do,” he added.
Ms. Bolden, working in tandem with Katrina Guillou, drew first blood just five minutes into the match after a cool finish off a fine run from the half-line.
The Fil-Am striker found the back of the net again 36 minutes later, this time finishing a lofted ball from Sara Eggesvik.
Ms. Serrano added a third for the Philippines in the 44th via free-kick from 30 yards out before Ms. Quezada made it a four-goal margin eight minutes after restart and capped scoring. — Olmin Leyba
