Albert Capellas named as new head coach of PMNFT

The Philippine Men’s National Football Team has named Albert Capellas as its new head coach.

Capellas will replace Tom Saintfiet who parted ways with the team last August. Norman Fegidero was named interim coach in the recent Merdeka Cup.

He is a Spanish UEFA Pro License Coach who has 33 years of coaching experience.

Capellas spent ten years with FC Barcelona where he had experience as an assistant in FC Barcelona B, Youth Team coordinator, and Deputy Director of Youth Academy.

He also had stints as an assistant coach in clubs in Denmark, Germany, Israel, Tel Aviv, and China. He also handled the Denmark Under-21 team from 2019 to 2021, before becoming head coach of Danish club Midtjylland.

“The priority in our selection process was to find someone who not only shared our philosophy for the National Teams, but also had the capability to transmit that vision to our players quickly. In Albert Capellas, we’ve found an incredibly good fit — a man who embodies our idea of how the game should be played, and who’s had decades of experience successfully implementing this style in various elite performance environments across Europe and in Asia,” said Director of Senior National Teams Freddy Gonzalez.

Capellas said he is happy to join PMNFT in helping make the Philippine program better.

“I’m very proud to be a part of this journey. For me it’s a fantastic feeling to be here, to help the Federation to go to the next level because that’s what they are looking for. When Freddy asked  me to join this project and explained to me what they are working on to make the federation better, and to deliver the best for the players, and how he wanted to approach football for the coming years in the Philippine teams, I was aligned and it piqued my attention. We clicked personally, which is very important for me — that you can be around people that you can work with and you can do your job. That’s why I’m here. I think the aspects we want to develop, we can make them happen. It won’t be easy — nothing in football is — but we can promise that we will do our best,” said Capellas.

“I hope they (the fans) will enjoy the way we want to play, and the way we want to perform.”

—JMB, GMA Integrated News