Filipinas coach Torcaso looks to expand pool ahead of ASEAN Championship, SEA Games

Filipinas head coach Mark Torcaso is looking to add more talents to the current pool of players in the Philippine women’s national football team to keep up with the demands of their competitive year. 

Between defending the Philippines’ title in the ASEAN Women’s Championship and redeeming itself in the Southeast Asian Games later this year, Torcaso is hoping to have a successful identification camp when the national team flies to the United States in February. 

While some of their activities will fall into the FIFA window, the 33rd SEA Games is expected not to be included which means most of the core players will not be released by their mother clubs. 

“We are focusing on winning the AFF. That's our big focus. We know that we want to win the SEA Games as well. Those are two competitions. We know that we can be very, very good at it like our men's team did recently. So we are very focused on being successful in those two competitions. But as I said, we need to have a nice big pool of players to be able to play all these competitions and be successful," said Torcaso.

“It's important to have a big pool of players, because if some of our most talented players are playing in the clubs in Europe and overseas, we want to have backups, and we want to have good enough players being ready. So I know that we will do a good job if we do an [identification] camp, and we'll be able to secure a few more players, but again, as I said, it's about increasing the pool,” he added. 

The world no. 41 Filipinas had a fairly restful year in 2024 aside from their participation in the Pinatar Cup last February and the first edition of the Pink Ladies Week last October. 

Although the qualification for the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup does not officially begin until the Asian Cup next year to be held in Australia, Torcaso wants to be on top of things as early as possible.

“When they confirm the AFF that's going to be equally important, we want to use all the FIFA windows to prepare the players. Some FIFA windows, we may just make them training camps with no games, but some we will play some opposition. So we want to just be as prepared as possible for the Asian Cup in Australia in 2026 because I want to win on home soil with our national team in the Philippines,” the Australian mentor said. 

“So I'm very, very interested in making sure that we're prepared for that, and it's going to be busy here for us. This will be the first step to the World Cup. With the World Cup in Brazil in 2027, we want to be very ready for this and this year is the start of that. We had, obviously, some small interruptions with a change of management, and now we're, we're trying to get back on track to make sure that we're ready for this World Cup again. We want to go to another World Cup,“ he added. 

In 2023, Torcaso inherited a Filipinas squad fresh from its maiden World Cup campaign following fellow Australian Alen Stajcic’s departure. 

—JKC, GMA Integrated News