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AZKALS COACH WEISS PREDICTS VERY TIGHT MATCH AGAINST NEPA By Ronnie Nathanielsz PhilBoxing.com Tue, 11 Oct 2011  Michael Weiss. The Philippine Azkals national team coach Michael Weiss predicts that the match against Nepal at the Rizal Memorial Stadium at 7:00 p.m. tomorrow (Tuesday) will be ?a very tight match? and expressed the hope that with the solid backing of a hometown crowd and a roster of players in better physical condition ?we can beat them (Nepal).? ABS-CBN will telecast the match beginning at 6:00 p.m. over Studio 23. Weiss will be without holding midfielder Angel Girado who played a great game against Hong Kong in the Long Teng Cup in Kaohsiung, Chinese-Taipei which ended in a 3-3 draw and a few solid minutes before he had to leave the pitch with an injury in the game against Singapore which the Azkals lost 0-2. Nepal?s coach Graham Paul Roberts who was a member of the London club Tottenham Hotspur which won two FA Cups and a UEFA Cup in 1984 and was capped six times by England said he has a very good side where the average age is 20. Roberts said the team had trained for the past two-and-a-half months and played its last game some three months ago. He said he watched the Azkals game against Kuwait and thought they are a very good side. Roberts said ?I am very serious and I don?t like losing, so after the game tomorrow if we (Nepal) lose don?t interview me.? The English coach said he is ?looking forward to putting on a show and we work very hard.? Roberts said the Nepalese ?love to pass the ball.? He said that when he arrived in Nepal to take over as coach last January they had ?very good players but lazy.? Roberts said that after his arrival in January and lots of very hard work the team had improved 75 percent. He accentuated physical fitness as a key to the game and said it doesn?t matter how good you are especially in the international level, if you are not fit, its useless. In an exclusive interview with Viva Sports, coach Weiss conceded that ?it is hard for emerging countries like the Philippines where football played actually no role and where basketball and boxing are popular among the people, the media ?print, television and radio must educate the people to be fair and to accept that our opponents who are preparing seriously, like Nepal are good teams.? Weiss pointed out that ?at first glance we may think that Nepal is not such a strong team but they will keep the game tomorrow close so we have to be really, really concentrating from the first moment and give our best to win this match.? The Azkals coach said he would use a formation very much like the game against Singapore and bank on the best players available? even as he indicated he would have to ?check on Rob Gier?s condition since he had a long trip. I?m not sure whether I will play him at the start but we will field a very strong team and obviously go more for attacking play with the home crowd behind us. We will not sit so deep but always be aware that they can take us on the break. So we need to prepare the team for this kind of football and I think overall we?ll be more aggressive, more offensive oriented tomorrow.? Gier who has done some excellent and comprehensive scouting for the Azkals both of opposing teams and potential talents for the national team told us ?I?m used to the jetlag now since I?ve come over so often, its no problem. With a good night?s rest I?ll be fine.? Gier said ?its always good to be back and playing in front of the home crowd and we?ve got a pretty strong side tomorrow so it should be a good game.? He said the absence of the injured Girado and Stephan Schrock is ?going to be a big miss but these things happen in football and teams have to adapt. We need to be able to take those injuries. We need to have a big enough squad so that if someone important gets injured we need people to be able to step up and fit in. Even though we miss Angel and Schrock there will be a new opportunity for different people.? Gier said ?its all about squad depth. We can?t go into tournaments with eleven good players and the rest of the guys not up to it. Inevitably people are going to get injured, they are going to get tired and we need to make changes.? He said ?I think at the moment we have a really good, strong squad of players, people that can come off the bench and do the business.? Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ronnie Nathanielsz.  |
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