Azkals coach gets passing mark

By JONAS TERRADO

Manila, Philippines – With historic achievements over the past 12 months, there’s no reason for the Philippine Azkals to frown over the performance of Michael Weiss as coach.

Team manager Dan Palami gave a passing mark on Weiss, the German mentor who has been handling the team since early last year, when asked by reporters after Tuesday’s PSA Forum.

“If we go by results then I think he has given us the results that we wanted,“ said Palami. “He got us to the qualifiers and the main draw (of the AFC Challenge Cup) and we go to third.“

“It’s historic already that we got into the final eight and even more historic with the third place achievement.“

The Challenge Cup campaign is the most notable moment under the reign of Weiss.

The Azkals won 4-2 on aggregate over Mongolia, then placed second to Palestine in the qualifying round in Myanmar over a year ago to earn a spot in the main draw of the recently-concluded tournament in Kathmandu, Nepal.

From there, the Filipino booters overcame an opening day loss to eventual champion North Korea to reach the semis. They suffered a heartbreaking 2-1 defeat to Tajikistan before salvaging third with a 4-2 victory over Palestine.

Weiss also steered the Azkals to the second of the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers last July. It beat Sri Lanka in the first round before bowing to Kuwait.

The most disappointing stint for Weiss was when the Philippine U23 team won just a single game in the Southeast Asian Games in Jakarta last November. Regardless, Palami is already satisfied.

“Judging from what I’ve seen, I think it slowly took a while for the player and the coach to really have the cohesion that we won to be more polite about it but I see that they’re slowly evolving into a very good combination,“ said Palami.