Philippines hope 'meteoric rise' to World Cup is game-changer

MANILA: In a country obsessed with beauty pageants, basketball and boxing, the Philippines women's team hope to ignite interest in football when they make the nation's World Cup debut.

Long minnows in the sport, the Philippines have never played at a FIFA World Cup, either the men's or women's.

All that will change on Jul 21 when the women's side under their Australian coach Alen Stajcic play Switzerland in Dunedin, New Zealand.

Stajcic calls their journey from "almost ground zero" to the World Cup "miraculous".

Half of his players do not belong to a professional club and some have been "running around the block on their own" for training, he said.

"It's been a meteoric sort of rise for the team," the 49-year-old told AFP via Zoom.

"The challenge for us is to somehow maintain and sustain that improvement, not be happy with where we got to."

Since Stajcic's appointment as coach in late 2021, the Philippines have jumped from 68 in the FIFA rankings and are now a best-ever 46th place.

It began with the Women's Asian Cup in early 2022 when they made the semi-finals, losing to South Korea but securing a historic World Cup berth.

They followed it up with bronze at the Southeast Asian Games last year, then won the regional AFF Women's Championship on home soil.

The Philippines are in Group A at the World Cup alongside co-hosts New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland.

They will not be expected to get out of the group, but defender Hali Long said: "I would like to think we're going to go in there and do more than just participate.

"We're going in there to compete with everything we have to show."

The team hope getting the Philippines to their first World Cup can be a game-changer for football in the country.

Long was born in the United States -