By Cedelf P. Tupas
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 21:15:00 03/13/2011
MANILA, Philippines—The Philippine football team arrived in Ulan Bator early Sunday and got a chilling reminder that it would have to deal with more than just Mongolia in the second leg of its AFC Challenge Cup duel.
Temperatures ranging from minus 16 to minus 20 degrees Celsius greeted the Azkals in their first few hours in the Mongolian capital, where they will be hoping to protect their 2-nil first-leg advantage.
The Mongolians need to win by at least three goals to prevent the Azkals from advancing to the AFC group stage, but the Azkals’ coach, Hans Michael Weiss, is confident they can survive the challenge.
“My team must stand this character test,” said Weiss in an e-mail to the Philippine Daily Inquirer. “The preparations have been very good and done in a professional environment (in Japan). It could not have been better.”
Weiss took the two losses to a Japanese university side in stride, saying the team learned much from the experience.
“Training in Japan helped a lot,” said Weiss, whose squad was outscored 1-12 in two matches against Kanto University. “Even with two hard defeats, the team learned.”
Azkals team manager Dan Palami is also upbeat with the team’s chances.
“It’s just another adversity that the team has to overcome,” he said. “I know the players very well and rest assured, they will be there fighting for every ball on Tuesday despite the cold.”
But concerns remain on how the players will deal with the extreme weather in Ulan Bator, which is about 4,300 feet above sea level.
“It was freezing out there, we couldn’t stay put,” Borromeo told the Inquirer in an e-mail after checking out the artificial turf at the playing venue. “We had to keep moving. I think we will be okay once we get warmed up.”
Borromeo added: “It would really help tremendously if there won’t be a wind chill and the sun would come out.”
“We will just try our best to overcome the cold,” said co-skipper Chieffy Caligdong, the scorer of the first goal in the opening leg in Bacolod City last February 9, in a separate interview.
The match is scheduled for Tuesday at 1 p.m., said to be the hottest time of the day in Ulan Bator.
“It’s really cold especially when the wind is blowing,” said defender Jason Sabio. “But otherwise, it’s no problem.”
The Azkals’ conditioning coach, Josef Malinay, who is with the team in Mongolia, said the game could be played at minus 4 degrees.
“The wind is the killer,” Malinay said.
The squad was still awaiting the arrival of Filipino-Icelandic defender Ray Jonsson and Fil-Dutch midfielder Jason de Jong, who would fly in from Indonesia, where he has been playing club football.
The Azkals had to battle through several travel glitches before reaching Ulan Bator from their training site in Gotemba City in earthquake-hit Japan.
There was one more glitch Saturday when the Azkals were forced to leave their luggage in Beijing, where they took the connecting flight to Ulan Bator. As of 6 p.m. Sunday, their luggage had yet to arrive in Ulan Bator.
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