The Philippine Azkals will face Sri Lanka in a home and away game to be held on June 29 and July 3. The first match will be held in Sri Lanka and the second game will be held in the Philippines.
The top 8 teams in the first round will moved on to the next round which will showcase the top 22 teams in Asia. With the recent format if the Azkals will proved to beat the Sri Lankans we will be going to play against Kuwait in the second round of the AFC 2014 World Cup Qualifiers.
Sri Lankan Lions which was ranked 173 by FIFA was one of the tough teams in South Asia but hopefully the Azkals will be able to subdue this team for them to advance to the next round against the Kuwait Al-Azraq (Blues) which ranked 103 by FIFA.
The home game of the Azkals was still under negotiations according to Azkals Team Manager Dan Palami, two possible venues were the Panaad Stadium in Bacolod and the Rizal Memorial Stadium in Manila.
The Philippines have a better ranking against Sri Lanka but the ranking doesn’t meant that they are the better teams. As what we have experienced before we are the best ranked team in the four team qualifying round but we almost loose the chance to move to the next round. Hopefully the Azkals will live up to the expectations of Filipinos.
Other teams from the First Leg of Asian Qualifiers were: Malaysia vs. Chinese Taipie, Cambodia vs. Laos, Afghanistan vs. Palestine, Vietnam vs. Macau, Nepal vs. Timor Leste and Mongolia vs. Myanmar.