The Philippine Men’s National Football Team more popularly known as the Philippine Azkals will face one of the Middle Eastern powerhouse football squad, the Yemen National Football Team for the second game of the country’s scheduled 2018 FIFA World Cup Qualifier match. The Azkals will face Yemen after their epic win against the fancied Bahrain team last week.
The Azkals vs. Yemen football match will be held in a neutral venue at Qatar Sports Stadium in the Gulf-rich nation, Qatar. The Yemen Football Federation seek the help of Qatar to host it’s home game in the World Cup Qualifier due to the recent problems on their home country.
The FIFA World Cup Qualifier match of the Philippine Azkals will kick-off at around 7:00 PM Tuesday night in Qatar (12:00 AM Wednesday in Manila). Although the Yemenis are not as tactically and technically as good as Bahrain, the squad doesn’t lack the heart to fight it out.
The 137th ranked Philippine team, is currently bannered by what many consider as the strongest football team assembled by the PFF. They defeated the 106th ranked Bahrain with the final score at 2-1 while the 167th-ranked Yemeni suffered their first lost at the hands of the North Koreans as they were defeated with 1-nil in scorecard.
The Azkals will miss the service of the injured Fil-German Stephan Shrock and Philippine-based Simone Rota while the Fil-British player, Luke Woodland is still doubtful pending clearance to switch nations for FIFA.
The Philippine Azkals will also expect a good-sized crowd to rally the national team, as they will tap the big Filipino community in Qatar, home to hundreds of thousands of Filipinos in the Middle East.