ONCE his stint is over with the national women’s futsal team in the AFC Women’s Asian Futsal Cup qualifiers, Australian coach Marc Torcaso will be back handling the Filipinas, the national women’s squad, beginning with a talent identification camp in California in February.
“We’re going to have a busy year with the AFF Women’s Championship, Asian Women’s Cup qualifiers and the Thailand Southeast Asian Games coming up so we need to create a bigger pool of players because we are now sure how many players will be available for all three tournaments,” Torcaso said.
“We may not have a lot of opportunities during the FIFA windows so I intend to spent a lot of time training the girls,” said the Australian mentor, who left with the PH women’s futsal squad late Tuesday night for the AFC Women’s Asian Futsal Cup qualifying meet starting tomorrow in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
The AFC Asian Women’s Cup qualifying meet is set from June 23 to July 5, with the draw set for the eight qualifying groups set on March 21.
The group topnotchers will book tickets to the AFC Women’s Asian Cup set from March 1 to 21, 2026 in the Australian cities of Perth, Gold Coast and Sydney.
Torcaso is hoping that if schedules are aligned “we will have the Women’s Asian Cup qualifiers in June-July, followed by the AFF Women’s Championship and the Southeast Asian Games. We not only want to qualify for the Asian Cup but win the other two tournaments as well.
“After all, the Filipinas are the defending AFF Women’s champions, so, yeah, we want to win that,” said the Aussie coach of the crown the Filipinas won in 2022 in Manila, the first major international football plum won by the country, with compatriot Alen Stajcic calling the shots.
National teams director Freddy Gonzalez provided some more details of the Filipinas’ training cup in California next month.
“Initially, there will be a talent identification camp for the Under-20s for a few days, and then we will play in the first official window for the women. We will likely play against CONCACAF-based opponents while we are there. We are still in the planning stages for that,” Gonzalez said.
He also announced that GoTyme Bank is now the sponsor of both the national teams and that the Philippine Football Federation is planning to host the GoTyme Cup, an international men’s invitational tournament, in September.
“We will have four teams and one of them is South Africa. We still have to confirm the availability of the two other teams,” he said.
