Japan’s U-23 team, Australia’s U-19 team and Jordan are surprise guests at the 2013 ASEAN Football Federation Women’s Championship in September.
In Group A are Australia U-19, Jordan, Thailand, Malaysia and defending champion Vietnam.
In Group B are Japan U-23, host Myanmar, Laos, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
The Malditas are coming off an impressive stint in the Women’s Asian Cup qualifiers last May, where they routed Iran and Bangladesh but fell short against Thailand in a single-goal loss which cost their chances of advancing to the tournament proper next year.
The Philippines has never gone past the group stages of the ASEAN Women’s Championship. Last year, the Malditas placed third in their group behind eventual finalists Vietnam and Myanmar.
Only the top two teams from each group will advance to the semifinals of the ASEAN Women’s Championship, which will be played from September 9 to September 22 in Mandalay, Myanmar.
WELL!!! IT IS KIND OF A DREAM COME TRUE! i’ve always wanted my NT to face Japan (again), and well! even though it will “only” be the U-23 team, i am pretty sure it will still be the toughest and most elite team the girls have ever faced! if i’m guessing this right, Japan will field the third place winners from last year’s U-20 World Cup filled with the very promising Hikaru Naomoto, Kumi Yokoyama, Nozomi Fujita, Ayu Nakada, Yoko and Mina Tanaka, Hanae Shibata, and i can go on and on and ooon! regardless of the result, it should be VALUABLE experience for the girls 🙂 and i could speak for the Japanese girls too who at this point need more international experience under their belts before they could get promoted to the senior squad.
gosh i’m already so excited!!!!!!! 😀
Big fan of Nadeshiko Japan followed by the French Les Bleues and Danish WNT. Big advocate of women’s sports. Doing all I can for the Philippine WNT and Philippine women’s football/Pinay Futbol!
Lol @Dernhelm
No problem.
very good to know, thanks Ken! 🙂 i hope you can snoop around the Japanese sites too to know more info on who exactly will be playing. thanks yet again! 🙂
@Dernhelm,
I really wish the team to play the Malditas is a good one, whatever the squad. If it is the same team playing in Russia, then it includes some players already competing in the top division. For example, Sakuramoto (DF) is the captain of JEF United Chiba. Takagi, Nishikawa, Nakamura, Kinoshita were the teammates of Yoko, Mina, Shibata, and Naomoto in the last year’s U-20 competition.