THE HISTORY-CHASING Filipinas football team is laser focused on what it sets out to achieve in the international front over the next four months.
In May, the gritty Filipinas shoot for the elusive gold medal in the Southeast Asian Games (SEAG) in Cambodia, intending it as a prelude to their more ambitious quest in the highly-prestigious FIFA Women’s World Cup (WWC) in July in New Zealand.
“Our mentality as a team is winning the moment,” goalkeeper Inna Palacios said during a media roundtable where she discussed her partnership with digital payments giant Visa along with Jeff Navarro, Visa country manager for the Philippines and Guam.
“We always want to win the next moment because we always want to be better.”
The mission in the SEAG, she said, is to improve on the bronze medal won in the previous edition in Vietnam.
“The bronze is a good feat but we want more and we want to see where we can go as a team, “ she said.
Ultimately, Ms. Palacios and her teammates are bent on getting the job done in the World Cup against host New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland in Group A.
“Based on our team talks, we really want to get out of the group stage and we’re going to keep riding that wave until the very end. There’s a lot of hope and hard work that we’ll need but we’re really focusing on that,” she said.
Ms. Palacios and Visa are teaming up to spread the importance of sports in the country especially to women and raise awareness of the Filipinas’ success leading up to the WWC.
“We are happy to work with Inna Palacios, the country’s top goalkeeper who not only lives and breathes football but is also just as passionate about women empowerment as we are,” said Mr. Navarro.
“This sport has been on a consistent rise here and is further amplified with the Filipinas’ continued success. We want to become their ally to drive up our countrymen’s support to the team and their bid to perform their best at the FIFA Women’s World Cup,” he added. — Olmin Leyba