Taiwan are to play Asian powerhouses Japan and Vietnam in their first two matches of Group D at the Women’s Asian Cup, when the tournament commences next month in Australia.
To prepare and acclimatize to the local conditions, Taiwan’s players and coaches boarded a flight yesterday bound for Perth in Western Australia, heading for a training base to commence workouts and team drills under guidance of head coach Prasobchoke Chokemor of Thailand, who was appointed in September last year.
“We have a solid core of veterans to lead the younger players, for putting in diligent work during training, and they are coming together with a good team spirit. Still, they need time to better understand each other, to link up and play with more cohesion,” Chokemor told reporters last week.
Photo: screen grab from Facebook
“All our players and coaches have a dream, to qualify for the Women’s World Cup finals. My job is not just to help push toward that goal, but be more like a ‘coordinator’ to provide support for this dream to come true. It is our wish to get good results at this tournament, then together we can go on to the World Cup,” he said.
The Women’s Asian Cup also serves as the final stage of Asian qualification for next year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup in Brazil, with the top six finishers qualifying directly, while the team’s finishing seventh and eighth qualify for a 10-country playoff tournament.
Chokemor said that he is excited to take on the challenge, adding that previously he served as assistant coach to Thailand’s national squad at the 2010 Women’s Asian Cup in China.
Taiwan have major hurdles to overcome in their Group D matches in Perth. In their opener on March 4 they take on Japan, the top-ranked team in Asia, and then on March 7 they face Vietnam, ranked sixth in Asia, before heading to Sydney on March 10 to take on India.
Taiwan have scheduled a friendly against a local team that has been arranged by Taiwan men’s head coach Matt Ross, an Australian who was appointed in October last year and who also serves as director of football for the governing body.
The 26-player roster is to be announced next week after Chokemor has evaluated the physical condition and injury status of squad members.
The squad is expected include goalkeeper Tsai Ming-jung, captain Chen Ying-hui and Su Sin-yun to anchor the defense, midfielders Wang Hsiang-huei, Chan Pi-han and Wu Kai-ching, and forwards Lai Li-chin and Lee Hsiu-chin.
Meanwhile, a new star addition is midfielder Saki Matsunaga, a naturalized citizen as her father and grandfather are Taiwanese, who was born in Funabashi, Japan.
Matsunaga has played for Hang Yuan for the past two seasons and she completed her naturalization process in February last year, becoming a mainstay of the national team. The attacking midfielder scored in an international friendly against the Philippines, and netted two valuable goals during last year’s Asian Cup qualifiers.
When speaking to reporters at a media event in Taipei, Matsunaga said she started playing as a child, and has played at college level and also with professional Japanese clubs.
“My dream is to play in the Women’s World Cup finals, so I decided to pursue this dream and to complete the naturalization process and become a member of Team Taiwan,” she said. “Our aim is to fight to get into the World Cup finals.”
Meanwhile in men’s soccer, all eight teams in the Taiwan Football Premier League are taking a mid-season break, with the action to resume with four matches on March 1.
It is shaping up to go down to the wire in a five-horse race to the league title, since the dominant force of recent seasons Tainan TSG have faltered somewhat, currently on 19 points in third place, behind leaders Hang Yuan on 25 points and Sunny Bank AC Taipei on 22 points.
With nine matches remaining, fourth-placed Taichung Futuro on 16 points and fifth-placed Tatung on 15 points can still make a run to challenge for the title.
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