Malditas need miracle after Thai heartbreaker

MANILA, Philippines –The Philippine Malditas failed to ride on the momentum of their stirring opening win as they fell to Thailand, 1-0, on Thursday, and are now in need of a miracle to pull off a big coup in the AFC women’s Asian Cup qualifiers in Bangladesh.

Thailand’s Nisa Romyen scored the lone goal of the match in the 37^th minute, which was heavily contested by the Malditas. It was Romyen’s fifth in the tournament and 16^th overall in Asian Cup qualifiers. The Thai striker scored four in their 9-0 rout of host Bangladesh in their opening match. 

The loss dropped the country to second place in the group and now needs to win heavily against Bangladesh and hopes for an Iran victory over Thailand in order to advance to the next round.  

Malditas coach Ernie Nierras, who also handles the United Football League’s current leader Stallion-Sta. Lucia, went to Twitter last night to air his frustrations on the officiating and denied the earlier reports (not on this site) that a disallowed goal near the end of the match prevented Malditas from earning a more favorable draw.  

“There was no disallowed goal during our match. The shot was not from a free kick,” Nierras posted on his Twitter account @foottiecrazy shortly after the loss. “IT came a few min earlier. Anyway Thai goal was offside!”

But despite the loss, the Malditas found a glimmer of hope that they can now be at par with the best of the region as they engaged the higher ranked Thais toe-to-toe save for that 37th minute goal.

Thailand is the highest ranked Southeast Asian team in the FIFA world rankings at 29th spot while the Malditas are currently ranked 83rd.