Bacolod to host AFF Suzuki Cup Group Stage matches, Tickets available tomorrow

Schedule and Ticketing details for the Philippines in the AFF Suzuki Cup Group Stage

The most-anticipated tournament in the region is sporting new wrinkles.

The AFF Suzuki Cup is just a month away, and it has a new format to play with for football fans.

Doing away with a central venue per Group Stage format used in its previous editions, the 2018 version now has a home-and-away format, with two home matches and two away matches. It does still keep the two-group set-up, but this time having five teams in a group instead of four.

The Philippines is packaged alongside the teams it faced during their disappointing 2016 campaign in Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia. Timor Leste completes the Group B participants after surviving a two-legged playoff against Brunei.

Meanwhile, Vietnam, Malaysia, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos form the basis for Group A.

The Philippine Football Federation has selected the Pana-ad Park and Football Stadium to be the home stadium for the Philippines in its AFF Suzuki Cup matches, which is the first time since 2006 that the football facility will be hosting such a match. PFF President Mariano Araneta, Jr, shares, "The AFF Suzuki Cup makes its return to the Pana-­ad Park and Football Stadium in Bacolod City. It (the AFF Suzuki Cup) holds a special place to all Philippine football fans. We invite all football stakeholders and more importantly, the fans to support the Men’s National Team in their home matches."

Pana-ad will host the matches against Singapore on November 13 and Thailand on November 21. As for the away matches, the Kuala Lumpur Stadium will serve as host for the Azkals' match against Timor Leste on November 17, with the cavernous Gelora Bung Karno Stadium serving as the venue for their match against Indonesia.

Ticketing details for both matches are already posted on the above photo.

To prepare for this tournament and for the subsequent AFC Asian Cup early next year, the Philippines participated in the Bangabandhu Gold Cup in Bangladesh, where they made it to the semifinals. They also faced Oman in a friendly, which ended up in a 1-1 draw in Qatar.