Philippines' friendly vs Sri Lanka cancelled

c/o PFF

In a statement, the Philippine Football Federation, through its Senior Men's National Team, shared that the friendly against Sri Lanka has been cancelled.

Senior National Teams Director Freddy Gonzalez shares, "We were recently informed that because of complications securing the necessary funds from their parliament, that the Sri Lankan football team would no longer be able to travel to the Philippines to play on the 19th."

The former Philippines international adds, "It's a disappointing development as we really wanted to be able to play in front of the home crowd before the Mitsubishi Electric Cup kicks off next month. I'm sorry to everyone that was looking forward to the game."

Efforts were made to find a replacement. Gonzalez says, "We tried our best to explore alternatives, but in the end, the time constraints made it difficult to find a suitable replacement to step in on short notice. The squad will still travel to Manila as originally scheduled. The team will use the time to instead continue working on our style of play on our home turf."

Even without the match, there are plans in place for fans to see their favorite footballers in action.

Freddie notes, "For those who'd still like to see and interact with the team, we will have an open training session on Sunday, November 17 at the Rizal Memorial Stadium." In addition, it enables the team to be able to support the Pinay5 when the Philippine Women's Futsal Team will be participating in the upcoming ASEAN Women's Futsal Championship slated to take place from November 16-21 at the PhilSports Arena in Pasig City.