India has progressed since 2012 AFC Challenge Cup – Philippines coach Michael Weiss

Philippines head coach Michael Weiss believes India have improved since their 2-0 defeat against the South-East Asian nation at the 2012 AFC Challenge Cup in Nepal. India had lost all three matches in that tournament under the coaching of Savio Medeira, who is now the assistant coach.

Having watched videos of India’s 2013 SAFF Championship, Weiss stated that the current team under Wim Koevermans is moving in the right direction and thus believes his Philippines side are not favourites in Friday’s international friendly in Siliguri although the South-East Asian nation is placed 17 spots higher in the FIFA Rankings.

“For me the Rankings doesn’t reflect too much as it is not always judged over a long period of time. What’s important is what happens tomorrow on the pitch and having seen India’s videos from the SAFF Championship, I feel they have progressed since the AFC Challenge Cup in 2012 so we expect a very tough match,” Weiss stated at the pre-match press conference on Thursday.

Weiss talked about the lack of patience that surrounds emerging teams of Asia and thus stressed on the importance of managing expectations.

“It takes time to get results in international football. Even we needed two to three years to build a strong team and still can get better. I see decent progress in the Indian team under the current coach but you need to be patient and not talk about qualifying for the World Cup. Even back in the Philippines, fans sometimes expect us to play in the World Cup but look at Jordan, who are much better than us and India, but still got thumped 5-0 by Uruguay. We have to keep working hard and be realistic,” said the German coach.

Weiss admitted that the thoughts of the whole Philippines squad are with the victims of the typhoon Haiyan but still assured that the team is still focused on winning the match.

“We are looking forward to this match as it will be a great test for us ahead of the Challenge Cup. But of course it’s not easy for the players because of the tragedy back in the Philippines and it’s unfortunate that our team manager couldn’t be here as the area where he stays has been directly affected by the typhoon. But as players we have to deal with it and get on with our job.

“We have experienced earthquakes even during some matches in the past in Japan and Philippines so we want to now focus on the game and give a good account of ourselves. The target remains to win the match,” he said.

A minute’s silence will be observed before kickoff tomorrow in the memory of typhoon Haiyan victims.