Life-changer for Sarina

Playing on the Philippine national women’s football team has been a life-changer for Fil-Am Sarina Bolden who collected eight goals in seven matches to emerge the leading scorer of the recent AFF Women’s Championships. Overall, Bolden has notched 16 goals in 24 appearances with the Filipinas and her penalty clinched a first-ever World Cup ticket for the country in the shootout over Chinese-Taipei at the AFC Women’s Asian Cup in India early this year.

Teams in Southeast Asia and Australia compete in the AFF or Asean Football Federation Women’s Championships while the AFC or Asian Football Confederation Women’s Asian Cup is the premier competition in the Asian region including Australia and New Zealand. The AFC Women’s Asian Cup is the zonal qualifying tournament for the World Cup.

In the recent AFF joust, the Philippines made history by winning the championship, beating Thailand, 3-0, in the final with Bolden contributing a goal. In the semis, Bolden collected two goals in the Philippines’ 4-0 thrashing of Vietnam. She had a hattrick in the Filipinas’ earlier 4-1 disposal of Indonesia and scored the lone goal in the upset over Australia.

Since coach Alen Stajcic took over the Filipinas’ helm nine months ago, Bolden said the turnaround has been amazing. PFF head of the Women’s Department Belay Fernando-de la Cruz said the nine-month period was the right timing for the Filipinas to give birth to the AFF crown. “During this period of being coached by coach Alen, (it) has been life-changing,” said Bolden. “I’m just excited to see where we’ll continue to go and grow. I’ll continue learning and being a better soccer player while I’m being coached under coach Alen who’s one of the best coaches I’ve been coached under in my career and I’ve learned a lot from him and the staff.”

Bolden’s next action will be with the Chifure AS Elfen Saitama in the Japanese WE League which resumes in October. PFF president Mariano (Nonong) Araneta cited team management, coaching staff and the players as the keys to the Filipinas’ emergence. “They really gave it everything,” he said. “They sacrificed a lot, played a lot, trained abroad and upon returning, were prepared for the AFF Championships.”

There’s really no secret to performing at a high level in international competitions. The Filipinas got together in a camp at Irvine, California, late last year and stayed as a unit through the AFC Asian Cup, SEA Games and friendlies in Slovenia, Turkey and Australia to report fully-armed for the AFF Championships in Manila.

Bolden, 26, said the Filipinas are showing up for the World Cup not just to participate but to compete. “It’s made us more confident, believe in ourselves like we’re capable of taking big teams down like Australia or competing with South Korea, China and Japan, like it’s a different mindset whereas in the past it was like this is going to be tough and we don’t know how the result will come out but now, it’s we’re going to take it to them, this is going to be a good game and we know we can come out on top,” she said.