By Gabriel Jason Pascual

PHOTO: English News

The Philippine Filipinas (formerly Malditas) took care of business after taking a dominant 7-0 victory over the Singapore Lionesses behind captain Tahnai Annis’s offensive mastery to continue their AFF Women’s Championship campaign at the Rizal Memorial Stadium, Wednesday.

Riding high on a brace of her own, team captain Tahnai Annis led the Philippine surge to capture their second win after edging Australia on Monday. 

The Annis-led victory also placed the Filipinas atop Group A of the regional tournament with 6 points and a +8-goal difference after just 2 matches.

Facilitating in the early minutes, Annis fired the country's second goal at the nine minute-mark after shipping a long ball from the right wing that bounced off of Singapore’s team captain, Ernie Sulastri Sontaril for the goal, 2-0.

Annis continued her hot streak by scoring a header goal off of a soaring Isabella Flanigan pass, proving too high for Singapore’s goalie Beatrice Tan Li to block, 3-0.

Annis was also a provider, handing out picture-perfect passes that set up Sarina Bolden for the closing goal of the half, 4-0, and a corner pass from Maya Hawkinson’s header, 6-0, at the 55th minute.

Slow start, rousing finish

The match started at a sloppy pace for the Filipinas, gathering a number of missed opportunities due to offside fumbles in their early goings.

But the beginning of the end was near when Sarina Bolden delivered a header pass to Isabella Flanigan to score their first goal, 1-0.

The finishing blow to an already weak Singaporean defense was made by Sara Eggesvik and Annicka Castañeda, capitalizing on the slow defensive recovery by scoring the 5th and 7th goals respectively.

While the victory put the Filipinas atop, this loss for the Lionesses had them falling to the bottom of Group A with only 1 point and a -7-goal difference.

Meanwhile, the Philippines has their sights set on Malaysia for a third consecutive win in Friday's match.


Edited by Quian Vencel Galut