The presence of experienced professionals is an advantage to the Philippine national women’s football team.
National coach Mark Torcaso said this with the entry of another Fil-American booter Jaime Turrentine into the Philippine national women’s team pool.
Turrentine, who was among those named to the PH team back in 2013, is currently with a Portugal squad, Vitoria SC. She is a left back and a defender.
The 28-year-old Turrentine showed up during the nine-day tryouts at the Mall of Asia rooftop pitch and was one of those picked to be part of a 34-member pool.
“Jaime is an important player that we want to have in the future,” said Torcaso, whose list still has longtime members like Sarina Bolden, Olivia and Chandler McDaniel, Inna Palacios, Hali Long, as well as Quinley Quezada.
The coaching staff sought new talents for the Filipinas in their bid to make a return to the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
Aside from Turrentine, the new faces seeking to make it to the pool and eventually into the final roster are Mayson Veronda, Nina Meollo, Malia Cerdon, Janae Defazio, Kaela Hansen, Nya Harrison, Arianna Markey, Skye Leach, Ivy Mae Perez, Alexa Pino, Camille Sahirul, Alessandra Carpio and Autumn Cayelli, along with locals Emma Balacua and Diane Tolentin.
The Filipinas are building up for their coming campaigns in the Asian Football Confederation, Women’s Asian Cup qualifiers, the ASEAN Football Federation Championship and the Southeast Asian Games later this year.
Most of the players are collegiate athletes, with some of coming from the US NCAA.
Among them is Veronda, who is a sophomore playing for the Texas A&M Aggies as a goalkeeper.
Then, there’s defender Harrison, who is an alumni of the Stanford Cardinals women’s soccer program and was in a Pac-12 championship in 2022.
Also in the list is Cerdon as a defender for the Filipinas. She was once a part of the Abilene Christian Women’s soccer team in the US NCAA Division 1.