Sri Lanka Football Federation President confident of beating Azkals

The president of the Sri Lanka Football Federation, Hon. Sarath Weerasekera, a Member of Parliament has expressed confidence that Sri Lanka will beat the Azkals Philippine national team in their home-and-away matches in the Asian Football Confederation Challenge.

The first match will be played at the Sugathadasa Stadium which has a capacity of 25,000 on June 29 while the return match will be played at the Rizal Memorial Stadium in Manila on Juky 3.

Weerasekera, a former Rear Admiral in the Sri Lanka navy in response to questions from the Philippine Daily Inquirer said he was “very positive of beating the Philippines on aggregate” and that an intense “two week training will suffice.”

However, a pool of players not included in the Sri Lanka team that played recently in the 2012 AFC Challenge Cup qualification round in  Nepal has been training for the last two months in “a residential training camp.”

In the tournament Sri Lanka lost to North Korea which played in the last World C up 4-0, dropped a heartbreaking 1-0 loss to Afghanistan when the reserve goalkeeper made a costly mistake and held Nepal which finished second and qualified  behind North Korea to a 0-0 draw.