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BY ADRIAN STEWART CO
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Tuesday, October 3, 2017
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MANILA – Jan Jesus Melliza will join the 23-man Philippine Azkals team that will face Yemen in the AFC Asian Cup UAE 2019 Qualifiers game on Oct. 10 in Doha, Qatar.
Melliza, a native of La Paz, Iloilo City, is one of the two new insertions in the squad of head coach Thomas Dooley, aside from Sean Kane.
Phil and James Younghusband, Carli de Murga, Patrick Deyto, Neil Etheridge, Kevin Ingreso, Hikaru Minegishi, Paul Mulders, Jim Muñoz, and Manuel and Mike Ott are also in the lineup.
Other members include Dylan De Bruycker, Dominic Del Rosario, Curt Dizon, Harry Foll, Nicholas O’Donnell, Stephen Palla, Iain Ramsay, Simone Rota, Daisuke Sato, and Dennis Villanueva.
Melliza caught the eye of Dooley after the latter’s impressive performance for Stallion Laguna in the Philippines Football League, where the club won seven of its last 10 matches and is currently on sixth place with 27 points.
A former Far Eastern University football standout, Melliza scored 10 of his 13 total conversions for the season in those victories, pushing him to second place in the Golden Boot award race.
This will be Azkals’ fourth match in the qualifying event after scoring 4-1 over Nepal on March 28; 4-3 against Tajikistan on June 13; and a 2-2 draw with Yemen on Sept. 5.
Azkals aims to end up at least in the top two of its group to advance to the next round of the quadrennial international men’s football championship of Asia in 2019 to be held in Jordan./PN
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