The Philippines Women's National Football Team made history yesterday after beating hosts New Zealand in their first-ever World Cup, thanks to Sarina Bolden's goal in the 24th minute.
Both fans and players in New Zealand were emotional after the victory, and the hype has yet to die back home.
The road to the World Cup was long and hard for the Philippines. This goes for both the women's and men's teams.
While the nation waited so long to get its feet on the global stage of football, scoring and winning was relatively quick compared to other nations, who like them, went through a lot just to be able to compete with the world's best.
The team only needed two games to find the net and score a victory, their very first.
Manager Stajcic can't explain how fast the victory came
Coach Alen Stajcic prepared his players, nicknamed Malditas, for this stage, but he cannot help but be in awe of how fast they got their first-ever World Cup win.
"It's unbelievable," the former Australian manager told reporters.
"When you hear the stories of how long it has taken other teams to win World Cup matches. New Zealand, it was their 16th match, five or six World Cups. Just watching Colombia and Korea before we left for the match, the commentator said that they both have one win each."
"I know Korea has been to at least four, five World Cups. You can't really appreciate how far we've come back in the pack together with those countries in terms of their football history, their culture, their investment in women's football. For us to be able to do this in 18 months."
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