The Philippine men’s football team has tapped the services of Spaniard Albert Capellas as coach on a permanent basis, an appointment that came less than two weeks after Tom Saintfiet orphaned the squad days before an important tournament in Malaysia.

Capellas, whose credentials include stints in the youth and reserve teams of FC Barcelona, will become the fifth coach in almost two years for the men’s team, not including Norman Fegidero, who called the shots in an interim status in the recent Merdeka Cup in Kuala Lumpur, where the team saw silver linings after dropping all of its two matches.

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“It won’t be easy. This is a project. It will be a journey, a process,” Capellas said after the Philippine Football Federation announced his hiring in a press release on Tuesday.

He will take the place of Saintfiet, who after five months left his post to accept an offer to coach Mali. Fegidero was tasked as caretaker during the Malaysia tournament which saw the Philippines put up a gallant effort against the host country and Tajikistan.

Fegidero will stay on as Capellas’ assistant and help out preparations for the Asean Mitsubishi Electric Cup in December.

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Part of the team’s buildup for the prestigious Southeast Asian competition is its participation in next month’s King’s Cup in Thailand.

The team has also not won in its last nine matches, with the last taste of victory coming in September 2023 in a friendly against Afghanistan under Michael Weiss at Rizal Memorial Stadium.

“There will be ups and downs. Sometimes we will fail. Our job is to make sure we learn from the fails,” he continued. “We will try to climb the mountain with a safe journey and go as far as possible. I hope the fans will be able to see the changes in October, and in November and December.

“But it won’t be everything at one time.”

Capellas was an assistant for FC Barcelona B, the fabled club’s reserve team that competes in Spain’s third-tier league, before becoming Barca’s youth team coordinator and deputy director of its youth academy.

He also became an assistant coach for Danish side Brondby, German Bundesliga’s Borussia Dortmund, Vitesse in The Netherlands, Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv and China’s Chongqing Dangai before calling the shots for Denmark’s U-21 team from 2019 to 2021 and Midtjylland, also in Denmark. INQ