Hinrichsen, de Jong to join Azkals in Bahrain

The men's national football team has confirmed that two of its foreign-based midfielders, John Patrick Hinrichsen and Jason de Jong, will join the training camp in Bahrain. Via Twitter, team coordinator and media liaison Ace Bright said Hinrichsen and de Jong will arrive in Manila Saturday. They were on the national team for the ASEAN Football Federation Suzuki Cup in 2010.

Hinrichsen was with the team at the training camp in Germany while de Jong was considered for the national Under-23 team for the coming Southeast Asian Games. Bright also said the team will resume its training sessions at the Alabang Country Club Saturday morning. Meanwhile, the Philippine Football Federation (PFF) has appealed the one-game suspension of team captain Aly Borromeo and attacking midfielder Stephan Schrock. Borromeo and Schrock each got two yellow cards in their Round 1 matches against Sri Lanka. According to the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Disciplinary Code, getting two yellow cards, which are also called cautions, get the offending players suspended in their next match, which in the case of Borromeo and Schrock, will be the away game against Kuwait. The cautions are "carried over from one stage to the next in the same competition unless the rules or regulations of the competition provide otherwise." AFC's disciplinary rules also provide that a member association may request the Disciplinary Committee to “cancel cautions that have not resulted in an expulsion so as to restore the balance among several teams that have not played the same number of matches during the first round of a competition, or in other exceptional circumstances." However, those rules also state the Disciplinary Committee "may exceptionally depart from this rule before the start of a particular competition." The 2014 World Cup Qualifiers began July 23 and is already about to enter Round 2. Unlike the Philippines, Kuwait did not go through the Round 1 eliminations because of its high ranking in Asia. Kuwait is 11th in Asia while the Philippines is 29th according to the FIFA rankings. Round 1 of the qualifiers is for the 16 lowest-ranked in the region. The team departs for Bahrain on July 14. - JVP, GMA News