Ho Chi Minh City — The SIBOL PUBG team came agonizingly close to securing a finals berth on Friday after a hard-fought campaign in the qualifiers, ultimately settling for a seventh-place finish in the group stage and seeing its Asian Games qualification hopes slip away in Vietnam.
The Filipinos finished tied for sixth with Jordan in the overall standings but missed out on the final ticket to the finals by a single elimination point. Jordan claimed the last spot via a tiebreak advantage, anchored by a superior “Winner Winner Chicken Dinner” tally.
Head coach Dean Jesus Dosdado admitted the result was difficult to accept, given how narrowly the team missed qualification.
“It was definitely a heartbreaking result for all of us. The players gave everything they had throughout the competition, so losing our qualification hopes through a tiebreaker was difficult to accept at the moment. Naturally, there was disappointment after Match 6 because everyone knew how close we were,” said Dosdado.
SIBOL opened its campaign with back-to-back fourth-place finishes, collecting five points in Match 1 before adding five eliminations in Match 2 to climb to fourth in the overall standings.
However, Match 3 proved costly as the Filipinos finished eighth without an elimination, dropping them down to seventh overall.
SIBOL responded in Match 4 with a fifth-place finish and three eliminations, with points coming from Abdul Barode, Francis Fusingan, and Gerald Leonillo.
Despite another fourth-place finish in Match 5 — highlighted by three eliminations, including two from Barode — SIBOL slipped to eighth entering the final match of the group stage.
With their tournament hopes on the line, SIBOL produced its strongest performance in Match 6. Barode tallied two eliminations, while Leonillo and Ryven Baldove added one each, keeping the Philippines’ four-man squad intact deep into the final stages.
The Filipinos eventually found themselves in a winner-take-all showdown against Thailand for the Chicken Dinner, but Thailand capitalized on a crucial positional advantage atop a mountain to dictate the engagement and emerge victorious in the decisive 4-on-4 battle.
Despite finishing runner-up in the final match, SIBOL’s late surge was not enough to overcome the deficit. The team ultimately settled for seventh place, missing out on the final ticket to the finals, where eight of the 12 teams will advance to the Asian Games in Nagoya, Japan.
Despite the disappointing finish, Dosdado remained proud of the team’s overall performance throughout the qualifiers.
“Overall, the team performed competitively and showed that SIBOL can contend with some of the strongest teams in the region. We had moments where we executed our game plan well, demonstrated good teamwork, and consistently put ourselves in contention,” he said.
