MANILA — As the Philippine women's national football team gears up for its historic stint in the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup, striker Sarina Bolden revealed one of the team's best weapons against the world's top teams is their head coach, Alen Stajcic.

"He’s been one of the best assets of this team, and its growth and success is because of him and the staff that he’s brought on," Bolden told FIFA.

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"His knowledge of the sport and tactics and just professionally I think has really helped this team get to where we are today. He knows what he’s talking about. At the same time he pushes us to be better soccer players and, without him knowing, also be better people and hold ourselves with more confidence and believe in ourselves and stand up for ourselves," she added.

Bolden also revealed how their Australian mentor's mindset has rubbed off on their whole squad as the prepare to play Norway, Switzerland, and co-host New Zealand in the global showcase.

"Australians like to say, ‘Back yourself’, and I feel like a lot of us have slowly started to back ourselves more and be more confident each day. I really have a lot of respect for him as a coach and as a person because I know he really cares about football, but also about this team and he wants to see this team succeed," she explained.

Stajcic's no-nonsense approach has worked wonders for the Filipinas since he was tapped as their head coach in October 2021, according to Bolden.

"He’s not going to have hopes and dreams and just pray we do well. We’re going to plan and prepare. That approach has really pushed us forward, because without a plan you can’t really get anywhere, which is what I’ve learned from his leadership," said Bolden.

"There’s still so much to learn from him, which is the scary part because we’ve only had him for a little over a year. We’ve done the work of ten years in one. So to see that much growth in one year, it’ll be really exciting to see where he’ll take us and what we can achieve moving forward."

All of these will be crucial for the Filipinas as they face top opponents who Bolden described as 'tough' and 'high-quality' squads.

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"Luckily, we’ve had a little bit of experience against [New Zealand]. We played a friendly against them and lost 2-1. We got good competition and experience playing against them. I actually have a New Zealand teammate on my team, so being familiar is an asset. I think we can definitely make our mark, but it’s not going to be easy," she said of the squad whom they will be facing on July 25.

Bolden actually scored against New Zealand in their friendly last September 2022, but the Filipinas gave up two second-half goals against the World Cup co-hosts.

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They will be opening their FIFA campaign on the other hand against Switzerland on July 21.

"Switzerland is another highly-quality team. Right off the bat, we know they’re going to be very good. We were just talking about how they might be similar to Scotland or Wales, two teams we just played. We lost both games, but they weren’t blowouts, so it gives us confidence that we’re definitely going to make our mark when we play Switzerland."

"But again, it will be a very hard, tough game. We’re not going into these games thinking it’s going to be easy, because it’s going to be very far from easy," she added.

Arguably their hardest opponent in the group stage, however, are former champions Norway, which feature Ballon d'Or winner Ada Hegerberg, Barcelona standout Caroline Graham Hansen, and Chelsea playmaker Guro Reiten.

"Obviously that is probably going to be our toughest game of the group stage, but it’s going to be a really great opportunity to even play a team like that," she said on the squad whom they will face on the 30th of July.

"I think everyone is beatable, and I know that might sound weird coming from the least likely team to do damage in the World Cup. But everyone is beatable and we’re going to go into it with the mindset that we can beat Norway."

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