WHEN merely fielding a national team becomes a big source of joy, something just isn’t right.

That was my initial reaction when the draw for the seventh Asean Football Championship (formerly the Tiger Cup), to be held in 2007 in Singapore and Thailand. This year’s tournament format is quite different, with only eight countries participating in the main competition and a qualifying round to determine two of those eight teams (the region’s top six squads are already seeded into the main competition, or the final round in football jargon).

The qualifying round will feature five of the region’s lowest-ranked teams—the Philippines included—and will be held in Bacolod City. If the country plays as good as it did in the Asian Football Confederation Challenge Cup in Bangladesh (where it drew 1-1 with both Afghanistan and defending South Asian champions India), it will likely capture one of the two slots up for grabs at the expense of fellow minnows Brunei, Cambodia, Laos and Timor Leste.