The word miracle barely does justice to what the ex-Matildas and Central Coast Mariners boss has achieved with a team barely known in their own land when he took charge 18 months back, amid raised eyebrows back in Australia.
 
On the surface, it appeared Stajcic, 49, had accepted a mission impossible: assembling a credible team in a football backwater where basketball leaves all else in the shade. And then somehow making them relevant on the world stage.
 
Yet, digging deep into a diaspora of Filipinas scattered across the globe, Stajcic foraged the ancestry archives to find eligible players to create a team which set off reverberations around the region by reaching the semi finals of last year’s AFC Women’s Asian Cup to claim a place at the global showpiece, which kicks off for them against Switzerland on Friday across the ditch in Dunedin, New Zealand.
 
The magnitude of what Stajcic accomplished by simply qualifying can’t be overstated.
 
But Stajcic - tipped to return to club football with Perth Glory after the tournament - is planning to create more shockwaves before he disappears into the sunset.
 
“I’m lucky I’m enough to have seen so many shocks and upsets in big tournaments over the years to know that miracles can happen,” Stajcic told FTBL.
 
“Leicester showed incredible things can happen every now and then in a league by winning the EPL and in a tournament the chances are even greater.
 
“Denmark and Greece win the Euros and Morocco reached the semi finals of last year’s World Cup, and before that Croatia were in the final.
 
“So unexpected things do occur, which gives us a fighting chance - anything can happen in a World Cup with a bit of luck, momentum and hard work.”
 
The Filipinas’ other Group A fixtures are against co-hosts New Zealand and Norway, and whilst Stajcic is as much a realist as he is dreamer, he knows his charges will, at the very least, enter the tournament battle hardened.
 
“There was a big gulf between us and a lot of the nations, so as soon as we qualified we embarked on a sort of Beatles-like worldwide tour where we went to Europe, Central America and South America to expose the players to different styles of football,” he explained.
 
“Last year we played 38 internationals, which was the most by any country in the world.
 
“We weren’t a club team but it felt like we were in some respects with the sheer amount of matches. We were together in every FIFA window with the aim of fast tracking development.
 
“We’ve gone from around 200 caps cumulative in the group to around 500 to 600 in the space of 18 months which has given us a lot more depth of experience.
 
“We’ve played in front of big crowds and big atmospheres and the players will know what to expect.
 
“Of course a gulf still exists (between the Philippines and the top nations) but we’ve worked hard to minimise that as much as we can."
 
The Filipinas lost just 12 of those 39 matches, mostly against higher ranked nations. And eight of those defeats came by just a single goal.
 
“We’re progressing well and I don’t want to put a ceiling on how far we can go and what we can achieve,” he added.
 
“We’ve already far exceeded everybody else’s expectations and we’re just dreaming and hoping we can continue the run.
 
“On a personal level, it’s hard to put into words. Representing my own country at a World Cup and two Asian Cups was an unbelievable honour.
 
“But, in a way, it’s a little bit more special representing a different country and being entrusted with leading them into a big tournament.
 
"I almost have a deeper sense of responsibility and I’m really looking forward to it. I’m really proud of what we’ve done together as a group, and I hope we can cap it off with a really good World Cup and put foitball on the map in the Philippines.
 
“We have to everything we can to build that foundation. There’s a new generation of kids across the Philippines who have something to relate to now.
 
“It’s a bit similar to when we started winning with the Matildas and we went all of a sudden from getting one paragraph inside the newspaper to being headline news.”