Thursday, February 14, 2008 RP XI training camp set March 23 in Bacolod By Henry C. Villalva
NEWLY appointed RP men's national football squad coach Norman Fegidero, Jr. said training camp for members of the national team who will represent the country in the May 11-18 Asian Challenge Cup slated here at the Panaad Stadium pitch is scheduled to start of March 23.
Fegidero, a former mainstay of the RP team, which he served for over ten years, is slated to leave for Manila on Tuesday next week to meet with officials of the Philippine Football Federation (PFF) and finalize details regarding the formation of the national team.
"I expect to have the things Need to do for the team stipulated in the contract I will sign with the PFF so that I can go about performing my task unhampered," Fegidero told SunStar Bacolod Wednesday.
He said commitment is the first thing he wants to get from players if they want to play under him. "It's not only commitment to play for the country. It also covers commitment to strictly adhere to my system of training and requirements for self-discipline," he said.
The former Philippine Air Force striker who scored the lone goal that eliminated Malaysia during the 1991 Manila Southeast Asian Games, is considered a common choice for the coaching job by PFF officials led by former national coach Juan Cutillas.
A stickler for hard work, Fegidero is also known as a creative and prodigious forward who knows a goal-making opportunity when he sees one and who hates not being able to convert a neat pass from a teammate, a trait which he has painstakingly inculcated his players in the West Negros University varsity squad, a side he had led to eight successive titles in the annual Negros Occidental Private Schools Sports Cultural Educational Association (NOPSSCEA) tournament.
"I expect Nonoy to teach his players in the RP team the work ethic that has made him one of the most prolific forwards the country has ever produced," said Fegidero's former teammate in the RP team, midfielder Alfredo "Bambi" Dioso, Jr. who played with him in the 1991 Manila SEA Games.
"Through his vast experience in the national team he knows what is needed and perhaps now is the time for him to try and implement what we failed to have during our time as players," Dioso added.
Fegidero said he expects to take a look at some remnants of the national team when he goes to Manila next week. "Maybe I'll try to find out who among them can still be tapped for the Challenge Cup," he said.
