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Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Taneo: Because they can (afford it)
By Paul J. Taneo
free-for-all
SINGAPORE takes recruitment a step higher.
While the Philippines might have perfected the conscription of mestizos: Filipino-Americans, Fil-Australians, Fil-Germans, etc., the Singapore national squad to the recent Tiger Cup did away with pretensions and put on board a few foreigners – naturalized citizens, of course.
Critics say that even if a Philippine national basketball squad did win the Asian Games and ABC basketball golds with Fil-foreigners on board, national pride at the victory won’t be the same as having pure Filipinos (if there is such an animal) do it; if that is possible.
Well, go tell that to the sea of red roaring at the National Stadium in Singapore after the home team won, 2-1, in the second leg over Indonesia and 5-2 on aggregate to hoist the 2004 Tiger Cup. Those Singapore supporters seemed very happy their team won the championship despite the inclusion of those – for a lack of a better word – mercenaries.
The presence of Caucasians and blacks is too conspicuous to ignore in a team that is supposed to be Asian.
There’s defender Daniel Bennett, a Caucasian who plays for Wrexham in the second division English League. Bennett scored Singapore’s first goal in the first leg.
Singapore also has two Nigerians in the team: Agu Casmir (striker) and Itimi Dickson (midfielder/forward), who are black. Casmir scored Singapore’s third goal in the first leg set up by Dickson and the second goal on a penalty in the second leg.
That shows how important these foreign players are to the Singapore squad. They wouldn’t have been granted rushed citizenships if they could not contribute.
Singapore has a history of doing this sort of thing to win in international competition. Years back, mainland Chinese ping-pong players represented the city state and won medals abroad. At least they were Chinese and easily blended with the local populace which is predominantly Chinese anyway. A white man and two Africans only emphasize the shortcuts Singapore is willing to do to earn sports victories.
The Football Association of Singapore (FAS) website has photographs of the nation’s Men’s team and there’s not even a Chinese-looking player or someone with a Chinese name in the roster. Singapore is a multi-ethnic society, so with names like Shahril Ishak, Aide Iskandar, Khairul Amri and Indra Sahdan Daud that are Malay/Muslim sounding, they wouldn’t raise eyebrows.
But add Dickson, Casmir and Bennett to the mix and it smells anomaly.
Singapore does it because it can and more importantly because it has the money. Who is to say the Philippines won’t do the same if the Philippine Football Federation were as financially well-endowed as the FAS?
Danding Cojuangco is very well-endowed financially and he sponsored the Northern Cement Consolidated Philippine Men’s national basketball team which won the Jones Cup with three Americans in the team.
Oh, well, business has gone multi-national and truly global nowadays, why not sports.
BRAZIL BLUSTER. While in the best football-playing country in the planet comes this news of Cacoy Cańete-Loloy Uy (sorry, Mr. Oyson, I can’t help it) word-war proportions.
Brazilian football greats Pele and Romario (just a name each, if you please) have engaged in a how-dare-you-say-that-about-me tussle.
Pele started it with a “Romario is too old to practice and should retire” proclamation.
Romario came back with: “With his mouth shut, (Pele) is a poet. It would be better off to put a shoe up his mouth. I don’t tell him how he should run his life, I don’t know why he keeps trying to give me advice on how I should run mine.”
And the shots were fired.
Fortunately, the fireworks fizzled out quickly.
“I just said what I think,” Pele appeased the 1994 World-Cup-winning striker, Romario. “My dad always told me I had to stop while in my prime, I just think Romario should do the same. If he was offended by what I said, I’m sorry.”
“Pele, I’m sorry, my friend,” Romario told reporters in waving the peace flag to the three-time (1958, ’62, ’70) World Cup winning-midfielder. “It was all a misunderstanding…I shouldn’t have said what I said.”
Okay. That one didn’t need a Swat team to break it up.
The Pele-Romario spat just shows that infighting is universal to sports, the martial arts and just about everything. And it takes but a few words of sorrow and apology to cool things down and make things right.
(sports(at)sunstar(dot)com(dot)ph)
(January 19, 2005 issue)
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