Friday, July 20, 2007 Gould regrets missing RP team duties
REGRETS washed over Filipino-British Chad Alesna Gould when he failed to represent the country in international competitions last year.
“It was a very down moment for me. Everyday, the lads (from the RP team) text me that I should have been there and it was very sad for me,” said Gould during a press conference announcing his football clinic yesterday at Krua Thai.
Gould was in the middle of pursuing another one of his passions and had to skip the Asean Football Federation qualifying round last year.
“There is nothing like the feeling of playing my favorite sport and coming out in the field wearing the national colors.
There is something magical about it and I missed that feeling that year,” added Gould, who had his RP team jersey during the press conference.
Gould last donned the national colors in the 2005 Southeast Asian Games as the RP team striker.
Since he will not be able to play in the Sea Games because of the age limit, Gould is now looking forward to representing the country again in the Challenge Cup in March next year.
The footballevent of the Sea Games, which will be this December, is a tournament for the players 23 and below.
Aside from Gould, Fil-Brits and then Chelsea reserves Philip and James Younghusband also missed the Challenge Cup, a tournament for the bottom ranked countries in Asia.
James has since been released from Chelsea, while Philip stayed for another year with the reserves of the British Club.
Gould admitted that he found the brand of football in the Philippines “strange,” having come from a country which has top of the line football facilities.
Strange
“It was strange at first playing on the kind of surface and the facilities. We (with other Fil-foreigners) found it hard to adopt at first,” Gould added.
On the other hand, Gould was disappointed when the Philippines missed the qualifying round for the World Cup.
“It is disappointing that Philippines is one of four countries that did not join the World Cup qualifiers,” he said. Gould believes that the team is not at all that bad.
“We ranked very low in the world, maybe 191st. But if you saw our performance, you would think twice. We beat Cambodia and Brunei, which are ranked higher than us,” he said.
Despite being one of the founding members in Asia, the country is one of the lowest-ranked nations in the region.
Gould suggested that to be better, the RP team needs to be exposed to more international events.
“There are a lot of us Fil-foreigners in the team. It is too difficult to have training sessions regularly and too expensive to have us travel back and forth. The way forward is to play more games and to train together,” he said. (MCB)
