THE 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia dominated the sports news since the first match on June 14, with the championship to be contested between Croatia and France on July 15 in the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. There won’t be a Cristiano Ronaldo, a Neymar or a Lionel Messi in the final game, but the fact that underdog Croatia beat all the odds to get this far is reason enough to get excited. I guess many of us will join the estimated 3 billion expected to view the culminating contest.
When one thinks of football or soccer, what comes to mind are countries such as Brazil, Argentina, England, Germany, Spain, Italy and France. But then do you know that the “Beautiful Game” has gained traction in the United States (it is the 2nd most popular next to basketball), Japan, South Africa and Iceland, among others? The competitiveness of the Azkals in recent years has attracted fans, as well as, players to football in the Philippines.
To think that the Philippine football national team is one of the oldest in Asia, having played at international level since 1913. In more than 100 years, the country has yet to qualify for the FIFA World Cup. Looking at the brighter side, the Azkals has qualified for the first time in the AFC Asian Cup in 2019.
One Filipino football player though has achieved a reverence on the level of Lionel Messi of multi-awarded Futbol Club Barcelona. Active from 1912 to 1927, Paulino Alcántara, the youngest player to play and score for FC Barcelona, was born in Iloilo to a Spanish military officer and an Ilongga mother. With a career 369 goals, he held the record for highest goalscorer of the club in all competitions for 87 years until Messi (576) broke it. He played for the Philippine national team in 1917 and the Spanish national team from 1921-1923.
Among the known football players in the Philippines today are Stephan Schröck, Phil Younghusband and Neil Etheridge. The players’ foreign-sounding names simply illustrate the failure of the Philippine Football Federation to attract Filipino youths to the sport. For decades, many initiatives were done supported by some of the best football clubs in the world, as well as FIFA, but the game remains unattractive due to such factors as the popularity of basketball, the lack of facilities and coaches, the elitist image of the sport, and the moderate media coverage.
The state of football in the Philippines is similar to that of the Wild Boars football team whose members were trapped for more than 17 days in a northern Thailand cave. While they needed daring rescuers to get them out, their coach led them to persevere the elements, hunger and the threat of death.
The perseverance of Filipino footballers and the leadership in the sport are key to bringing the best in us in soccer. As the Wild Boards would say, “Hooyah!”