JUST as the Philippine national men’s team announced its schedule of friendlies next month, the Philippine Football Federation had to make another announcement after Terry Butcher--the guy they picked to replace Thomas Dooley--told a UK paper that he’s not taking the job. That surprise announcement came less than two months after it was announced via grand launch that Butcher, along with Scott Cooper, will be taking over the team.
Butcher cited his having difficulties in executing his plans for the team as the reason for him not to take the job. What those plans were, we may never know.
The PFF shrugged off the move, calling it unfortunate, and wished Butcher well. I guess this gives the new Azkals coaching staff less than six weeks to prepare before the friendlies in Bahrain on Sept. 7 and 11.
With the team preparing for both the AFF Suzuki Cup in November and our maiden stint in the Asian Cup in January, Cooper and his assistants will have quite a busy time. And I don’t think we are going to have the same lineup in both tournaments as some of our top players--like Neil Etheridge and Daisuke Sato--won’t be available for the Suzuki Cup but for the Asian Cup only.
I’m not too worried, though, about this latest development as the team has been playing well recently.
What I’m worried about is our youth program. Yet another youth team has been massacred abroad, conceding 20 goals in their first three games. My former boss Jack Biantan said we sent a team a year off the age limit in the U16 tournament, while Indonesia fielded players in the right age group.
That’s a bit odd, isn’t it? Or were our U15s sent to gain experience?
The current setup in Philippine football, where the best players are linked to schools and not clubs, makes it difficult for us to play catch-up with our Asean neighbors. Aside from that, we no longer have as many games pitting the best players from the regions unlike before, when we had the national youth tournaments.
I thought the PFF has addressed that when it hired a new youth director but something tells me the latest results show that we’re still nowhere near where we want to be or something must have gone wrong with the program.
Unless, of course, we just sent the wrong team in the AFF U16 tournament.