COACH Apple Bariñan had an interesting tidbit about the Cebu Province’s futsal team in the Batang Pinoy national meet. She told the girls to represent Cebu well since the province is known for being the home of some of the best girls players in the country.
She’s right, of course. Some of the girls who have made a mark in the national team recently are Itsuko Bacatan, Arantxa Trebol, Trisha Musni and Rizza Mae Ugbaniel. Almost every year, we have players making the national youth team and it’s thanks to coaches like Apple, Jinggoy Roa, Eleazer Toledo and the others who have made girls football competitive in Cebu.
Cebu Province’s settled for silver in the Girls 15 division, while Mandaue City won the gold after outlasting a determined Davao City. Both Mandaue and Davao were tied at 4-1 going into their final game but Coach Toledo’s girls had the advantage in goals scored. Mandaue cruised to a 3-1 lead but Davao fought back and evened the score at 3-3. By the way, the boys team of Glen Ramos also ran away with the gold medal, making it two of three for Cebu-based teams in the Batang Pinoy.
Though we excel in futsal tournaments, we don’t have that many futsal tournaments. What we have are a lot of small-sided festivals, making it easy for the field players to transition for futsal. Being gifted and skilled also helped a lot too.
Consider Mandaue. In the Allianz National Futsal tournament, then playing as the University of Southern Philippines Foundation, Coach Toledo’s girls first futsal tournament was the local eliminations, which they won. Then they went through the regionals and national finals, where they routed their foes. It seemed they had a harder time in the local elims than the nationals, which speaks volumes of the quality of players here.
It’s good too that starting last year, Cesafi has gotten into the act, offering girls futsal in its calendar, making the girls progress progressive. It used to be that after high school, the option for female players in Cebu was to go to Manila or to stick to just playing in the local festivals.
Of course, the next best thing after having girls futsal in the Cesafi is to have girls’ football again. But I think, that’s going to be two or three years down the road, when the current generation of players get into college.
USC had a college team before but had to disband it due to the lack of tournaments. And I’m confident that’s something this current generation of players will change.