Villaflor: A Passion Project for Football

ONE fine day in October 2017, a man named Ugur Tasci told the world of his dream to give Cebuanos a football field of the highest quality.

The dream? To build a FIFA-standard football field using artificial grass complete with bleachers and dressing rooms in the outskirts of the South Road Properties. Not only that, Tasci announced that the entire project will have an indoor arena as well.

While most of those in the football community were ecstatic, the plan raised some eyebrows among a few observers. For over a decade, there have been talks of putting up a field at the Cebu South Road Properties but none of it saw the light of day.

And then came Tasci with his passion project to take football in Cebu to another level. Back then, I had a gut feeling this project was going to push through, and it did.

True to his word, Tasci now has something special to show the world two years after the launch of the project: a FIFA-standard football field right in Cebu City.

Last week, a beaming Tasci, the managing director of Dynamic Herb Sports Inc. that is building the project, invited members of the sports press for a sneak peek of the sprawling field of vibrant green in Barangay Inayawan.

The 500-capacity bleachers and roof have yet to be installed, while the dressing room and stalls are under construction, but the artificial grass field with its goals and drainage system was definitely finished. I got to kick the ball a few times and watch it roll and bounce perfectly on the seamless, even surface every single time.

But don’t get too excited just yet. Tasci won’t be opening the field until he’s sure its conditions are fit for playing and after a few kinks get fixed.

“There are a lot of organizations approaching me, not just from football but other sports as well, asking: When will it be ready?” Tasci revealed.

To answer that million-dollar question, Tasci and his team are looking at a dry run and soft opening in the fourth quarter of this year.

“For the soft opening, what I am eyeing is the lighting would be finished, but there will be no bleachers and no scoreboard yet,” said Tasci, adding they will be installing 600-lux lights on four corners of the field.

Apart from ensuring there’s adequate parking space, he also wants to finish the main entrance first before the soft opening so that people would know that they are entering what will be called the Dynamic Herb Borromeo Sports Complex.

“Even if I cannot complete everything, my objective is at least we can hold some tournaments and be open to the public,” Tasci said. “Later on, maybe the national teams can hold their games here and we can work with them.”

Tasci’s passion project seems to have overcome the toughest phase: the two-year construction of the field itself that saw delays due to extreme weather, from excessive heat to tropical storms, and other unforeseen circumstances.

Now everything is in full swing, and it’s a matter of time before the first kickoff on this beautiful, top-quality field finally takes place.

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