Almost a year ago, dubbed as "Diski Night", a kick-off to the countdown for the World Cup in South Africa at 1Esplanade near SM Mall of Asia.The Philippine Football Federation was one of the organizers of the event and I was sent there by my bosses at the Manila Bulletin with no idea what to write about. I heard a lot of problems within the federation since they can't properly spend that financial assistance given by FIFA.
When I got there, the event was like a gala or social event. There was also an silent auction of football paintings with likely the moderator being Carlos Celdran (the Damaso guy who got jailed for his RH bill stand).
It was disappointing. Given that perhaps some group also financed that event, how come the PFF would prefer an event such that went the football program was so so quiet that year.
Oh, that was not just a year perhaps two or three years. There we're no national tournaments, no participating in various events like the World Cup qualifiers and the Southeast Asian Games and the Filipino Premier League, formed by the PFF in what supposed to be our national league was a big flop.
We got to interview Des Bulpin. Saying he would help put discipline on this team. He was gone a few months before current coach Simon McMenemy took over.
And then the World Cup came. It was an exciting time to watch football. The exciting part was learning that Landon Donovan scored that epic goal and celebrated wildly without even seeing the match on television.
On those two events I wondered if we would ever be successful in football. Will there be a time we would ever celebrate a wild goal from our team.
Well, I didn't expect this to happen. This soon.
Advancing to the AFF Suzuki Cup through the qualifiers was just enough. But forging a tie with Singapore came as a surprise.
Then, the Vietnam game was the ultimate shocker. I would never forget celebrating with my brother like we were a pair of crazy men after Phil Younghusband's second goal in the 80th minute that sealed the win.
Indonesia really came in and beat us. Both were close games but they had every answer against us. Both goals by Cristian Gonzales were incredible and finding ways to score were tough. Gladly also gave them a difficult time, especially with goalkeeper Neil Etheridge. Congratulations to them! Congrats din sa atin!
I guess this was what Inquirer's Francis Ochoa was talking about during the In the Huddle sportswriting seminar last month. When students and teachers asked for the lack of coverage on sports like football, he just told them that there's a need for a "paradigm shift" to get that attention. This magical run could be that answer.
So this ends a great journey for Philippine football and Philippine sports fans. So what's next? In line for the Azkals is a Challenge Cup tournament against Mongolia in February, a World Cup qualifying tourney and the Southeast Asian Games in Indonesia.
It would be interesting to see if the sudden rise of popularity in Philippine football would continue through 2011 since there's a tendency for such things like every Manny Pacquiao win or controversial issues within our government to mellow down after being a hot topic for a few weeks or months.
What will likely kill the momentum of this recent success will be the brewing or ongoing leadership dispute in the PFF. It's safe to say that it would likely be the start of a more heated crisis, far greater than our issues with us not holding a home game in this semifinals.
Hopefully, that won't be the case but that's the reality within Philippine sports. But, who knows, there's always a miracle, like this team.
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