The future of the Azkals

The eye-opening loss of the Philippine Azkals to the much higher-seeded Al-Asraq of Kuwait in the World Cup qualifiers served as a proper, albeit bitter gauge of the development of football in the country. True, at times it seemed like adolescents playing against adults, but let’s not be too disheartened. This is literally Year One of a developmental process that is teaching the Filipino sports fan to be patient.

“Disappointed, of course,” was how Azkals media bureau chief Rick Olivares described the feeling of the team after the match. “They knew it would be tough. Before the match, the players talked about it, and they said they were doing it for the people; they would go all-out, no matter what.”

Most people did not realize how seriously the Kuwaitis took the match, despite being up 3-nil from the first match. They made five line-up changes – which was unusual, which begot a very open match. The visitors were even disappointed with how spirited they allowed the Filipino players to be on their home turf. But they took the match to heart.

“When you’re playing a far superior team, it doesn’t matter where you’re playing,” Olivares continued. “Whether it’s a home pitch or an away pitch, they’ll find a way to score goals. When another team prepares for you, they take it to another level. We saw this in the Suzuki Cup against Indonesia.”

Mental lapses on the part of the Azkals allowed the Kuwaitis to score their first goal early in the second half and tie the score.

“The players lost focus for a moment, and they paid for it,” elaborated Bob Guerrero, who commentated on the match for ABS-CBN. “The second goal was forgivable.”

The Kuwaitis were privately generous in their praise of the Azkals, repeatedly reminding them to learn from this experience. One point they made was that when they qualified for the World Cup in 1982, they did it purely with homegrown players. But they wished the Philippine program luck.

“Right now, it’s impossible to field a competitive line-up without them,” Guerrero says. But in the next years, when we field a starting line-up, half of the players will be Fil-foreigners, half will be homegrown. We want to grow the game here, play more games in front of a home crowd. Some of the Kuwaiti players have played more than 100 international matches, and they’re only in their mid-20’s.”

But that would also mean playing together more, which the Fil-foreigners have not entirely been able to do. FIFA’s schedule for major international matches does not overlap with bigger club competitions (particularly in Europe) but in some of the smaller leagues and second-tier tournaments like the ones Stephan Schrock and Manny Ott play for in Germany, club teams may be reluctant to release players for national team outings in smaller tournaments.

The good news is that there are more tournaments in the works. After the team takes a two-week break, team management will convene to decide the next matches. One local sponsor is willing to pay for a short tournament in October, and a four-nation invitational is also on the drawing board, similar to the Asian Five Nations competitions in rugby. The United Football League is also expanding, and this will give younger players a career to aspire for. Thousands of players take up soccer in grade school and high school, but either stop or change sports because they don’t see a future in it. That has changed with the attention the Azkals have brought to the game, which hopefully will not wane while the team matures.

There’s more attention on football. More parents are getting their kids into the game,” Guerrero says, with a warning. “We shouldn’t just look for the next Phil Younghusband or Neil Etheridge. We should look for the next Chieffy Caligdong and Ian Araneta. They are the ones who are going to take the game higher. This is a long process but we’ve come very far already.”

Indeed, there are some new football fans who have shown resentment, claiming they were taken for a ride. But the fact is that football, like many other sports, takes time to gestate. The fact of the matter is we drew blood against a team among the top 100 in the world. We have players who barely play each other, and a coach who has had less than a year on the job. In spite of that, the Azkals have never faltered, and have taken Philippine football higher than it ever has gone. And despite the outcome, the home match against Kuwait was an impressive, enjoyable show.

It’s time we, as fans who love high-scoring, instantly gratifying sports like basketball, boxing and billiards, to also grow up along with the Azkals, who find themselves fighting lions of the game, and never backing down.

Bill Velasco, Philippine Star