It took a win against Vietnam to turn the Philippines' attention towards football. That first, our country has potential in football as compared to basketball, second that football is an exciting game, and lastly, that ballers are hot. LMAO.
It's a sad thing that we did not advance to the finals, and I have to admit that it broke my heart to see the Azkals give their all out and lose. The odds were all against us (home court advantage, biased referee-ing, etc), still we managed to show them what we were made of, I think given a few years, we can be among the best. Seriously. We just have to train harder and we have to work on our offense, if North Korea can qualify in the World Cup, why can't we?
Football is the most famous sport in the world, yet we are addicted to basketball. I have nothing against basketball, I was once a fan but it's time that we try to switch to a sport where we can excel more. The sad thing is, even our fellow kababayans have little faith in our team, even I was not interested in our football team until the much celebrated win against Vietnam. As I was watching the game yesterday, people around me were telling na Ay, matatalo na yang Pilipinas", they were all saying that, and I told them na hindi pa tapos ang laban.
I have to admit that we still have to learn a lot, especially in our offense, we have to work on our midfield, we have to train our strikers, etc. As for defense, we're doing pretty great, I was amazed at how great they were at defending. And as for our goalie, we undeniably have the best goal keeper. Neil Etheridge deserves all the praises. He has what it takes to be the next Iker Casillas. He's only 20, given the proper training, he can be a well known player globally :)
Enough with my thoughts, I'll give you the list of my favorite players in our football team.
1. Neil Etheridge - You should have seen him. At first, I was not much of a fan, but after seeing him save goals, I was mesmerized. He's a brilliant goalie I'm gonna die (lol, despicable me?!)
3. Rob Gier
4. Anton del Rosario
We definitely have the handsomest players in this side of the globe, no doubt about that. It's enough to be a starting ground for Pinoys to be interested sa football.
Though most of our players are half-half, the fact that they accepted to play for the Philippines and are proud enough to say/recognize that they are Filipinos are more than a proof that they are indeed Pinoys. Hindi naman sa minamaliit ko yung team natin, pero considering how we fare sa football before the Vietnam game (or the few games before that), don't you think na we should be happy na naglalaro pa sila for us? I mean there's no guarantee that we'll even make it to the top, and wala talagang support for them (or minimal lang), gaanong sacrifice na lang yun for our country, right?
And to think na 0-1 yung results ng dalawang game against Indonesia is something. We conceded to them by 1 point in both games, when in fact, tinatambakan lang ng Indonesia yung ibang team.
I am proud of our football team, I was on the verge of crying yesterday because of the unfair calls of the referees. I think that was the first time I got so emotional about a football game, not even Spain NT, Real Madrid, Liverpool or Arsenal games elicited that emotion from me. Siguro it boils down to one point, no one can ever replace the Philippines. Once a Filipino, always a Filipino :) And we should focus more attention in football :D