This appears in the Monday, July 4, 2011 edition of the Business Mirror.
With the Chief, the Captain, and Burkey.
Bus rides & plane rides
by rick olivares
Inside the team bus as the Philippine Men’s Football National Team left Sugathadasa Stadium after a 1-1 draw with Sri Lanka, the team sat in sullen silence. It was a stark contrast on their way in for this current team’s first ever World Cup Qualifiers match where the players were in good spirits as music blared and the chatter seemed to show a loose team. “Maybe we were overconfident,” postulated the nationals’ captain Aly Borromeo. “Maybe it was because they (Sri Lanka) played like underdogs normally do – they fight hard.”
As they made their way back to the hotel, the only noise inside the bus was music escaping the headphones of iPods and the occasional cuss word in Ilonggo from the Visayan-based players. “We were disappointed because we didn’t get the job done and we did not live up not just to our expectations but also of others,” explained central back Rob Gier. “But that’s football. There are no sure wins.”
It wasn’t too long ago when on a bus ride to My Dinh National Stadium to play Vietnam in the 2010 AFF Suzuki Cup, where the team was also in high spirits. Never mind if they were about to play the defending champions. The game – it’s final 2-nil result for the Philippines – is now forever etched in football history. Yet on the way back to the Sheraton in Ho Chi Minh City, the lights inside the team bus were put out and the team still in a state of disbelief in one of the biggest upsets in the sport, sat in tempered jubilation.
They weren’t the only ones in muted disbelief. The streets leading out of My Dinh were lined with thousands of fans who had filed out in a daze because the unthinkable happened.
Inside the bus, striker Phil Younghusband, who had scored the Philippines’ second goal, vomited after a bout of food poisoning that kept him up all night. Just them, midfielder Chris Greatwich who first put the Azkals on the scoreboard, suddenly banged his palms on the window and began yelling, “Yeah, we did it! We did it!” at the top of his voice as Vietnamese fans looked on.
It’s been a strange and surreal trip and is perhaps best capsulated in bus rides and plane rides by the team as they go about on an unlikely world football tour.
In Colombo, what the television cameras failed to show was the incessant booing that was heaped on the Filipinos. When they made their way to the dugout at the half trailing 1-nil, local fans ran towards the edge of the grandstand seats to boo, flip the bird, and spit at the players.
“That pissed us off,” said Borromeo who remembered all to well the rude reception in Jakarta during the semifinals of the 2010 Suzuki Cup. “We had to take care of business in the second half so flying back home put us at a favorable position.”
Gier flew from England to Germany and spent the two-hour flight deep in thought. He read and heard a lot – “all good stuff,” Gier pointed out -- about Schrocky (Stephan Schrock), (Paul) Mulders, and (Nate) Burkey and he couldn’t wait to rejoin the team for their training camp in Duren. “It wasn’t like we lost bad players. We replaced quality players with other quality players. Possibly even better ones,” said the central back. But football and his Azkals teammates weren’t the only thing in his mind. His wife, Emma, was seven months pregnant with his first child – a girl – and Gier prayed that nothing untoward would happen in his absence. “But I was excited. How can you not be? Not everyone gets a chance to play for a slot in the World Cup Finals? That’s a massive massive opportunity of a lifetime.”
On the plane ride to Manila, the “opportunity of a lifetime” had taken on a different meaning with the change of venue. “Flying in, it was all about playing in Manila for the first time and for a historic opportunity to advance,” expounded Gier.
It was the first time since the 1991 Southeast Asian Games that the nationals were playing a football match in Manila. Curiously, almost ten years to the date of a historic 1-nil win over Malaysia in the biennial event.
“Para sa akin, ang home field ng Azkals ay sa Panaad (in Bacolod),” opined Chieffy Caligdong on the bus ride from the airport to the team hotel in Manila. “Pero pagkakataon ‘to para maka-abot man lang sa group stages ng World Cup Qualifiers at para patibayin ang football hindi lang sa Pilipinas pero para sa Manila.”
Seven months ago, Caligdong was mulling an early retirement from the men’s football national team to take a coaching course. Now he feels he can play another three, four, or five years before he hangs up his boots. “Hindi pa rin ako makapaniwala sa lahat ng pangyayaring ‘to,” said the Azkals’ co-captain.
In Germany, the team couldn’t believe how perfect the football pitches were, how big, fast, and talented the native footballers were, and how hard they trained (three times a day). “Malayo pa tayo,” observed Caligdong. “Marami pa tayong kailangan gawin.”
It isn’t only the Chief in a state of disbelief.
“I can’t believe that I am talking to you on the night before a big game,” said Borromeo to this columnist. “Before no one would even talk to us. Every now and then I ask myself, ‘is this really happening?”
It’s been a strange and surreal trip. While training for the AFC Challenge Cup Qualifiers in Japan, a devastating earthquake and tsunami hit the country. About a month later, while conducting a tryout camp for Fil-Americans in San Francisco, an earthquake hit the city by the bay. “I couldn’t believe it that I’d be in two different cities and have the same thing hit you,” thought the team captain. “But I guess it adds spice to the journey.”
Paul Mulders’ journey to the national team began with a plane ride to Manila from the Netherlands to meet the team and fix his Philippine passport. “I was excited on the way here,” offered the tall midfielder. “I knew I was coming home to the land of my mother’s birth and that she was proud of what I was doing. That means a lot to us. On the way back to Manila from Sri Lanka, I was thinking, ‘Let’s make history.’”
With Aly and Paul.
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