This appears in my column WOOLYBACK that appears in interaksyon.com
On this
hallowed (and muddied) ground
by rick olivares
When I arrived at the Villareal
Stadium in Roxas City, Capiz, to catch the football competition of the 16th
University Games, the first thing that came to my mind was: are these some
prehistoric warriors doing battle out here?
Truthfully, it was players from the
University of the Philippines Fighting Maroons and the University of San Carlos
slogging through the mud. Was the Battle of Somme like this? It was literally a
battle of inches because the short passing game was almost non-existent. Powerfully
kicked balls traveled for short distances before they were stopped not by
defenders but by the mire. And the players, caked with mud (think of Arnold
Schwarzenegger in the first Predator movie where he was all covered in muck), moved
forward and backward as if in a ghastly primordial tribal war.
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