Philippine Men's National Team Diary Part 1: The Perfect Storm

Philippine Men's National Team Diary

Part 1: The Perfect Storm

by rick olivares

December 15, 2010

Jakarta, Indonesia -- Since third year high school I’ve gotten up at around 5-530am with unerring and at times annoying consistency. Whether that was for football or COCC training, I was up. No matter if I went to bed at 2am, I was still up.

So it was no surprise that I was up even before daybreak in Jakarta even after we hit the sack at almost 3am. We had a late late night dinner (or maybe more accurately early early morning breakfast) at the coffee shop of the Sultan Hotel. We arrived at Soekorno-Hatta Airport right before midnight and it was like a 30-minute drive to the Senayan district. There were five of us. PSC Chairman Monico Puentebella, myself, Inquirer’s Cedelf Tupas, PhilStar’s Abac Cordero, and Azkals central back Dave Basa.

Jojo Rodriguez and Ace Bright from the management team picked us up at the airport. It didn’t take us long to collect our luggage.

We had learned there were so many fuck ups at what was supposed to be a five-star hotel. Many players checked into their rooms only to find out that it was occupied. Imagine what a snafu it would have been had they walked in to find a naked couple in the midst of fill-in-the-blanks right here!

In Vietnam, the whole team was quartered at the ninth floor with no other guests. It made for easier monitoring and access to everyone. Here at the Sultan hotel, God (as well as Jojo and Ace) were the only ones who knew where everyone was.

We dumped our stuff in the room that was a mess. Housekeeping never bothered to fix it. I know it was extremely late the evening but that is beside the point. You gotta have the room made up no matter what. I must have called four times (even from the coffee shop) and we couldn’t get clean sheets let alone towels. "Housekeeping is done for the day," explained one hotel person. 

"You mean your coffee shop is open to serve people but for housekeeping everyone's asleep?" I retorted.

In that late dinner where Rep. Puentebella treated us for the midnight snack, he revealed on of his plans which was to talk to the AFF officials about the Philippines hosting a home game should we advance to the finals and the future hosting of the group stages. I must confess that it was fun chatting with Sir Monico (we sat next to each other in Business Class).

When I got up at five, I tried going online but I needed to buy an internet card to get access. Instead, I began writing a couple of pieces that will form the crux of the day’s stories.

Around 830am Jakarta time, I went down. I spotted my old classmate and teammate Miguel Larrauri in the coffee shop with the controversial ex-PFF President Jose Mari Martinez. Martinez pretended not to see me but when Mike waved me over, he too, raised his arm in welcome.

As Mike greeted me and shook my hand, the first words out of Martinez’ mouth was: “Some people told me that you were writing bad things about me? Coño. I put this guy with the team as media officer (he said while looking at Mike) and he writes bad things about me!”

“What bad things?” I protested. “I have not written anything about you since you were removed…”

“Excuse me,” he cut me off. “Illegally removed.”

“Whatever.” I said rolling my eyes.

Then he changed his tone. “Partner, help me out naman. Write good things about me.”

“Mari,” I interjected. “I write what’s there in front of me. If there’s good there’s good. If there’s bad there’s bad. Remember when you asked me if I was up to the task and I came back and asked, ‘Are you sure? It’s like asking the fox to be inside the henhouse.’”

“Partner, I need you help,” he implored.

“Okay, sure.” I replied as I spotted Roel Gener, Toffer Camcam, and two other players pass by on their way to the meeting place before we head up to the Oriental Room for breakfast. “I’ll see you later at the lobby?”

On my way out, some of the AFF officials recognized me and Dr. Dato Yap, who was to be the match commissioner for the two Jakarta games waived me aside. “We missed you at the press conference.”

“I know,” I mumbled unable to hide my disappointment.

“No one asked the daring and provocative questions,” he smiled. He remembered how I was able to get Vietnam’s Henrique Calisto and Myanmar’s Tim Myint Aung to reveal strategies and concerns (it’s a thing I learned from Jeanette Lee, the Black Widow – yes, her) during the Q&A. "Good question, Rick," commended Chris Greatwich after that presscon with Vietnam. "You forced him to tip his hand," added Philippine head coach Simon McMenemy.

What exactly was that all about? Hubris. Plain old vain-is-the-name-of-the-game hubris. 

“I’ll make up for it in the next press conference.” We chatted a bit and I promised to drop by the AFF Secretariat after breakfast to collect our press credentials and other paraphernalia.

Yanti Bersales pulled me as soon as I arrived at the staircase where the Azkals were slowly building up. “Hinahanap kita pagdating namin,” he said. “Bigla kang nawala.”

I recounted my not being asked to board PR 535 bound for Jakarta because the validity of my passport was five months ‘til expiration.

By now the rest of the players had gathered around to hear the story. I also heard their horror stories about entering a room that was occupied. Gener told me about going to bed at 4am when they could no longer wait for any meals. “Kaya gutom na gutom kami,” he revealed. So you can say that breakfast was a feast for a hungry team.

McMenemy ambled over and shook my hand, “We thought you weren’t going to make it.”

“I’m here,” I offered as we shook hands.

Since Vietnam, the coach and me have this routine where I record all his thoughts before and after each game. Side note: the night before a match, coach can’t sleep and he sees photographers around his bed. He tells himself they aren’t real and only then does he get some sleep. I countered by telling him that it’s Jessica Alba I see so I can’t sleep. He had quite a laugh at that remark.

Anyhow, I had missed a day where I was supposed to coordinate an interview between Simon and ESPN’s Paul Masefield who wanted to know more about coach and the team. Now I was behind my work.

After breakfast, I made way towards the basement where the secretariat’s office was located. On my way, Martinez, who was now seated at a sofa in the hotel lobby called me over.

“You have to help me here,” he once more reminded me.

“How,” I asked him while looking him in the eye.

“The team is very disrespectful,” he blurted. “They have been ignoring me. They pass by me all the time as if I wasn’t there. I tried calling them but they don’t answer. Maybe they changed their numbers maybe they did not.”

“You kasi,” I said with a tone that was slightly edged. “Why do you say to Quinito (Henson) that you will disband the team and that you have had this plan for them? That's wrong especially on the eve of the biggest games of our footballing lives.”

“Pare, I was misquoted,” he said. “All our conversations were off the record. When we get back to Manila, I will call Quinito and you will be my witness as I tell it to his face that he misquoted me.”

“So what exactly did you tell Quinito?” I prodded.

“All I said was that we needed to beef up the team.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes, that’s all. Yan ang mahirap. You say one thing then when it comes out iba naman. That’s why I will no longer be speaking to the media. But I will make a statement one of these days.”

“Sir with all due respect, we should record all your meetings and interviews next time. So no one can misquote you. But what you said is something that should have never been said. Lalo na right before the semis!”

“What do you mean,” asked Martinez.

“If this team continues to do well, your words, what you said about disbanding them, you will have no Filipino on your side. Not even those who don’t care about football.”

“But I was misquoted!” he protested. “That’s it. I won’t talk to the media anymore.”

The discussion went back and forth for about 10 minutes. In the middle of the conversation, I texted Quinito about Martinez’ reaction. “That’s too bad,” texted back the veteran sportswriter. “Because he said all of them.”

After a while, I excused myself to go to the secretariat. There was a problem, one of them informed me. I submitted Mariano V. Araneta’s pictures with the label of president and AFF Media Assistant Farina followed my instructions to a T. “We have a problem,” said one official pointing to the ID cards that gave us precious free access to the Bung Karno Stadium and the media center, press box and dugout. “We have two presidents. We have to follow FIFA. Maybe for Araneta, let’s just put PFF under his designation.”

“I don’t see a problem with that,” I agreed. One my way to the Centennial Airport, I passed by the PFF House of Football to pick up Araneta’s pictures that was to be used for the Suzuki Cup pass.

After I met with the AFF officials, I went to the hotel’s business center to purchase a wifi card. In our Lagoon Tower, one needed a wifi card to access the internet. In the other towers of the huge hotel, there was an cable to connect to the internet and it was free. For the cards, you had a choice: IDR 75,000 for one hour and you had to consume it within six hours before it expires. The other option was to buy a 12-hour card for IDR 150,000 that is good for 24 hours. So I got the latter. There was no free internet in the lobby the way we had at the Sheraton in Hanoi. Here, you had to pay for it.

The usual limbering session at 11am was to be held by the poolside. And there was quite a distraction towards the end because there was a buxom lady lounging poolside giving all of us a glimpse of some T&A. Even the media from Indonesia trained their cameras at the lady.

It was already a far cry from Vietnam where we had a slight bootcamp mentality to the tournament. Here. There were many distractions not to mention the Philippine media that had come along. While it was good it was also bad.

In the last team practice in Manila before departing for Indonesia, there were at least six television cameras trained on the Azkals not to mention the gaggle of SLRs and digicams from pro and amateur photographers. “Some of them are beginning to act unnaturally,” noted team manager Dan Palami.

“That doesn’t happen in Europe,” threw in midfielder Jason de Jong. “You get fined for talking to the media.”

During the press conference the previous day, there were some 200 media folks in attendance. That’s five times the number of media peeps who covered the group stage leg in Hanoi. Here, they covered every move not just by the Azkals but the Merah Putih.

The one difference was the home team who were also billeted at the Sultan Hotel, were not allowed to leave their floor other than to eat. They were not allowed to speak to media whatsoever. Even Indonesia’s head coach Alfred Riedl was the same. He only gave his remarks during the presscon. If one was lucky to catch the coach at the hotel lobby, he was even more fortunate if he got a sentence out of him. The Austrian largely remained quiet and let his assistant Wolfgang Pikal do the talking.

Pikal noticed the various members of media interviewing the Azkals at the lobby. “There’s too much going on over there (he pointed the Philippines' way),” he said. “That’s a distraction they do not need.”

Pikal’s words would soon prove prophetic.

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Post script: I should be done with Part 2 titled "Euro Trip" by tomorrow.