Cebu Football

This report came out on Sun.Star Cebu on May 30 ALTHOUGH they were down early in the Men’s Open championship match of the 11th Cebu Amateur Football Club National Interclub Football Cup yesterday at the University of San Carlos-Technology Center pitch, Hiroshi FC showed the will of a champion to score a come-from-behind win over, 5-4, over Waterfresh-Queen City United (QCU) in penalty shootout.

I MET two of my most favorite Azkal players over lunch—Alexander Borromeo and Emilio “Chieffy” Caligdong—during a lunch with the team at The Port just last Saturday. I like the two because they were with the team when this whole football turnaround started, in the Tiger Cup 2004 in Malaysia. For me, that was when this renaissance started, and it culminated in that unforgettable night in Vietnam.

THIS is getting ridiculous. And I’m talking about the factions in Cebu football, whose fighting, believe, is stopping the growth of local football. Both, mind you, think they are right and in a case like that, nobody wins. One of the latest issues was Carmelo Genco’s inclusion in the national U13 team.

Here's a column by Michelle P. So on the Azkals. ARE the Azkals a national treasure that they need to have security all throughout their stay in Cebu such that guests who enter the resort where they are staying are screened? From the way the team’s administrative manager is said to have instructed the resort staff, yes, they are. And the team is using human resources whose services the public is paying for to secure the players. To read the rest of the column, click here

THE few people who pay attention to my tweets may have noticed a rather strongly-worded tweet against the Azkals the other day and were puzzled. All things are settled now. But I believe I owe an explanation. Especially to Sir DP, who sent me a message after reading my tweet.

“There was this kid in the Palaro, who was really very good,” the official said. “With those skills, he’s a prodigy, a real asset in this age group.” Coming from someone who has seen his fair share of prodigies and was even a prodigy himself, that statement was something. But the curious thing is, they’re not sure he’s 12.

This report came out in Sun.Star Cebu on May 24 FORMER national team member Chad Gould expressed his willingness to play anytime for the Azkals after he fully recovers from his mosquito bite infection that forced him to end his comeback early. Gould, who has scored six times in 13 games for the team, had surgery on his left leg last week after the infection got worse and is on antibiotics for the next seven days.

IF YOU are reading this, it either means you’re here stuck with me, left to languish in hellish Earth until October or some crackpot minister has been caught laughing his way to the bank. Either way, you’re here and it’s not the end of the world, for us. But just last Friday, it seemed it was the end of the sporting world for me. I couldn’t move a muscle and laughing brought me to tears. When climbing the stairs, it seemed I was carrying the spirits every other guy has drunk and when I lifted my right arm, it felt I was lifting a metal cross.

This story appears on Sun.Star Cebu on May 22. THE bid Filipino British player and Cebu’s very own Chad Gould to reunite with the Philippine Azkals has hit a major snag. Gould suffered an infected wound caused by a mosquito bite on his left leg last Monday and had to undergo surgery to remove the infection. “It’s kind of annoying. It’s quite big and pretty bad,” Gould said.

JUAN Cutillas, the former coach of the men’s national steam, stirred a hornets’ nest in his latest interview with a national columnist. The Spaniard, who’s been based in the Philippines decades before the current members of the Azkals were even born, suggested that the PFF put a limit to the foreign-based Pinoys who see action for the national team—seven for the Azkals and four or five for the Southeast Asian Games team. He said the SEA Games would be a good gauge of how well our local program is doing. That’s true, by the way, we can really gauge our grassroots program by how well the team plays in the regional games.

IT’S good that the Department of Education is looking for ways to lessen the cost of holding the Palarong Pambansa—the premier sports meet in the country. But I think DepEd is looking at it in a wrong way and the plan to hold it biennially is a wrong approach. According to DepEd Regional Director Recaredo Borgonia, the plan to hold the Palaro every two years came about because of the massive expenses by the host city in putting up stadiums, track ovals and venues for the games.

(note: I rewrote MCB's Palaro report to include only the football update--Mike) For full Palaro report on Sun.Star Cebu, click here In football, Central Visayas ended its bid on a strong note, behind the secondary boys football team's 2-1 win defending champion Davraa. Miguel Caindec, who scored the team's second goal uabashedly cried while holding on to his gold medal. “I have worked so hard for this. We all worked hard since the city Olympics and then the regional meet. All the efforts paid off,” said Caindec. Coach Glen Ramos, on the other hand, said the team was very determined to win. “It was a job well done,” said Ramos, who steered the team to their very first secondary title in 11 years. The last time Central Visayas won was in 2000, during the time of Dave Gerali, who is the assistant coach of Cviraa. Ramos and the DBC team had to forfeit their match in the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc. since the schedule was in conflict with the Cebu City Olympics, the qua...

I’M excited for today’s Sundown Run because I want to know whether the report filed about the event a few days ago was really all about the event or it included a belated April Fools’ Day joke. One detail got cut in the report, but today’s run is supposed to include—hold your breath please—a mini-skirt division for women. Yep, a mini-skirt division in a run that starts at sundown. “Are they nuts?” That was my first reaction, too.

SOMETIMES it seems the only way boxers know how to sell a fight is to, well, fight the other guy whenever they have the chance. Threaten you’d eat the other guy’s children? Cue in Mike Tyson vs. Lennox Lewis. Say something really catchy, like how you’ll get the Gorilla in the Thrilla in Manila? Cue in Muhammad Ali.

This story came out in Sun.Star Cebu on May 9, 2011 FILIPINO-British striker Chad Alesna Gould returned to the Philippines and will try to make a comeback after almost two years of absence from the Philippine Football National Team. Gould, who joined the Azkals back in 2004, said he is considering the team’s offer to play for the Azkals in the 2014 Fifa World Cup qualifiers first round match against Sri Lanka on June 28 and July 3.

A FEW years ago, I received an e-mail regarding the formation of a new group, Football Alliance, set to oversee a new football league—the UFL. If I remember it right, the founders, according to that e-mail, wanted to raise the bar of Philippine football and were even prepared to defy the PFF. The founders were former football players who have risen through the ranks, or who have made a tidy sum and were willing to spend it for Philippine football.

SAN Beda will host the 1st Philippine Football Conference on May 14 and 15. The two-day conference will have K. Rajagopal, who guided Malaysia to the AFF Suzuki Cup and the 2009 Southeast Asian games gold medal as one of the speakers. Rajagopal earned the nickname King Raja in the 2009 Sea Games, when his Malaysian side knocked off eight-time defending champion Thailand in the semis and beating Vietnam in the finals. It was Malaysia's first gold medal in 20 years. Aside from King Raja, also invited are Masao Nakayama and Yoshio Kato, from Japan's grassroots development along with Philippine Azkals coach Hans Michael Weiss. Local experts are also set to speak in the first-of-its-kind football conference. Oliver colina, a two-time awardee of the Sportswriters Association of Cebu and the current coach of the U13 team, was invited together with John Carmona, the PFF Regional Director for visayas, Lettecia Bautista, the U16 girls head coach and Marlon Maro, the head of hte PFF Coach...

BY THE time you got to this page, I’m sure you’ve asked yourself this question: How the heck do you run 65 kilometers? The answer? I don’t know. I want to know, but I don’t think I really want to know. It has got to be one of the craziest things anyone can do in a lifetime and I’m pretty sure when the folks who saw these crazies start the run in Toledo City learned where yesterday’s run was supposed to finish, they all shook their heads and said, “ Wala na sila’y mga lingaw ?”