Cebu Football

All pics by Dr. Joel Pascual. (You may grab a copy of the pic but please credit Dr. Joel Pascual and www.cebufootball.blogspot.com. Thanks-----------------Mike)

All photos are taken by Dr. Joel Pascual. (You may grab a copy of the pic but please credit Dr. Joel Pascual and www.cebufootball.blogspot.com. Thanks-----------------Mike)

All pics are taken by Dr. Joel Pascual (You may grab a copy of the pic but please credit Dr. Joel Pascual and www.cebufootball.blogspot.com. Thanks-----------------Mike)

This is the first of four parts of the PHL vs. Kuwait fotos. All pics taken by Dr. Joel Pascual, who was one of the dozens of accredited photojournalists during the game. (You may grab a copy of the pic but please credit Dr. Joel Pascual and www.cebufootball.blogspot.com. Thanks-----------------Mike)

 This column came out in Sun.Star Cebu on July 30 MANILA - Dan Palami had a strange experience with a reporter during the post-match party after the game against Kuwait last night. After getting cornered for a brief interview, the team manager, in reply to the bevy of questions by the reporter, said, “You already asked this last night!”

Fair Play column last July 28 on Sun.Star Cebu MANILA—Staring at a three-goal deficit, against a team that hasn’t lost in eight games, the Azkals are in for the game of their lives. So, too, are the football fans.

This column will come out on Sun.Star Cebu on July 25 LIKE I said, before going into the first leg of the World Cup qualifiers against Kuwait, I wasn't worried. Aside from the fact that thousands of kababayans were cheering for the team, making them feel at home, there’s nothing to be worried when the other team is expected to win just by showing up, right?

DUMAGUETE City will host the Negros Oriental Life Games-A Cancer Benefit Sports Fest on Aug. 13 and 14, and Aug. 20 and 21. The games will include futsal, 7-a-side football and ultimate frisbee and aims to promote cancer awareness and to raise funds to support cancer patients. Teams from Cebu who want to join the tournament will get as much as 50 percent discount in hotel or dorm accommodation. For more info, please click this link . Thanks.

Latest column that will come out on Sun.Star Cebu on July 23  THE Azkals, will be strutting off in a 22,000-seater coliseum at midnight tonight (PHL time) but they are not alone. Nope, far from it. I guess it’s safe to assume, since their breakout success in 2010, they will never be alone. No matter where they will find themselves in the world. Myanmar, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, Bahrain and Kuwait? You name the place and they’ll always find a kababayan in the stand, the staff of the hotel they check into, or heck, even the medical personnel assigned them.

This story was published in Sun.Star Cebu on July 21, 2011 THE Treadtel Cup will add the Players 6 division when it kicks off the new season this weekend at the Aboitiz Spors Field. The latest addition to the event jointly organized by the Cebu Football Association and Treadtel Tires will be in line with the grassroots program activities initiated by the Philippine Football Association. Aside from the P6, the other divisions are Players 8 and 10, Girls 14 and 17, Boys 12, 15 and 17. The tournament, which attracted 56 teams, will be missing Boys 17 defending champion Abellana National High School (ANS) Pomeroy and the Cebu International School, which is on its summer break. But with their absence comes the participation of the under-13 national team known as the Little Azkals, under Oliver Colina. The team is expected to arrive on Friday and will have their first game the next day. Other formidable teams in the city that will also be seeing action are Don Bosco Technologica...

This story came out on Sun.Star Cebu on July 21, 2011 THE Cebu Football Association will introduce a new festival-type format, one aimed to let the kids enjoy the game, in upcoming local tournaments as part of strengthening the football grassroots programs of the country. Fifa, the world governing body of football, modified the festival format used in tournaments to be consistent with its concept of having kids enjoy the game at an early stage.

This column appeared on Sun.Star Cebu on July 21 OUTSIDE of Bacolod, Cebu was one of the cities to embrace the Azkals and hosted a friendly between the team and a selection of local players.   Fans who saw the game didn’t go home disappointed, as the Azkals won by a mile, 6-0, on a hat trick by Phil Younghusband and they were able to interact with the players after the match. (The Abellana Dust Bowl, circa 2005. The only change is the dust got more brown---Mike)

THE recent surge of the Philippine national team has put the football vs. basketball debate – done almost exclusively during drinking sessions between sports buddies before – in a whole new level. These days, the debate is getting so intense moderators in fan pages are taking it upon themselves to stop people from bashing other sports as it is counterproductive.

A tamer version of this column appeared on Sun.Star Cebu on July 16. ONE time in 1997, my landlady surprised me with a funny message that I still remember to this day. It was the time before cell phones and instant messages and to contact someone, you’d have to, well, leave a message and hope he gets it.

OF all my years as a sportswriter---and they are but brief compared to the legends like Al Mendoza, Quinito Henson and Recah Trinidad (Yes, that Recah Trinidad)---I've seen the best and worst of sports figures and sportswriters. That latest column of Recah Trinidad, which wasn't really a column but a translation of one's work, had to be a new low point. What was Trinidad's point? To raise a discourse? Well, he more than succeeded and he, and Danny Simon, have earned a lot of new nicknames. And why would a self-respecting columnist dedicate an entire column translating someone's work? No one does that. And even the most slanted of columnists would let their own words do the talking. Simon got so many points wrong I don't know where to start. He also added more proof to the belief that mainstream writers (except for a few) know shit about football.

This story came out in Sun.Star Cebu on July 15. IT’S a dream come true for former University of San Carlos goalleeper Paolo Pascual as he made the 23-man squad of the Philippine team that will face Kuwait in the second round of the Fifa World Cup qualifiers this month. At 20, Pascual, is now part of the national team that keeps hoping to continue its recent string of successes as it takes on Asian powerhouse Kuwait.

IF YOU noticed the crowd during the last two Azkal matches, the folks were wearing the team’s colors—white for the Mongolia game and blue (even if it was the away color) for the Sri Lanka match. And let me tell you, that has never happened before. The Bacolod match was simply enthralling, as a sea of folks in white jerseys came, after Dan Palami and the team asked the fans to come in white.

LAST Sunday, Jojo of ABS CBN news contacted me because of a bombshell that was going around the Internet. As an internet-savvy journalist, Jojo was trying to get the background of a certain guy before printing a rumor. I didn't, of course, tell him not to carry story. I simply told him, i don't trust the guy as he is known to make "mountains out of anthills, and sometimes, he even makes the anthills himself."

POOR Ed Hayco. This hardworking commissioner at the CCSC just got sued, among others, for “neglect of duty” and “lack of courtesy, professionalism,” just because one expat coach got barred from a baseball clinic and a softball tournament. The coach filed the complaint last July 7 at the Ombudsman for something that happened months back.

AS A rule, I always avoid criticizing other writers whenever they show their ignorance about football since I think that everyone should write about football if they want to, right? It’s a welcome change from just less than a year ago. And though there were times when sports personalities really got it wrong, like the one who said “away draws” were worth 1.5 points, I just simply blamed it on “growing up pains.” Besides, folks like them only hurt their reputation.

EFREN Reyes was two years away from winning his world pool title—the win that sparked the interest in billiards in the country—when I and a few kababayans began spending most of our free time over at Lucky 13. Sometimes, we’d skip our classes for what we call “practical physics” in a run-down billiard hall with tables that list and has more patches than a government building.

WITH their chances of advancing to the third round of the Fifa World Cup qualifiers at “slim to none,” the Philippine men’s football team is back to its familiar role as the underdog. But for Dan Palami, that’s more than enough.

THE Philippine Azkals made history by making it to the second round of the FIfa World Cup qualifiers after beating an overmatched Sri Lanka, 4-0, in the second leg of their first round match at the Rizal Memorial Stadium. So dominant were the Azkals that the score Could have been easily more but the 4-0 tally was more than enough for the team to make the second round on aggregate, 5-1, after the 1-1 draw in Sri Lanka. Next up for the Azkals is the dangerous Kuwait, one of the toughest team in Asia. The first leg will be in Kuwait on July 3, while the second leg is in Manila on July 28.

BEWARE of Roy Moore. On the off chance that you’d see today, someone claiming to be Roy, you know that dude who’s often seen in the company of Jacques Palami, I want you to collar that impostor, call the police and while waiting for the boys in blue, sneak in a couple of uppercuts or kicks to the shin. That’s not Roy Moore, at least the one the Pinoy football fans follow.

WHEN I watched the World Cup Fifa qualifiers draw and saw the Philippines drew Sri Lanka in Round 1 of the Fifa World Cup qualifiers, I, and so many others, looked right at the Round 2 match. On to Kuwait, I thought. “Let’s beat Kuwait!” one of the Azkals starters tweeted. Fact is, I was so confident the match last Wednesday would be in our favor that I thought that it would be better if I’d just apply for accreditation for the home leg of the Kuwait series since covering a “foregone conclusion” wouldn’t be that great compared to a match where the Azkals are expected to fight for their very lives. Big mistake. A very big mistake.