Fair Play: PNG shows CCSC on right path


(This is the draft of my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu for June 5)
THE recent Philippine National Games showed the Cebu City Sports Commission got it right when they decided to support local softball and beach volleyball by putting up a place where the kids play.


Consider this—two Cebu City teams made the men’s finals, while our women won the silver, while our men’s softball team got the silver and the women’s won the gold.



The beach volleyball squads caused quite a stir that the PSC is contemplating disbanding the national squad and transferring the training pool to Cebu, which has won two major titles in the past two months.


And transferring the training pool here would be a just reward for a city and a province that has a rich volleyball heritage and that has players who have been overlooked—or were disillusioned—by the national team.


Besides, with no international medal to show for, don’t you think it’s time for the Philippine Volleyball Federation to think out of the box? (Did you know that Cebu schools got the most Nestea Beach Volleyball titles but Cebuano players rarely get called for the national team?).


Now for softball, we’ve always had a strong community, despite the absence of a strong local office of the NSA. For years, Cebuanos have represented the national teams and now that the Bacarisas family has the support of the CCSC, that means they will continue to do so in years to come.


CCSC has started a massive grassroots program targeting school kids and if before our player pool was limited, that won’t be the same two or three years from now.  That’s the same with beach volleyball, with Eric Lecain taking charge of the sand court at Fort San Pedro.


I hope Eric succeeds in convincing the PVF to set up camp here and if not, well, he has next year’s PNG to show the NSA they got it wrong.


The PNG was designed to help discover new talents for the national teams, and I guess, football missed that memo. Consider this, the Philippine Navy has won once in 14 UFL Division 1 matches, conceding 49 goals and it emerged as PNG champion.  


Yep, the PNG’s best isn’t the best.


So for next year, instead of fielding our men’s teams, the PNG football event could be reformatted to be a competition for, say, boys and girls Under 16?  This age group—especially the girls—doesn’t have a national tourney and this could be a chance for those who slipped through the cracks to be discovered?


(www.cebufootball.blogspot.com)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The failed U23 experiment

THE only positive thing that we can take in that loss against Timor Leste was that the U23 squad looked good in blue. And Ebong, too. The Blue-Haired fanatic whose voice we all heard on TV was fantastic. The team? The result? To be perfectly blunt it was a scrappy game from a scrappy team that seemed to treat the SEAG as a vacation, or a chance to gain more Twitter followers. (Yey, I can tweet the team apology first!) Going into the match, almost every fan who paid attention knew that we needed to win. Unfortunately, it seemed the players were operating on a different mindset.
Read more

Mother Nature plays spoilsport

The heavy rains spoiled the debut of defending champions Don Bosco College yesterday, cutting short the match between DBC A(?) and Bright. Hopefully, it will be a sunny Sunday. P.S. It will be interesting to note, how DBC divided its teams for the U12.
Read more

A Pinoy played for Real Madrid? (updated)

Image
HERE'S an interesting photo submitted by Asian Football Confederation women's committee member Cristina Ramos. Its taken at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium and shows a gallery of the great players who played for Real Madrid. And guess where one of them is from? Jaron Genota said the only information he has managed to gather is that the player's name is Teus. I hope to get more information on this guy in the next few months. Ms. Ramos, who was also in the organizing committee of the Fifa U17 and U20 women's world cup, said the picture was part of Real Madrid's exhibit on the universality of their players. From Ms. Ramos, "Mike, the photo of the Filipino player was part of the display entitled "The Universality of our Players" in the Real Madrid museum in Bernabeu. It's funny that they acknowledged him but did not name him. Only those from countries which participated in the World Cup were named."
Read more