Cebu Football

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Oct. 29 edition) THE Azkals are again in the thick of preparation for the Suzuki Cup, Southeast Asia’s marquee football tournament, and once again, the club vs. country issue is raised. What’s that? Players who play for their clubs—who pay for their salaries—have to be released during Fifa-designated dates for friendlies or tournaments.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Oct 27 edition) AT 3 p.m. on Friday, the two teams started playing football. It wasn’t just an ordinary game because four hours later, a new set of referees took over to officiate the match. In all, there would be 12 substitutions of three-man referee teams who would take four-hour spells to officiate for 50 straight hours, the longest continuous football match in the Philippines. Impressed? Well, that was just a dry run for the group’s real target—101 hours of non-stop football.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Oct. 25 edition) A FEW days before the Cesafi season started, I met former colleague Karlon N. Rama, who now teaches at the University of San Jose-Recoletos. I suggested that, for this season, USJ-R take the lead in doing what no other school in Cebu is doing—cover its own games in the league. A Cesafi member school spends millions for its sports program, covering the Cesafi event would be a little return of investment. It also has a lot of advantages, aside from promoting your sports program, a Cesafi coverage could also be the training ground for the schools journalism or mass communication program.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Oct. 20 edition) IF NOT for archery, I wouldn’t be an architect . That essentially what started the Cebu City Sports Commission’s romance with archery, a love story that has it all--sacrifice, hardship, disaster, resilience and finally, success. During a party in 2012, Dondon Sombrio, a Southeast Asian Games gold medalist for archery, and Ed Hayco, a champion of grassroots sports, met. Sombrio, an architect and a product of the public school system of the country, told the commissioner how archery got him an athletic scholarship. And the plan to set the world-record in archery was born. Over dinner.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Oct. 18 edition) IN A scathing editorial after the fiasco that was the Asian Games campaign of the Philippines, a national daily proposed a shakeup of the Philippine Olympic Committee and the Philippine Sports Commission to help improve the state of Philippine sports in the country. While I have, in the past, hoped that the guys in charge of the PSC and POC be replaced for putting up policies detrimental to the growth of Philippine sports, I have to admit, they aren’t really the primary factor for the dismal showing of the Philippines in the Asian Games.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Oct. 16 issue) WHEN I first learned that our favorite friendly foe Malaysia backed out at the last minute from playing in the Oct. 12 friendly with the Philippines, I thought, “There goes a match that we could have played as part of our Suzuki Cup preparation.” International friendlies are not like your neighborhood lima-lima , you can’t set up one in under a week. So I was surprised the PFF managed to get one in Papua New Guinea but after that 5-0 win, some are asking, should we have bothered at all? There are two lines of thoughts regarding this.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Oct. 15 edition) FIRST it was the football tournament. Now basketball, too? Had the original schedule in football pushed through, the finalists of the Cesafi football tournament would have played back-to-back matches in two days, something that’s uncalled for in a tournament whose members just belong in one area. I mean, it’s not like the Palarong Pambansa, which has small window for its games, hence back-to-back matches for the teams that come all over the country.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Oct. 13 edition) MUTABANG ko kay dako sad sila kaayo tabang nako . He told me minutes after arriving for the Football for Jacob coaches’ meeting of Leylam FC a few days ago. I asked him if he was playing or coaching, but he said he was just there to help. Later, he gave a briefing on the rules. He won’t be named in this story. But most in the Cebu football community know him. I’ve known him for almost 15 years, ever since my then editor told me to write a feature about this young man who was plucked from the streets and became one of the best players in town. He was the topic of a conversation, too, months ago, with another old football player whom I used to cover.

ANYONE who finds himself an employee of Leylam FC should thank his or her stars for being so lucky. Or, if you are the religious type, go to your church, offer a prayer of thanks or light a candle. Why? Consider the group's latest project--Goal for Jacob--on Oct. 19 at the Don Bosco Technological Center. Jacob is the son of one of the employees of Leylam and the 20-month-old boy suffers from club foot. He needs a P200,000 operation and that's a medical procedure that even those who have high positions would find very steep.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Oct. 9 edition) THE cops assigned to help keep the peace during the Cesafi football finals entered the football field, when there was a brief commotion involving the University of San Carlos and the University of Southern Philippines players. I know they had good intentions, but they shouldn’t have done that. And that was the reaction of some of the Cebu Football Association officials, too. Though it looked ugly from the spectators’ point of view, the fraces was under control. The refs, and more importantly, the players themselves, got the few hot-headed players to check their emotions.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Oct. 8 issue) THE University of San Carlos men’s football team should offer a rain dance and thank the weather for the rain delay in the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc.football finals. Not only did the Warriors get an extra day’s rest, but the rescheduling of the high school finals between rivals Don Bosco Technological Center and Sacred Heart School-Jesuit Ateneo de Cebu meant they had the homecourt advantage against USPF.

IT WAS the nightmare in 2011 all over again as University of San Carlos (USC) once again denied the University of Southern Philippines Foundation (USPF) the collegiate crown of the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation (Cesafi) football tournament. After a 3-3 draw in regulation, USC beat USPF, 5-3, via penalty shootout, repeating their 6-5 win in 2011. This year was USPF’s perfect opportunity to snag the title and the Panthers seemed headed that way after Christian Millebo took advantage of a miscommunication by central defender Allain Abella and goalkeeper Jupre Aparece to score the opening goal in the 16th minute. (To read full story. Please click this link )

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Oct. 6 issue) WHAT happened to the University of San Carlos men’s football team? I saw the Warriors semifinal encounter against former champion University of Cebu, which beat them in the group stage, and they seemed like a team transformed. To say that they played a beautiful game was an understatement. Despite the muddy field that rendered the field close to unplayable, their passing game was nothing short of brilliant. Their goal even came from a play that started with the keeper, and six passes later that left the UC defense scrambling, John Arizabal ran to the bench to celebrate that magnificent piece of teamwork.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Oct. 4 issue) IT WAS fun seeing Marbel FC in the Group D qualifiers of the PFF Smart Cup at the Cebu City Sports Center last Wednesday. Though they lost, I saw some familiar faces--and familiar plays. I grew up in Polomolok, South Cotabato, which is just 45 minutes away from Marbel, and our towns share quite a rivalry which had an unfortunate streak spanning three years that saw at least one player get seriously hurt.

(This is my story for Sun.Star Cebu's Oct. 4 edition) A DEFENSIVE adjustment paid offensive dividends for University of Cebu-Erco, as it routed the visiting University of Mindanao-Tagum, 5-1, in their final match of the Group D qualifiers of the Philippine Football Federation (PFF) Smart Cup Club championships in the Cebu City Sports Center. UC-Erco finished the qualifiers with six points on two wins, and will advance to the quarterfinal round along with Group E winner, Laos, which also scored a 5-1 win over Cagayan yesterday.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Oct. 1 edition ) THE purpose of the organizers of the Green Loop experiment is noble and whether the experiment was a success or not--I'd leave that to the writers in the opinion pages--a pro-environment movement is something a dirty urban city needs. Though it depends on which side of the fence you are sitting, closing the roads for the Green Loop was either a disaster or one big success, but closing the roads of Cebu isn't something new. We do that regularly for events like the Ironman, the Cebu Marathon and other sports events where the organizers managed to secure a permit.

LAST year, Gilas coach Chot Reyes was the toast of the basketball world, having guided the team to second place in the Fiba Asia championship and a slot to the World Cup for the first time in decades. There were those who criticized him of his choices, for sure, but they were drowned by an adoring crowd ready to crown him as the messiah that would get us the long-sought gold medal in the Asian Games. But in the World Cup of Basketball last August, more questions came and they became louder.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Sept. 27 edition) WHEN I started in sports writing back in 1997, while splitting time as a sophomore at USC taking up BS Electronics and Communication Engineering, I never expected to be in this position now, heading the sports desk. Back then—heck, rare is a sophomore engineering student who plans beyond the weekend binge—life was simple. I rushed to the office after school to file my stories, or during weekends, I’d go to the venues to cover my beat. No Internet, no social media, no cell phones. You had to be there where the story happened. ( CIRCA 1997. That's me in the middle with from left Banat Sports Editor Yoyo Abayan and then correspondent now Freeman Sports Editor Manny Villaruel. )

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Sept. 25 edition) IT’S the semifinal round of the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc. football competition and the University of Southern Philippines Foundation is the No. 1 seed, a development that got me by surprise. I thought the University of San Jose-Recoletos or the University of San Carlos would fight for the No. 1 spot, being last year’s finalists, but right now, the two-time defending champion Jaguars are at fourth place. But thanks to an archaic competition that should have gone the way of the dodo, it might as well be USJ-R at first and USPF at fourth in this Cesafi football playoffs.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Sept. 22 issue ) Last Thursday, I met Chad Songalia, Milky Cañete and Neil Montesclaros--the men behind the Thirsty Cup--to discuss the details for another football tournament that they are handling. The Sun.Star Football Cup.   This age group tournament that was first staged in 2012 after that historic Singapore vs. Philippines match will return for its third edition this year on Nov. 22 and 23, still at the Cebu City Sports Center.