Villaflor: Are the Little Azkals ready?

FOR six weeks, some two dozen boys under 13 years old have been training in a secluded campus some 25 kilometers from Cebu City.

At the Don Bosco Boys Home, they would sleep as a team, take their meals as a team, and have nothing on their minds but football. They would train on the football field twice a day: from 6 to 8 in the morning, and from 4 to six in the evening.


Next Tuesday, 22 of the 24 trainees will fly to Sabah, Malaysia for the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Under-13 Festival of Football from June 1 to 6.


Dubbed the Little Azkals, the team, a selection of the country’s finest young players, will go up against Malaysia, Australia, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Timor Leste and Myanmar.

Cebuano Oliver “Bingbing” Colina, an AFC “B”-licensed coach, is responsible for molding the team into a competitive unit in such a short period. He has two assistants from Manila: Noel Marcaida, the goalkeeping coach with a “B” license, and Eliezar Fabroada, who carries a “C” license.

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