MANILA, Philippines - The lack of cohesion bogging the Philippine under-23 Azkals in the 26th Southeast Asian Games has emphasized once again the need to develop more home-grown talents committed to train together for longer periods.
“(Team manager) Dan Palami and (coach Michael) Weiss have the best of intentions. Dan spent to get the best (players from Europe). But football is teamwork. You can’t achieve it in three days or one week of practice,” said Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) chairman Monico Puentevella, also a member of the advisory council of the Philippine Football Federation (PFF).
For this campaign, team management has assembled a combo of local-based players and pros plying their trade in Europe, like Roland Muller, Manny Ott, Jeffrey Christiaens and Carli de Murga. The Euro-based booters only joined the team in Indonesia already, in time for their first game.
The U23 Azkals dropped a 1-3 loss to Vietnam and a 1-2 setback to darkhorse Timor Leste as their semifinal bid got dimmer each game day.
“Our players in the under-23 are not short of talent. But to put them in the field to play as a team, you need more time of playing together,” observed Philippine Sports Commission chairman Richie Garcia.
Puentevella batted for a stronger grassroots development program.
“I guess we can’t rely on the guys from outside all the time. Grassroots must be strengthened. We must go back to the drawing board,” said Puentevella.
Weiss said he’s already entertaining the idea of tapping more locals next time, but asked for a more tempered expectation from Filipino fans.
“A lot of these boys are very young; they can still play in 2013 SEA Games. The hopes in the Philippines now are way too high; we should lower our expectations, work hard, and continue to build up players who are having the right heart beat and not thinking themselves as superstars because somebody admires them in the Philippines.
“I should very well think who to bring here for this tournament, one idea is to bring more local players and see how they can compete in international exposure,” he said.
The U23 Azkals stand at the rear in Group B with no point to show after two games. Timor Leste holds the unlikely lead with six points (two wins) followed by Vietnam and Myanmar with identical four points (1-1-0), and Laos and Brunei with one apiece (0-1-1).
Phl XI battles Laos on Friday, Myanmar on Sunday and Brunei in Tuesday, gunning for victories while hoping the leaders wouldn’t pile up the points to keep their slim chance for the semis.
But Weiss himself is practically conceding a place in the medal rounds.
“We have to think now of the immediate strategy as the tournament is most likely not on us. We do not even have to think of the semifinals,” the German mentor said.
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kaya nga minadali nyo ang under 23 tournament for the early preparation ng squad sa ASEAN, tapos anu.....anu.....wala naman prob kung may deserving na fil-for pero saan na yung planu nyo na training ng under 23 squadna sabi nyo tapos ng ng tournamnet eh may ng ngayon taon pa yun....anu dyos ko matagal na yang problema......ngayon anu ang rason ang mga squad ay para pla sa 2013.....training...training....training ....PFF trabaho nyo eto....POC cocomento pa indi nyo ba naisip yan noon pa naku po...malamang pupulutin sa kangkongan ang buong delegation ng phl sa asean kung ganyan ang mentality ni puentevella....
ReplyDeleteBakit ba nakikisawsaw yang putanginangoc at pwetnibella at richie garcia? Diba sila din yung sinisisi ng DRAGOnboat team sa mga kapalpakan? Putangina talaga.
ReplyDeletei think pff and poc should consider the U23 2011 champions and those teams who participated in the U23 league... what is the purpose then of having the games when they will chose the fil-for... there are a lot of local talents from iloilo and negros. infact, last week the ceres-negros team beat the visiting london fc in a friendly game at the pana-ad stadium. so please! try to look at this. i saw a lot of games at the UFL, but the ilonggos have a better set play, a faster tempo and better players.
ReplyDeletePFF said previously that the players from the champion and runner-up teams of the recent Philippine U23 tournament will be fielded for the SEA games. Now the debacle is PFF's responsibility.
ReplyDeleteWhether we like it or not, in the bigger picture, lack of grassroots system and the absence of a decent football youth program at the national level by the PFF, is the essence of the causes for this past 2 games’ failure. Those that “like” the Azkals and football in general tend to only see things that are directly in front of them. The ones that “love” the sport see beyond just the image in front of them and feel the urgency to tackle reality in its rawest form. The minority of these two groups decided to tackle the reality and it is that the PFF is not doing a good job at making sure that the future of our football is secure; that there is no system set that provides conditions for our youth football players. Really, our country’s football following is delineated by these two groups. They’re not one and the same, but both are good for our football.
ReplyDeleteWe all want to believe things have changed in the PFF. It’s under new management. Weather the new management have utilized a different approach to address mistakes done in the past, or are better prepared for the future than the previous ones, we don’t really know. Clearly when it comes to popularizing the game in our country they have indeed done a remarkable job. LA Galaxy with Becks and Donovan in December, whoa, if that doesn’t intensify more cravings among football fanatics and would-be football fanatics, I don’t know what else will. But when one takes the time to examine the past year’s journey of our football, it’s not hard to see that our PFF gods had failed to develop a system, particularly an efficient strategic approach to the growing football competition in Asia. Notice the word “efficient” and not mere “effective”. Recruitment of Filipinos living abroad is effective, but NOT efficient. Fielding Filipino foreign-based players with more experience than our local home-based players on the pitch is effective, but NOT efficient. Composing on the fly a motley of players from different points who barely had the chance to get to know each other or bond into what is fundamentally known as TEAM for a shot at major competition for flag and all that good stuff is effective, but NEVER efficient.
So why are fans and followers pointing the fingers at PFF? They had it coming from day one of new management when nothing was immediately drawn out to drastically address this problem of grassroots. Will we accept “it’s not that easy” as an excuse? No. Is it a complex thing to do? Yes, maybe. Is a creation of a blue-print for a grassroots football system for our youth so demanding it would take more than year to weave a general plan? Could be. Are there strong unseen forces preventing or influencing the creation of youth-system design? Ok, sure. Boy, have we got ourselves a long list of excuses?
Here’s a solution: ACTION! ACTION! ACTION! Put together a bunch of smart people and let them brainstorm a design. Task a study group to do a research on what other countries are doing with their football programs. Send people out there to look into these programs and copy/paste these programs into ours, then later adopt changes and make it our own. Liaise with football federations of other nations; send people to the moon, if that’s necessary. Find an attainable standard model that is flexible and more applicable to our needs. Turn that model inside out, decapitate it, break it apart, then put it back together. Develop. But more importantly, START the first step. Do something!
Funding is a problem, you’d say. Of course. “But where are we going to get the money for this?”. Classic. You’ll find a way PFF. You are already spending money. As a matter of fact, you have been spending HUGE amounts of money already. Effectively or efficiently? Neither, nor. 90% of that money should be grassroots or youth development program, the others can fight for the 10%.
Based on what he's achieved Coach Weiss deserves the boot but of course it won't happen. The German FA pays his wages plus much more and the PFF can't bite the hand that feeds it.
ReplyDeleteWhat's needed now is for everybody from boss Araneta to the humblest fan to accept what every other nation - even Japan - has had to accept when starting off in football: there is no hope of progress in international competitions until the game is properly established domestically. The last Filipino NT coach, Juan Cutillas, predicted 10 years and was damned for pessimism, yet that's the timescale all other countries now at the top Asian level expected at the beginning.
Yes, PH is fortunate in that it can recruit experienced fil-fors but Weiss insists a good NT must spent lots of time together and no quality overseas player is going to move out here to work for peanuts.
This leaves a huge national project ahead if football is to become a national sport. Central and local government must be fully involved and be prepared to finance enough basic football pitches for all interested kids to have a chance to play. That's a tough enough challenge for a rich country and probably an unachievable one here where public budgets seem to be accepted as a source of private wealth.
But a moral revolution in public service is long overdue and if enough ordinary citizens commit themselves to helping Filipino youth the day will come when football crowds roar with joy, not frustration.