MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine national football team, also called the "Azkals," offered free football training to youngsters in Tacloban City – the place where the Filipino booters trained for the ASEAN Football Federation (AFF) Suzuki Cup early December.
During their football clinic, the young football players of Tacloban were very much enthusiastic. Other young fans enjoyed watching their football heroes from the sidelines.
"This is our way of saying thank you sa Tacloban because they have been instrumental to the preparation of the Azkals," said Dan Palami, the Azkals' team manager.
Siblings Phil and James Younghusband, who were not present during the morning session, arrived later in the day to join the team-sponsored training .
The Younghusbands themselves have launched their own football clinic in Manila for young people interested in the sport.
"The Younghusband Football Academy [is] where we go to public schools and we teach the PE [Physical Education] teachers to teach the kids," Phil said.
"For free, we got to teach some kids," James added.
They said that this is their way to promote football in the Philippines.
Meantime, the Azkals are gearing up for a World Cup 2011 qualifier and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Challenge Cup on February to be held in Bacolod City. – Report by Jenette Ruedas, ABS-CBN News Tacloban
ABS-CBN News
this is nice development for pinoy football. akala ko walang interesadong pinoy sa laro na ito. at least your victory in the recent competition was covered by the pinoy press. by my guesstimate, we'd be needing about 29+/- 4 years of intensive football development program lang to catch up with the spanish & argentine football teams (in 2002, my guess was 38 years). :)
ReplyDeleteguys at the PFF, have u tried contacting nick rimando (his father's a pinoy, and his mother's a mexican) in 2000? sayang di na siya pwede kasi he was capped for the USMNT in 2002.
i wish our team the best of luck!
FORZA ASKALS!
(may i suggest that we change our team nickname into something that connotes greatness, like haribon? maybe in the near future?)
futbolerong_pinoy