Post by stellarboy on May 3, 2012 21:45:08 GMT 8
Did you know that Team Azkals only has four players?
Wed, 06/22/2011 - 23:01 — Jaime Garchitorena
I never knew there were only four people on the Philippine Azkals football team!
To start, I’m not a big fan of soccer so when the Philippine Azkals started making headlines, I didn’t give it much notice. But lately, I’ve been watching the cable channel, BALLS, mostly for the UFC, so now I realize what the Azkals have achieved. No, I don’t catch re-runs of the Azkal games but there’s this portion in BALLS that they call, Meet the Philippine Azkals, and for the last month or so and all I’ve seen them feature are four players, so apparently the entire team is composed of only four people! Imagine that! A game normally played with 11 players on the field and the Philippines only fields four…and they win! Incredible! Who are these SUPER men? There’s Rob Gier, James and Phil Younghusband, and Anton del Rosario. Apparently these four manage to fill the positions that other teams have to field seven other to do so.
Of course Im being facetious and of course I know that there are more than four people on the Azkals team but the presentations of BALLS highlights a mentality that rivals the famous crab mentality of the Pinoy. This mentality upholds a combination of slick accents, arguable good looks, and exotic last names in favor of the hard working everyman that makes up the brunt of any well-oiled, people based machine.
What makes matters worse is that out of the twenty on the team roster in the game against Sri Langka, six are from the Armed Forces. Not that I have a particular soft spot in my heart for the Armed Forces, but it would seem to me that if any groups morale needed boosting or any institution in the Philippines needed a modicum of respect and admiration from the general population it would be them.
On the BALLS side, maybe they’re ( the Armed Forces peeps) not good looking enough to put in commercials or to appoint as some odd ambassador to some cause or the other? Or maybe they have odd accents that might betray our supposed command of the “flawless” English as Rico Hizon was so eager ( and much highlighted in many forums) to hail? Or maybe they don’t pass the BALLS standard of who gets featured on their channel? Who knows?
On the team management side, you might have thought that the manager of the Azkals might have asked BALLS to feature the other players as well as these Phil-somethings. Maybe he did and BALLS said no. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe nobody cares. All I know is that, except for these four “cuties” of Philippine Soccer, the rest of the team may as well be invisible.
Now I don’t give a flying fig ( Moonlighting reference…Google it) about soccer, but I do have a soft spot in my heart for hardworking “nobodies” that nobody seems to care about. Because in my mind, if all we see are the mestizo, well bred, media palatable, commercially marketable personalities to push forward into the public’s collective consciousness, let’s not be surprised when elections roll along in 2013 and all we see on the ballots are artistas and media hogging politicians and none of the hard working “nobodies” that we could be voting for. Say...Phil Younghusband for Congressman?
Hey, what can we do, the others, they’re just not pretty enough to mention.
yps.org.ph/blog/did-you-know-team-azkals-only-has-four-players
Wed, 06/22/2011 - 23:01 — Jaime Garchitorena
I never knew there were only four people on the Philippine Azkals football team!
To start, I’m not a big fan of soccer so when the Philippine Azkals started making headlines, I didn’t give it much notice. But lately, I’ve been watching the cable channel, BALLS, mostly for the UFC, so now I realize what the Azkals have achieved. No, I don’t catch re-runs of the Azkal games but there’s this portion in BALLS that they call, Meet the Philippine Azkals, and for the last month or so and all I’ve seen them feature are four players, so apparently the entire team is composed of only four people! Imagine that! A game normally played with 11 players on the field and the Philippines only fields four…and they win! Incredible! Who are these SUPER men? There’s Rob Gier, James and Phil Younghusband, and Anton del Rosario. Apparently these four manage to fill the positions that other teams have to field seven other to do so.
Of course Im being facetious and of course I know that there are more than four people on the Azkals team but the presentations of BALLS highlights a mentality that rivals the famous crab mentality of the Pinoy. This mentality upholds a combination of slick accents, arguable good looks, and exotic last names in favor of the hard working everyman that makes up the brunt of any well-oiled, people based machine.
What makes matters worse is that out of the twenty on the team roster in the game against Sri Langka, six are from the Armed Forces. Not that I have a particular soft spot in my heart for the Armed Forces, but it would seem to me that if any groups morale needed boosting or any institution in the Philippines needed a modicum of respect and admiration from the general population it would be them.
On the BALLS side, maybe they’re ( the Armed Forces peeps) not good looking enough to put in commercials or to appoint as some odd ambassador to some cause or the other? Or maybe they have odd accents that might betray our supposed command of the “flawless” English as Rico Hizon was so eager ( and much highlighted in many forums) to hail? Or maybe they don’t pass the BALLS standard of who gets featured on their channel? Who knows?
On the team management side, you might have thought that the manager of the Azkals might have asked BALLS to feature the other players as well as these Phil-somethings. Maybe he did and BALLS said no. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe nobody cares. All I know is that, except for these four “cuties” of Philippine Soccer, the rest of the team may as well be invisible.
Now I don’t give a flying fig ( Moonlighting reference…Google it) about soccer, but I do have a soft spot in my heart for hardworking “nobodies” that nobody seems to care about. Because in my mind, if all we see are the mestizo, well bred, media palatable, commercially marketable personalities to push forward into the public’s collective consciousness, let’s not be surprised when elections roll along in 2013 and all we see on the ballots are artistas and media hogging politicians and none of the hard working “nobodies” that we could be voting for. Say...Phil Younghusband for Congressman?
Hey, what can we do, the others, they’re just not pretty enough to mention.
yps.org.ph/blog/did-you-know-team-azkals-only-has-four-players