INQUIRER Sports

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine football team sidelined by the Influenza A(H1N1) virus will get to see some action after all.

Delegation officials said Friday the 18-man RP team, whose one member tested positive for new flu virus, will play against host Singapore Saturday in a “friendly” outside of the Asian Youth Games (AYG) main competitions.

Table tennis chief and chief of mission Col. Cezar Hawthorne Binag reported from Singapore that the football team has been released from its quarantine and brought back to the Games Village.

Accompanied by their parents and guardians, the team members checked in at Swiss Hotel and had a practice just before lunchtime.

They will take on Singapore at 2:30 p.m. at the Jalan Besar Stadium just so they won’t bow out of competitions without taking a shot.

“They are all in very good condition and ready to play tomorrow,” said Binag. “The parents are extremely happy.”

The RP junior booters, aged 14 and under, were culled from private schools including Ateneo, Southridge, Marist, Far Eastern University and De La Salle Zobel, plus stalwarts from school in Visayas and Mindanao.

One of them tested positive for flu, and though the rest of the team was negative, organizers decided to quarantine the squad.

The 10-day quarantine spanned the football events’ opening matches, and requests from Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) chair Harry Angping to let the boys play were turned down by organizers of the 45-nation tournament.

The team was scheduled to face Chinese Taipei, Kuwait and Iran but all games were postponed because of the incident.

“My feedback is that they (players) were downhearted because they prepared very hard for his,” said Angping. “But the bottom line is that everyone is okay.”

All other Philippine athletes in swimming, athletics, basketball, shooting, table tennis, beach volleyball, diving and bowling in the AYG have been given flu vaccine shots, but officials know it’s not an assurance that they will not contract the virus.