Gilas five needs our support

THE ONGOING football World Cup offers valuable lessons about supporting one’s national team.

It’s not only about going gaga over your squad’s participation on arguably the biggest sporting stage.  Painting one’s face in the national colors, toting streamers and banners and cheering or singing in unison are all part of the external manifestations of support and love for one’s homeland.

Even the Japanese fans natural instinct to clean up their trash after watching their team is a show of support.  It’s like saying we can also have fun cheering for our team but we won’t lose sight of being good citizens as well.  We may have lost 2-1 to the Ivory Coast but we’ll respect the venue as well.

These insights trickle over to our own participation in the basketball world championships this August.  Many are making plans to visit Spain with many travel agencies and products offering promos of all kinds.

If you can afford it, do go to Spain and cheer for Gilas Pilipinas.  On this world stage, the team will need every able body to root for them.

Gilas making it to the world championship is like getting a spot in the football World Cup.  Your team is one of the best in the world and finishing second in your region is a big deal.  This is so true for the Philippines that has struggled to stay in the upper tiers of Asian basketball supremacy over the last couple of years.

Basketball though presents a different sporting context and adversity.  Size and three-point shooting ability will matter in the world games.

Gilas has beefed up in these areas but the competition is naturally tall and hefty and ironically, can also move fast and shoot well from afar.  Gone are the days when Philippine teams could rely heavily on speed to win against slower-footed opponents.

But like football, defense will be the key, regardless of the size of the opponents.  There have been a number of ties in the ongoing World Cup because the defenses have been tight and the goalkeepers have done sterling jobs.

Defense has given the lesser lights of football a chance against the fancied offensive stars of the elite teams.

It will take a lot on Gilas’ part to shut down its opponents.  Unlike in football where scoring is spaced out over 90 minutes, a three-point shot or a layup can happen twice in a single minute in basketball.

No matter what the opposition will be in Spain, the country should offer its unwavering support to Gilas in the World Championship and in the Incheon Asian Games that will immediately follow.  Like the fans in the football World Cup, we should unfurl the national colors in whatever acceptable form.

It’s all right to be realistic about our chances of making it to the Round of 16 but it’s also perfectly appropriate to wish for a spot higher than we can ever imagine.  Even the football teams at the World Cup are aiming higher than their dreams and that’s why the games have been so fiercely fought.