Nothing beats foreign exposure

Reports from the Azkals training camp in Germany reveal that the Philippine national squad has been losing its training matches in lopsided fashion.
To those unfamiliar with the international football terrain, the losses can simply be dismissed as confirmation that we will never really make a dent in the world’s most popular sport.
Such an evaluation is unfair to the efforts of the Azkals who are, after all, in training and did enter the camp with the intention to learn from their more seasoned opponents.
It’s a good thing, in fact, that the team is training abroad—in Europe at that—to get ready for the match against Sri Lanka and future competitions.
This is exactly what we want our national teams and athletes to be doing: Getting international exposure rather than training by taking on each other endlessly here at home.
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The overseas training reminds us of what China did to its basketball team in the latter part of the ’70s and straight into the ’80s. The Chinese sent their teams abroad repeatedly, playing “friendlies” with teams in Europe and Middle Asia.
Back then, the Chinese were often beaten by the more flamboyant and athletic European teams that moved the ball crisply to create openings for three-point bombs.
They even came to the Philippines often. I remember broadcast colleagues Chino Trinidad and TV director Abet Ramos (who were working for Vintage Sports at the time) taking care of a Chinese squad that had a young, reed-thin Yao Ming. Chino and Abet will fondly remember the endless glasses of halo-halo the Chinese would devour to beat our heat.
In time, the Chinese began to show their basketball teeth and you could see the benefits of their travels. They played basketball hard in order to be the best in Asia and to be reckoned with in international play, even if they didn’t win all their games.
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We shouldn’t pressure ourselves too much with our renewed football interest that we have to be in the World Cup right away.  Being on the football world stage is a good objective to work for.
However, we must come to terms that we are still rebuilding our football team after years in the doldrums.
Remember Francis T.J. Ochoa’s revealing interview with former Mr. Football Vic Sison that appeared last Friday in these pages? We did have the foundations of a strong football team in the late ’50s and ’60s but we failed to build on that momentum.
Let’s be glad that we are participating anew in the “beautiful game” in a very competitive manner. Whereas before our Southeast Asian opponents would roll over us with incredible scores (10-nil wasn’t surprising back then), we are no longer pushovers and can tie or even beat them today.
We’re still a couple of years behind Japan, China and the two Koreas but if we stick to our current program, we may one day be in step with the Asian football powers.
If there are still tickets available for the game against Sri Lanka, by all means get them and bring flags and noisemakers to the Rizal Memorial Stadium.
Of course, we want to win with a fighting team that lives up to its Filipino heritage and feisty moniker. A few reports about training losses in Europe won’t dampen our spirits.