Azkals Huddle
I’ve spent serious cash on a game, stood in line for an hour, screamed for almost two hours and woken up at 5 AM despite the lack of sleep to watch a live telecast of Real Madrid versus FC Barcelona. I blame Chris. I blame Neil,Chieffy, Schrock, Anton, Aly, Phil & James. My mild interest with football has officially turned into a full-blown attraction. I now belong to the hundreds of Filipinos who’ve gone crazy for a sport that barely registered on our consciousness a year ago.
I’ve always been curious about football, that I’ve even watched the last two World Cup final matches just to see why fans go mad over this. Being raised in a country reigned by basketball, I never understood why people go insane over a seemingly boring game to the point of rioting, stampede or worse, death. I mean it’s just a bunch of guys kicking the ball for 90 minutes without even scoring. Boxing lasts only a quarter that long, and you can’t even blink or else you might miss the knockout punch.
The first Azkal game I watched changed all that. I wasn’t even familiar with most of the rules, heck, I didn’t even know most of the players then but I was hooked. When you have a team to root for, you watch their every move and you hardly notice the time at all. All it needed to lose my bored impression and wake my sleeping interest in this game is to have a national team to support. So a year later, leads to me to the Dream Cup.
An hour before the much-awaited match, we were still stuck in line in front of Starbucks in Torre Lorenzo. Even the smooth talking upper middle class folks, I even spotted a few celebrities, weren’t spared from lining up from RMS’s Vito Cruz gate, all the way around to McDonalds LaSalle. Why the organizers didn’t anticipate this and opened the gates earlier, I chalked it up to bad planning and logistics. Thankfully we got to our seats just a few minutes before the national anthems. There was still a really long line behind us waiting to get in, and those people most likely missed the first few minutes of the game.
Crowd Shot
A significant majority of the crowd were novice fans like I am, or for the discerning football elitists, the so-called bandwagoners. I’ll bet less than 30 percent of the people there doesn’t know anybody from LA Galaxy besides David Beckham and they’ve only heard about Landon Donovan when this friendly was announced. If being a new football fan because of the Azkals popularity makes me a bandwagoner, then charge me guilty. So maybe part of team’s popularity they owe to their billboard-ready bodies and faces, that it caused so many debates between success of the dragonboat team versus the football team. If the tables were turned, say the dragonboat team had the celebrity looks and the Azkals looked plainer, their fame might have been a lot different. But I see no reason for argument. All I’m grateful for is these guys finally gave me and Pinoys in general a reason to catch up with the world’s most favorite sport.
Being in the stadium felt as surreal as waiting for your favorite band before a live concert. I was so used to watching the games on TV, I expected a commentator, not that it matters. The acoustics were so terrible that even if somebody announced I’ve just won a million dollars, I wouldn’t have a clue. All I heard were the occasional vuvuzelas, the fans yelling at every Azkal ball possession and this group of boys behind us with their witty commentaries. They had funny banners out too, and from what I’ve eavesdropped, they flew all the way from another side of the country just for this game. They’re just one of the hundreds who really made an effort to grab this rare chance of watching Beckham show off on the pitch. You can tell from the excited screams everytime he had the ball that most of the people were there because of him. Beckham kicking that first goal in his trademark move was pure classic. Who’d have guessed I’d actually see that just a few blocks away from where my aunt lived? Okay, that might have been irrelevant but it still added to how dreamy, pun intended, everything was, from watching these guys play to the almost sold-out crowd that came, although a lot of them were screaming chicks (and gays?) who were there mainly for seeing sweaty, handsome guys taking their shirts off.
I don’t think anybody expected the Azkals to win anyway. From the fans to players alike, the whole experience was a testament to how dramatically things can change in a year. I’m sure it felt more surreal to the guys, like Phil and James, than it ever was for us. After struggling unsupported in the shadows for years, then finally playing in limelight against your football hero, scoring a goal in the same game he did, it had to be the coolest highlight in their career so far. I saw Beckham up close too, even if it meant temporarily losing propriety and chasing the LA Galaxy bus while it’s still stuck in traffic. I couldn’t have asked for a better end to my first live football game, except maybe if I’ve seen Etheridge, or I can get a picture with Chris, Rob or any of the guys from the history-changing Suzuki Cup. I’ll get my chance, there’s still more games ahead and hopefully it gets better from here on end.
Here's David Beckham, smiling at a kid who climbed on top of a jeepney roof just to wave at him
One last thing, even if it’s too much to hope for, I will never stop asking for the return of Simon McMenemy to the Azkals.
