BOCAUE, Philippines — Six years ago, the Philippines men’s national football team was merely a blip in the radar of international football.
With the Philippine Football Federation in turmoil under the late Jose Mari Martinez, the Azkals were mired in a tough situation during its 2010 AFF Suzuki Cup campaign. Prior to the tournament, the team was ranked at 166, way behind sub-region rivals Myanmar (137) and Malaysia (148).
But in a surprise twist, the team squeezed past the qualification round with a superior goal difference (+5) against Cambodia (+2). The Azkals then surprised the field in Group B with a 1-1 draw against Singapore, defeated defending champion and group host Vietnam (2-0), and drew 0-0 against Myanmar to qualify to the semi-finals.
Despite the loss to Indonesia in games that were played in hostile territory due to a lack of an adequate stadium, the legend of the Azkals was born. Now, the country is hosting the group stage of the tournament that led to the sport’s return to prominence.
Simon McMenemy, one of the architects of the miraculous 2010 run, was choked up with nostalgia of the team’s accomplishment that led to the sport’s renaissance. Before taking up the gig with the national team in 2010, the now 38-year old Briton’s lone coaching experience at the time was with the England regional league side Worthing F.C.
“The beauty was that we approached each game differently. We tried hard stay compact, stay tight, and not get beat,” said McMenemy to Eagle News. “When you start linking games like that together, like that equalizer (by Chris Greatwich) against Singapore, it gave us belief that we can at least match big teams.”
The team was a rag-tag bunch of footballers, consisting of military men (Roel Gener, Yanti Bersales, Nestor Margase, Ed Sacapano, Ian Araneta, Chieffy Caligdong), Fil-foreigners (Neil Etheridge, Rob Gier, Ray Jonsson, Mark Drinkuth, Jason De Jong, Christopher Greatwich, James and Phil Younghusband), and local semi-pro standouts (Anton del Rosario, Aly Borromeo).
With the odd match of veteran players at his disposal, McMenemy – who recently coached Loyola Meralco Sparks F.C. in the United Football League and serves as an analyst for FOX Sports – used it to his advantage and began using the hard nosed play of his squad to break down the opposition on the defensive end.
“We started to match other teams in terms of physicality, and we used that in our game plan as our biggest strength and we sat very deep,” he added. “We set it as a challenge for other teams to break us down.”
To this day, McMenemy keeps in tabs with his former players and gets a lot of greetings from the team’s supporters that inspired a lot of kids to take up the sport that continues to see a steady growth today.
“I’m incredibly proud that something I’ve done may have influenced a number of young players to take up the sport. That’s a huge reward,” he noted. “I’ve had parents who I don’t know coming up to me, thanking me and shaking my hand for the team (Azkals) being the catalyst for their sons to play football. It was life-changing for me, it shaped my career.”
