Limpag: Time for Cebu to host an Azkal match?

OUTSIDE of Bacolod, Cebu was one of the cities to embrace the Azkals and to host a friendly between the team and a selection of local players.


Fans who saw the game didn�t go home disappointed, as the Azkals won by a mile, 6-0, on a hat trick by Phil Younghusband and they were able to interact with the players after the match.


The team returned to Cebu for a friendly of sorts last year�at the USC SVD center field against a team of expat-volunteers�with only the opposing team, friends and kids as the audience.


Dan Palami, who was also in that friendly, told me he wouldn�t mind returning to those roots�playing in small friendly games�but I doubt if it would happen.


Not that I doubt Sir Dan�s words, I simply think that if the Azkals play at the USC SVD center again, there would be too many fans there won�t be enough space to play on.


But wouldn�t it be great for Cebuanos to see the team in action in Cebu? It would be a great reward for fan loyalty and for�in Dan�s words��embracing the team before the rest of the country did.�


Dan, the players who were here last summer, and even Coach Michael Weiss, all want to return to Cebu for training and even a friendly.


But, as Dan said last summer, �I can�t believe there�s no stadium in Cebu.�


Of course we have the Cebu City Sports Center but you�d have to be nuts to suggest the team play there and I didn�t suggest it.


That will all change in a few months�November to be exact according to Ricky Ballesteros.


The football field�or the Abellana Dust Bowl as Graeme Mackinnon calls it---will get a makeover, one befitting a football field that is inside a sports complex.


And what�s the better way to open a rehabilitated football field than to host an Azkal match against Cebu�s best players?
The idea isn�t mine.


�I want to invite the Azkals for a tuneup game. Maybe even the Under 23 team since they are preparing for the SEA Games,� CCSC manager Ricky Ballesteros told me last week.


I hope it pushes through because when fans flock to the CCSC, the PFF and Azkals management won�t be just thinking of Bacolod and Manila when the country hosts a game.


�Why not Cebu? They got a nice stadium,� I can almost hear them say.


And, as an added incentive, we�re going to give �them scalpers� free orange suits and let them dance Michael Jackson�s Thriller if they dare show up.


(www.cebufootball.blogspot.com)



Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on July 21, 2011.