Passion for the game

BAGO CITY – Under the hot morning sun the other day, four coaches from the Federacion Andaluza de Futbol labored for four hours to teach 73 coaches how to make the game enjoyable for kids at the Manuel Torres Sports Center in this Negros Occidental city.

The coaches couldn’t care less about the heat. A passion for the world’s most popular sport drives them to endure whatever hardship comes their way in bringing the game closer to those who care to embrace it.

The four coaches live in Andalucia where the weather is chilly at this time of year. They’re affiliated with the Centro de Estudios, Desrrollo E Investigacion del Futbol Andaluz, which farms out over 100 coaches all over the world to propagate the sport.

Francisco Lopez Servio, 56, heads the group. The others are tactical specialist Maor Rozen, 44, physical conditioning expert Juan Jose Guerra Martin, 26, and skills coach Pablo Garcia Bombarelli, 30. They’re all university graduates with a consuming love for the game. Their mission is to teach others how to teach football, particularly to youngsters at the grassroots level.

It was Sen. Edgardo Angara who made the initial contact with the group during a visit to Spain three years ago. Sen. Angara explored ways to strengthen cultural ties between the Philippines and Spain particularly as his home province, Aurora, was the last Spanish military bastion before the revolution. He thought of sports as the vehicle to promote a stronger relationship.

Prompted by Angara, Servio and three others came to Manila to conduct an intensive 10-day workshop for coaches assembled by the Philippine Football Federation (PFF) at the PhilSports complex in 2006. The next year, Servio was back to continue the mission, this time with Rozen who stayed behind on Negros Occidental Football Association (NOFA) president Charlie Cojuangco’s invitation to explore grassroots possibilities in the province.

Last week, the four visitors were in Baler, Aurora, for a five-day seminar, workshop and clinic involving 32 coaches and 250 kids in the 8-18 age level. Aurora Gov. Bellaflor Angara-Castillo hosted the event.

Today, the group is finishing a similar camp for four days here. Coaches from Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental and Bukidnon paid P100 a day to attend. The token fee is to subsidize meals, snacks and living expenses. While NOFA could have easily opened the camp for free, the preference was to make each participant pay even a token amount so that he has a personal stake in the project.

“Football is like a table with four legs,” explained Rozen. “You take away one of the legs and the table is no longer stable. The four legs are technique, tactics, physical training and psychological or mental conditioning. Our concept is to bring all four legs into the picture when we teach football. Aside from that, we teach the values of discipline, hard work and integrity.”

Rozen said he has never experienced such a high humidity in hot weather but it’s no bother. Bombarelli added the smiles on the faces of the participants make them forget about the heat.

“When you see the participants enjoying, learning and applying what they’re learning, it makes you feel so happy that the hard work is paying off,” said Bombarelli. “That’s the feeling we get with Filipinos who come for our training.”

Rozen, a drillmaster, cracks a big whip and keeps the participants in line.

During a two-on-one pass-and-shoot drill, he repeatedly barked instructions like “Go for the ball, don’t back off, be aggressive, this isn’t backgammon, this isn’t boxing – where you can win by scoring points because in football, you go for a knockout by scoring goals, if you don’t run, your opponent will take money from your pocket.”

Servio said with the support of the PFF, leaders like Cojuangco and media, the outlook can only be bright for Philippine football.

“I predict an explosion in Philippine football soon,” he said. “More and more people will realize the potential of Filipino players to be competitive. In Spain, there are 700,000 players in a population of 44 million. In the Philippines, there are only 3,000 players in a population of 84 million. I think we can develop more Filipino football players in the future.”

Coaches who attended the camp said what they learned from the Spanish group will go a long way in teaching the game to kids.

Edmundo Trinidad, the oldest among the participants at 62, said the Spanish coaches were helpful in sharing techniques in improving ball control, coordination and teamwork. The Bacolod high school coach, who teaches over 100 kids in the 8-17 age level, said he learned the importance of being creative and imaginative in playing the game.

Jed Buenviaje, 31, said he enrolled in the camp to learn more about the game. He is a physical therapy graduate from Riverside College and works with sports medicine specialist Dr. Emily Zerrudo here.

Carlos Tabanao, 47, came from Dumaguete and said he learned how to make the game more attractive to kids. John Baren, 20, coaches over 40 kids in two elementary schools in Pontevedra and said he can’t wait to apply the lessons to his teams. Bob Thomas, 36, said he hopes to try coaching now that his daughter is taking up the game. Thomas, born in Angeles to an American serviceman and a Filipina mother, moved to Bago City with wife Jean, a Bacolod native, and their two daughters Jalene, 13, and Julia, 9, last August after living in the US.