The 'dog' days have begun

MANILA, Philippines - Still pleasantly surprised by the outcome and the amount of support the they’ve been getting from the Filipino fans, Azkals head coach Simon McMenemy shares his thoughts on the benefits of coming into the game as “massive underdogs,” what to expect in the upcoming semifinal match against Indonesia, and the future of football in the country.

YOUNG STAR: How much of a disadvantage is it to be playing against Indonesia’s team at their very stadium?

SIMON McMENEMY: The negative factor is that everybody’s shouting for Indonesia. So literally, every time they tackle, every time they make a header, everybody stands up and screams. So they have this kind of wave of momentum. Every time they do something right, it kind of drives them on. The flipside of that is the fact that every single person in that stadium is expecting you to fail — all the fans, all the commentators; everybody’s expecting you to not be able to handle that.

What’s your take on football not being that popular here in the country?

I get why football isn’t seen as important, it’s because of the big American influence and basketball is such an indicator of that. But I think football has all the elements that are needed for Filipinos to be very good at it. They can technically be very good players, but what needs to happen is an awful lot of organizational work and infrastructure to be built. They can’t just expect to keep (forming) teams just because players can kick the ball. They need to be trained properly for another age. I think it’s possible over here. I think the potential over here is incredible compared to other countries. One of the problems in the UK is that everybody thinks they’re a coach; everyone has an opinion, whereas over here, you don’t have that. You have a certain amount of people who know what they’re talking about. And the fact is, simply, if we have fewer people organizing things, (it) would be beneficial. But one of the biggest problems is that we have maybe five or six people, pulling in different directions. And one, in particular, is going in a very strange angle. But no one can understand where these decisions are coming from or why they’re being made when, really, they should be for the best of Philippine football, not for any other motive.

Alpha dog: Coach Simon McMenemy (2nd from right) hopes to lead the Azkals past Indonesia in the 2010 AFF Suzuki Cup.

Being only 33, you’re pretty young for a head coach of a national team. Does it bother you?

I love it! I live for it. Because, again, it fits into the whole “no one is expecting us to win the game; no one is expecting me to know what I’m doing at this level.” So when we pulled out a result like (what we did when we defeated) Vietnam — maybe five percent of that’s down to me, while 95 percent of that’s down to the players. But I’m happy with that five percent. I’m happy with the fact that I contributed to us beating an experienced and known coach like Mr. (Henrique) Calisto. That’s an incredible feeling, something that I will never forget in a while. It makes you want to drive on; it makes you want to compete against other great coaches. And it’s a buzz, it makes you want to keep going, and the fact that I can do it at this certain age, it means that, with a little bit of luck, I’ll have another 34 years in the game, hopefully at this level. As it stands in the minute, no one else in the world has at my age, so it’s quite an achievement.

What’s the battle cry now that you’re going up against Indonesia in the semis?

Well, the battle cry is very similar to how it was for the last three games. I think, whatever we were able to achieve before Singapore worked and however we set the team out and the mindset that we gave the players, it ran all the way through the three games. It’s not going to be any different against Indonesia, just because we’ve managed to qualify for the semifinals and we’ve beaten some big teams, that doesn’t mean now we think we’re a big side. I certainly don’t think we are. We’re still massive underdogs for this tournament. Given a one-off game, Indonesia should beat us 10 times out of 10. But, saying that, we’ve come a long way recently and we have a steely belief that even if things don’t go right we can still make them right. Scoring in the 94th minute against Singapore just shows the belief and the passion that the players have. I think going into a big game like this, you need to work hard to start with, and then that hard work, hopefully, then puts you in a position for good things to happen. And if good things happen, then you capitalize on them and you hope that the opposition has a bad day. Obviously, we’d love to go to Indonesia and win both games and play to the final, which would be our dream. But reality says that this is a very good team. We have to tip our hat to that and do what we can to play to our strength. And if we can do that, we’ll be there at the end of the day.