I discussed the historic night of the Azkals against the Golden Dragons. Let me continue from my previous article (click or tap here to read more) if there will be another meeting from both teams and the aftermath of their milestones throughout the decade. Let's dig in.
The Rise of Filipino Football
With their victory at Hanoi, Vietnam marked the "renaissance" of Filipino Football. They got a courtesy call from our previous president at that time, Benigno Aquino III, and praised for their performance. This is the time when the fans got interested in the sport even from me and it had a huge following. There were good and bad moments as I followed the team for the last 10 years, and how I witnessed everything through thick & thin as a fan.
With my fandom of Japanese anime related to football like Captain Tsubasa, and Giant Killing, I thought, do we have a football team competing in the national scene? Or even a local football league here in the Philippines? I heard the news that our country will qualify for the FIFA World Cup 2014 in 2011, but we only reached the second round. How did I start following the team? That is when I tried to watch our local football league on December 10, 2011 and became a pioneer of the Ultras movement. Then started to watch away games on a sports bar with my fellow Football fans during the AFC Challenge Cup 2012 and finished 3rd place against Palestine with a score of 4 - 3. Then watched a friendly game against Indonesia live a few days before the Philippine independence on June 12.
As the years go by, the Azkals did their efforts to qualify for the AFF Suzuki Cup from 2012 to 2018, the FIFA World Cup 2018, and were able to enter the AFC Asian Cup 2019 with a score of 2 - 1 in favor of Kevin Ingresso and Phil Younghusband which caps his 50th International Goal.
The Golden Dragons and the Azkals met 3 times after the AFF Suzuki Cup 2010. On November 27, 2012, at the Rajamangala Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand. We won against the Dragons only 1 - nil in favor of Emelio "Chieffy" Caligdong. 2 years later (November 28, 2014), the Dragons went for revenge of 3 - 1 on their home ground at Mỹ Đình National Stadium. 4 years later (December 6, 2018), same venue, same crowd and were hoping we would get a second miracle, but it didn't happen when the Dragons won 2 - 1.
It made an impact on the masses, but there were debates on what is the more popular and better sport for Filipinos? In my next part of this series, we'll talk about our current state of the sport. Stay tuned for this next article.
Sources:
Lead Image from https://manilafootball.com/news/azkals-suffer-setback-against-vietnam-in-aff-suzuki-cup-semis-opening/
https://news.abs-cbn.com/sports/12/06/18/2018-suzuki-cup-azkals-look-for-another-miracle-in-hanoi
