I was never the sporty guy. My built and frame is not suitable for any action-packed contact sports; I prefer watching fouls that being on the receiving part of a nasty tackle. I didn’t like any kind of sports until a few years ago. As a matter of fact, PE was my enemy number one back in my years as a student –luckily for me, I was able to knockout the freaking subject — not just barely knocking it out, but almost killing it.

That’s why back in elementary and high school, intramurals week was basically a rest week for me. Basketball was, is, and will definitely be not for me. The ball is just too heavy for me, as such, I can’t throw it up high into the air. I’m no Superman, the highest jump that I could probably do is just a quarter of  a meter. And just like any Filipino, I have a height disadvantage.

Volleyball is like a punishment to me, every time I hit the ball, I fear that my bones would break. It’s like being spanked with a humongous leather belt, really. The only way I know how to serve is the underhand (which is the weakest form of serve). I can’t do a spike, I can’t block, and I would never go for a dig. I also can’t predict where the ball would actually land, so I would aim to the left when it would actually go to my right. Volleying the ball back into the opponents’ half of the court is also a problem for me, so I would only hit it straight up into the air (set) and let my other teammates do the job of sending it back to our opponents. Interestingly, back in senior high school, when my class was divided into four or five groups, the team that I was with made it all the way to the final. I scored a few points, the teams that we played with (and even the best volleyball players in our class) were — strangely — having a problem with returning my underhand serve.

Table tennis is too weird for me, the almost weightless ball could travel so fast that I couldn’t almost see it, and I haven’t learned how to handle the paddle (which almost looks like a palu-palo to me) properly. We have not also studied it, so there was no way that I would get interested with it.

Badminton would probably be the most suitable sport for me, but almost everyone of my friends really do know how to play it. So I always end up being the loser.

I could go on, but I think I should stop embarrassing myself.

The beautiful game

If all sports were contestants in a beauty pageant, football would win it. No doubt about that. Although here in the Philippines, the runner-up, basketball, mesmerized everyone. No doubt about that too. Because it has been left in the darkest corner of the Rizal Memorial Stadium (LOLWHAT?!)  for so many years, football has become virtually inexistent in the Philippines, until recently. It’s very seldom that you hear football being mentioned on news broadcasts or see photos of footballers on magazines and newspapers. Before this year, all I know is that football is its proper name (not soccer), and it is being played on a pitch where two teams try to make a goal. Well, why would I care of learning how to play it? I’m not a player. It wasn’t included in our curriculum, so why study it?

But that all changed back in mid-June when South Africa hosted the 2010 edition of FIFA World Cup. Everyone on Twitter was talking about it. As a matter of fact, it’s the number one trending topic this year. It started towards the end of my review sessions for my licensure examination, but that didn’t stop me from watching matches whenever I could.1 I would stay up late, and after my examination (July 03 and 04), I started watching the matches that aired during the wee hours of the morning too.

At first, I was rooting for England, simply because I want to go there someday. But because of their abysmal performance (remember the improperly cleared ball by Robert Green?), their subsequent loss to Germany in the knockout phase (who would forget that Frank Lampard goal-but-not-a-goal-according-to-the-referee goal?), and the genius Paul the octopus who correctly predicted all of the matches of Germany, I started to like Die Mannschaft. I’m not sure when I started watching Spain play, but La Furia Roja was really good on what they do, so after Spain dispatched Germany in the semi-finals, I decided to go with Spain in the final. The final match started at two in the morning, everyone else here at home was still asleep. The most memorable thing that happened in that match which went into extra time — aside from Iniesta’s goal, the only goal of the match — was the chest kick that Xabi Alonso received and the rain of yellow cards from Howard Webb. The awarding ceremonies that followed was totally amazing. Iker Casillas and the rest of the Spanish national football team were exuberant. When it was over, my parents were already awake.

During the months that followed the World Cup, I discovered the vast number of football clubs and leagues in Europe. Whenever I feel like it, I would watch a match or two every week. Although that means I would have to stay up late or totally mess my sleep by waking up at an ungodly hour, and then go back to sleep after the match. Since then, I’ve learned how an offside offence is being called, a few jargons used in football, that an own goal is possible, how the away-goals rule works, the positions in football, formations, and more. But I have to say that I still have a lot to learn.

I’m really happy that I decided to be a football fan at the same year that the whole Philippines has suddenly gone crazy with the game. Because of the unbelievable feat of the Philippine national football team, more commonly known as the Azkals (street dogs), football has received the proper attention that it needs these past few weeks. I hope this doesn’t stop here.

Although Indonesia beat the Azkals in the semi-finals, I was really impressed with the performance of our team in the AFF Suzuki Cup. They made sure that Vietnam, Singapore, and Myanmar (who are all ranked higher than the Philippines) didn’t beat them in the group stage so they could book a clash with Indonesia. And who would have ever predicted that Vietnam would succumb to a 2-0 loss against the Philippines? That score is really out of this world. Even foreigners were shocked and awed with their newfound form. It is really a good star.

Congratulations to the Philippine national football team!

Here are some great articles about Philippine football:

And here are a few informative resources regarding football:

Game, set, match!

When I was still a kid, when those large Game Boys were still on the wishlists of many kids, there was this tennis game that I played. I didn’t understand the scoring. Then, a few years ago, I was playing Virtua Tennis on PSP, I was still clueless with the scoring system. I was only trying to win the points. That lack of knowledge would stir my interest in tennis.

The scoring is so complex that even if I watched a ton of tennis matches, I was not able to totally grasp how it works. And because of Rafael Nadal’s heavy groundstrokes, Roger Federer’s amazing one-handed backhand and incredible tweeners, Novak Djokovic’s dangerous shots that always go down the line, Andy Murray’s defensive skills, and Andy Roddick’s big serve and Hawk-Eye, I was totally hooked — even before I was finally able to learn on my own the unusual scoring system. But I still give much credit on the sport’s complicatedness on why I became a tennis fan.

The easiest way of understanding it was written by BBC, “The aim is to win enough points to win a game, enough games to win a set and enough sets to win a match.” That means, even if you are winning most of the points, you could actually surrender the match to your opponent. That’s brutal, right? And tennis matches could actually take a really long time before it reach match point (although reaching the first match point doesn’t mean that it’s about to end). The John Isner versus Nicolas Mahut mammoth match ended with a ridiculous scoreline of 6-4, 3-6, 6-7(7), 7-6(3), 70-68. That match took 11 hours and five minutes over three days to complete. Now, that’s really brutal.

Tennis jargon is interesting to learn too. Since badminton and tennis shares a few terms, I was familiar with some of them. It was really fun learning them. Now, whenever I watch a tennis match, I can’t stop myself identifying points: game point, break point, set point, match point, and championship point. Another fun thing about tennis is the strange names of the players which are always hard to pronounce and spell: Novak Djokovic, Mikhail Youzhny, Tomas Berdych, Ivan Ljubicic, Philipp Kohlschreiber, Ana Ivanovic, Kim Clijsters, Francesca Schiavone, Na Li, Kimiko Date-Krumm, and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. Oh, also I love seeing racquet abuse and players thrashing out the chair umpire.

Tennis resources:

The spectator

I’m really glad that I was able to discover and learn how to love football and tennis. My newfound love for sports is unexpected, but I’ll definitely take care of it. Hopefully, 2011 will be a good year for the Azkals and Andy Murray.

  1. Actually, my examination didn’t stop me from doing anything that I want, I reviewed during the day, after eight hours, I did whatever I normally do. [↩]