The Final Score: If We Loved Football more than Basketball…

It’s 2010, twisted universe time. The Philippines, in the World Cup for the first time, faces Spain in the group stage. It’s fantasy versus reality. It’s Lapu-Lapu versus Fernando de Magallanes, who was born Portuguese but, as an unrestricted free agent, signed up to play for Spain. No other match features this much context, provides as much contrast. The line-ups are in: Let’s assume that our current PBA stars are the most fine-tuned athletes in the country. And since this is a fictional piece, I can make that assumption. Feel free to argue. Besides, I can easily imagine Tenorio and Alapag setting up teammates with style and guile. I can also picture Cardona and Tubid play like devils in scoring position. I’m sure many of you can too. We gather in town plazas, the beach-front in Boracay, the Quirino Grandstand and every other available public space all over the country to watch, wish, pray. The match starts. Instantly, reality sets in. Villa scores on a header. Our lack of international exposure haunts us. Our players watch the “Barca Style" on television – a winning football philosophy so ingrained, it manifests as easily as sweat on the pitch. Many of Spain’s players, on the other hand, embody it. In this contorted sports reality, as it is in the real world, Filipinos hope for best, prepare for the worst. After an extended effort by defenders Williams, Carey, Washington and Santos, Spain inevitably fires cannonballs through our defense. Jabulani bullets, fired by Villa, Xavi and Iniesta scream towards Intal like asteroids on a doomed planet. Yet one by one, The Rocket hauls them in, slaps them away.

It’s stoppage time. Spain leads 1-0. They are shocked by our stubbornness. We are shocked that we’re still in the match. We see our chance. Yap has the ball on the left side. He sends it to Baguio. Baguio dazzles Puyol in a creative one-on-one play, something Pinoy futboleros can do so instinctively. Baguio suddenly sends it back to Yap. Yap does a Messi-crossover and makes Pique kiss grass. Yap has a clean shot. He smacks the goal-attempt of a life-time. Casillas flies to his right to save the scorcher. “De ninguna manera!" It’s over. We pray for a miracle but miracles in sports don’t happen too often. If we had 11 Manny Pacquiaos on the pitch, who knows? In the aftermath, reformists suggest a change in strategy; hire a Serbian coach, recruit the best collegiate footballers, find talented Filipino-Brazilians and ask a telecommunications mogul to finance the effort. In the fantasy, we love football more than basketball. In reality, however, even when it hurts, we love to dare and dream the most. -- Mico Halili, GMANews.TV