Thomas Dooley, old Azkals, and new tricks

The Azkals' first match this year is a friendly versus Malaysia’s Harimau Malaya on March 1, with the team scheduled to leave on Thursday. After their friendly in Selayang, the team then flies to Dubai for another friendly, this time against Azerbaijan on March 5.

But even before either of those matches have kicked off, it’s already been an extremely busy year for the Philippine men's national football team.

Last February 7, the Philippine Football Federation formally named German-American Thomas Dooley as the new head coach, replacing Michael Weiss.

Dooley’s credentials are formidable, with a brilliant playing career and an impressive, although short, coaching career. By all accounts, he had impressed Azkals Team Manager Dan Palami and PFF General Secretary Ed Gastanes during his interview in the US earlier in the year.

Dooley had reviewed a couple of the Azkals games and had done some research on the team and its players, but he had never been to the Philippines before, and only knew about the country and its football story because of a Filipino-American child he had coached in 2013. He arrived in Manila just the night before the press conference after a long flight that saw a diversion to Alaska from LA, before finally heading to the Philippines.

Within days of his arrival, he had met with UFL coaches and stakeholders, attended a couple of UFL games, and scheduled Azkals training for the following Friday and Sunday.

An initial list of 34 players were invited to the first training, including a couple of players who had been left out of the Azkals roster in the last couple of years: Anton del Rosario, Nate Burkey, and Chad Gould.

The first day of training was at the Emperador Stadium on a breezy Valentine’s Day. Dooley had invited the players to a lunch meeting prior. Instead of a simple get-to-know-each-other session, the new coach had a complete audio-visual presentation of his expectations of the team as well as the system he wanted to implement.

Training was scheduled for 4pm, but some of the players were there way before that. Aly Borromeo, who was not on the list, also showed up to do some runs and exercises. Dooley arrived still dressed in a long-sleeved shirt, jeans, and brown leather shoes, as his uniform from the clothing sponsor had not yet arrived. He went straight to work, however, setting up the training areas with the help of some of the coaching staff who had already arrived.

About 10 minutes before training was set to begin, Dooley opted to change into a players uniform, borrowing a set from the Azkals and a pair of boots that were lying around. (It later turned out that the boots were Borromeo’s. Dooley had to stand around in his socks after Borromeo left, following a good-natured laugh with the coach)

During training, the coach personally oversaw the drills, in come cases doing them himself to show exactly how he wanted them done. He also took time to stop drills to teach particular players certain details.


Read more about the Azkals' American Idol auditions-like training sessions:

American Idol-type auditions

The following Sunday saw less players and more drills. Training began to resemble an American Idol audition, with people getting cut after every round. Dooley, more properly-attired now, was still right in the middle of things, meaning he saw each and every player up-close.

For the following weekend, he invited a few more players, including Simon Greatwich, Andrew Liauw, and Ruben Doctora Jr., perhaps impressed with them during UFL matches that he had seen. Former national team member, Fil-Australian Leigh Gunn, was also invited. Mainstay Rob Gier and newly-recruited Fil-Swiss Martin Steuble had also arrived.

On the last training day before flying out to Malaysia, 28 players arrived, with 22 players set to be called up. The Younghusbands and Greatwiches were there. Gould, Gunn, and Anton del Rosario were training. Misagh Bahadoran, Mark Hartmann, the Angeles twins, Jeffrey Christiaens, Gier, Patrick Reichelt, Jason de Jong, OJ Porteria, Nate Burkey, Ed Sacapano, and Paolo Pascual, were also present. The new guys were also on hand, namely Amani Aguinaldo, Simone Rota, Doctora, Steuble, and Liauw. Dooley later on mentioned that a few more players might still be in the running to be part of the next Azkals team.

“It's good to be back even just at training,” said Anton del Rosario, who has not worn the Philippine colors for about two years after a pretty public fallout with the last coach. Phil Younghusband, who has attended all trainings even if he is not 100 percent, said that it was great to be back training with his best friends, emphasizing his words with a high-five to Chad Gould and Simon Greatwich. It has been a little more than five years since Gould has represented the Philippines, almost three years for Greatwich. Both had been personally picked by Dooley and invited to train with the Azkals again.

When asked why he did not call up more of the non-Philippines based players, Dooley had a quick answer: “If you don’t play with a club, it’s difficult to play for the national team.” He added that those who will be called up to join the team in the future must be a cut above those who are already present in the Philippines. “[During regular training, it’s] better if we know we have 22 players, but we’ll take what we can.”

Dooley knows all too well what the abroad-based Azkals go through. Dooley was born in Germany to an American father and German mother. He grew up and played professional football in Germany before he was called up to the US Men’s National Football Team. He captained the American side in the 1998 World Cup.

Plans are also in the works for expanding the pool for the Azkals so there will be quality players available even if their abroad-based comrades are not. Dooley is adamant that he wants to create a homegrown, home-based competitive team. He has scheduled at least twice-weekly trainings every week until the Challenge Cup.

The new Azkals coach looks more than serious about his new job, watching most if not all of the UFL matches and even catching a couple of UAAP fixtures. When in a vehicle between appointments, he watches Azkals games or matches of their future opponents on his laptop, only stopping when something new outside fascinates him, like tricycles and the very narrow roads.  

The friendly versus Azerbaijan will probably feature a few more of the abroad-based Azkals, as that is a nearer flight from Europe than Malaysia or Manila.

And then the work really begins. The Challenge Cup is scheduled for the Maldives in the latter part of May. By that time, Thomas Dooley must already come up with the best Azkals team we have ever seen yet. - AMD, GMA News