Azkal Fever - The Journey

Hmm...

I was wondering where to start. The feeling of watching the Philippine Men's National Football team playing in home soil and live at that still seemed so surreal for me. My journey to Pana-ad started when the Philippines lost the semifinal leg of the AFF Suzuki Cup to Indonesia. Their Cinderella run on that tournament particularly their win over then defending champions Vietnam, stirred the interest of the Filipino people to this once forgotten sport. It too, awaken my interest again to Filipino Football.

 The game that introduced the Filipinos to the Azkals. Their 2-0 victory over Vietnam in Vietnam. Photo taken from Rob Gier's Facebook Fan Page.

After the match against the Indonesian Garudas, it was announced that the "Azkals" will be playing in a play-off game against Mongolia some time in February. My father was assigned in Bacolod and is staying there until February, so I called up my father to confirm it. When it was indeed confirmed that Bacolod will play host to the first leg of the match, I booked myself and my mother to a flight to Bacolod. Good thing we got the ones that was on sale! Plane tickets-check, accommodation (courtesy of my dad)- check,match tickets- nil. I filed a vacation leave as soon as I got hold of our plane tickets.

I got the match tickets 2 days before match day. I scoured every nook in the internet where to get those tickets. I first e-mailed the Philippine Football Federation for ticket reservations, only to find out that I have to fly to Manila just to get it. I had a Plan B. I asked my father to score some tickets in Bacolod. But he was not successful of scoring tickets for us. Good thing the Cebu Football Association were giving three hundred tickets. I quickly grabbed the phone and reserved my tickets to Martin.

It's not easy to be an Azkal fan. The journey I had was all worth it!