THE inaugural kick-off for the grassroots clinics of Real Madrid, the premiere football club in the world, took place last Monday at the McKinley Hills Stadium of Megaworld in Taguig City.
Present were Rosa Roncal, international manager for social projects of Real Madrid; Kevin Tan, Alliance Global Group executive director; Kendrick Tan, Emperador Distilleries executive director; Mariano Araneta, president of Philippine Football Federation; Cesar Abalon, school sports division director OIC of Department of Education; Sen. Sonny M. Angara, chairman of the Senate Committee on Games, Amusement and Sports, and myself.
Real Madrid agreed to train Filipino football coaches and students according to an accord I entered into with Real Madrid. Under the agreement, Real Madrid’s coaches will do the inaugural clinics for 36 local coaches and 360 public-school students from the National Capital Region (NCR), and 12 local coaches and 120 public-school students of Aurora in Region 3. Subsequently, a “rolling” football clinic will be held nationwide in each of the country’s 16 regions.
Such a grassroots-development program is unique in our country, where similar clinics are sometimes conducted as club-to-club, not club-to-nation, arrangements. It will surely contribute to the long-term spread and popularity of soccer as a sport Filipino youth can excel in.
While the Philippine Professional Football League is slated to launch in 2017 a national football league, such as Spain’s La Liga or the UK English Premier League, our program will generate even more interest in football across our basketball- and boxing-loving countrymen—which could one day develop a Filipino international football star.
And few of us know we had one such star, Paulino Alcantara of Barotac Nuevo, Iloilo City. He was the holder of the highest number of goals scored—until several weeks ago, when Lionel Messi broke the former’s record.
There are few international clubs that could best introduce this “beautiful game” to the Philippines, other than Real Madrid, which International Football Federation dubbed the “football club of the 20th century.” Not only will our young booters be trained by the best in the world, they will also be exposed to the philosophy and values that underpinned the club’s global success.
At the inaugural kick-off last Monday, Real Madrid’s Rosa Roncal told the kids present: “[N]o player is more important than the club. No player is better than the team itself. You must remember you will be part of the team, play with teammates, learn how to respect and be respected, learn the importance of fairplay.” Those are the values the Filipino youth need to be taught and learn early, I believe.
E-mail: angara.ed@gmail.com.