Pinoy Soccer

With all the soccer fever going on due to the much anticipated World Cup in two weeks, I can't help but wonder how the Philippines fare in the world rankings. Looking at the Fifa website, though a bit frustrated, it wasn't a surprise to find the Pinoy ballers to be 191st. Soccer, after all, is close to alien a sport to many Filipinos. Predominantly American in its sports culture, Basketball easily picked-up as the national sport in practice--sipa, as claimed in primary school textbooks, in my recollection, was last played by children in my generation. Unfortunately, in a game where height definitely matters, Pinoys never could excel beyond the national level, despite the 1980s when the country dominated Asia, or before the Chinese and the Koreans became bigger. Still, one might find consolation in the fact that the Philippine ranks best among its colonial contemporaries, Puerto Rico (195th) and Guam (204th, or second to the last).

Browsing on the Philippine team website, Ilongos seem to top the country when it comes to soccer. And most of the others hail from the other Visayan islands. I have no way of telling whether the team members come from well-off families, but one thing is clear, soccer doesn't have the social (or socialite) status attributed to say golf or equestrian or even car racing. It is therefore interesting to know that in universal sports like boxing (which include weight classes) and billiards, and more recently, summitting Mt. Everest, the "common tao" can and really do excel. The five-time bowling champ Nepomuceno may be an exception, him coming from a relatively rich family, but a humble bowling alley clerk herself became a world champ in a recent tourney. In soccer, third world Asian countries I believe can more than excel, (at least before the much needed social revolution). It is true that seven of the G8 countries (representing 66.5 of the world economy) are in the top 16 of the Fifa ranking. But Brazil and Czech Republic (not anyone's ideal first world) ranks best.