Ice Skating in the Tropics
I’ve always found it curious that a country such as the Philippines that can get so hot in the summer months can boast of the largest skating rink in Asia. Each time I’m at an SM Mall with a skating rink I get a glimpse of these young boys and girls, graceful in their skate shoes, sliding across the ice just like I’ve seen Lyn Holly Johnson in the movies, and Dorothy Hamill and the statuesque Katarina Witt on television, and I wonder how did our kids get to be so good, after all it’s not something you can do in your backyard. It brings to mind the Disney movie Cool Runnings, which was the story of the Jamaican bobsled team which debuted in the Canadian Winter Olympics in 1988.
Where Do The Children Play
Well I think it’s fine, building jumbo planes.
Or taking a ride on a cosmic train.
Switch on summer from a slot machine.
Get what you want to if you want, ’cause you can get anything.
I know we’ve come a long way,
We’re changing day to day,
But tell me, where do the children play?
Well you roll on roads over fresh green grass.
For your lorryloads pumping petrol gas.
And you make them long, and you make them tough.
But they just go on and on, and it seems you can’t get off.
Oh, I know we’ve come a long way,
We’re changing day to day,
But tell me, where do the children play?
When you crack the sky, scrapers fill the air.
Will you keep on building higher
’til there’s no more room up there?
Will you make us laugh, will you make us cry?
Will you tell us when to live, will you tell us when to die?
I know we’ve come a long way,
We’re changing day to day,
But tell me, where do the children play?
— Cat Stevens
I just found it poignant that I should run into these kids on the day I blogged about football in the Philippines. Sam and I were walking to the bus stop this morning on the way to work, and there were these kids in the street with a football. There was this one kid, a boy, on one side and the rest of them, a girl and two smaller kids, on the other side, and they would kick the ball to each other, and sometimes the ball would roll into a canal but that didn’t worry them because they had a rag on the sidewalk that they used to wipe the slime off and play again, kicking the ball back and forth until it would end up in the canal againd and they’d wipe it off and start all over again . . .
Impossible is Nothing
I have often wondered why, in a country where the average adult male height is just under five and a half feet, the national sport is basketball. (I can hear my son muttering indignantly, “No, it’s sepak takraw!”) But that’s just in the books, sweetie, we all know that where there’s at least 10ft square of space there will be a basketball goal.
Football is not a dream in the Philippines. It’s a reality. A sad reality but nevertheless real and can be made better. However, it should not be made better by bringing in big foreign players to play in Philippine teams, just like they way basketball in this country has gone.
It can be done by scouring the schools and universities in the Visayas and Mindanao. Why Visayas and Mindanao? Because in these places the school campuses are still big enough to have an actual football field. These are places where football is and has always been part of the Intramurals. These are places where athletes play with the ball on the ground. These are places where our own Lionel Messi’s and Ronaldinho’s are waiting to be honed and made ready for the big football world that is all over Asia, Europe and South America.
We can still learn. We can.
Impossible is nothing.
Saved!
Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi is the heart-throb figure of the Japan squad, attracting admirers for his talent as well as an army of female followers with his handsome looks. Kawaguchi enjoys immense popularity in Japan, but it is his goalkeeping prowess which has made the 29-year-old the star he is today.
from Fifaworldcup.yahoo.com
And with that fantastic save of Darijo Srna’s penalty shot and Niko Kranjcar’s attempt at goal, he is now right (well, almost right) up there with Oliver Kahn in my list of football players to idolize.
Why this fascination on goalies when everyone else idolizes the strikers and the forwards? I suppose its because when everyone else has done his best and the ball is still on its way to the goal, the guy who settles it all is the goalkeeper. It’s the goalies I remember. David Seaman, Fabien Barthez, Oliver Kahn, Dida, and now — Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi.
Idol!
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