Late November 2014 in Manila and most television screens at Skinny Mike’s Sports Bar are showing NBA games but there are a couple in the corner broadcasting the Philippines national soccer team taking on Vietnam. The situation would surely be reversed should the Philippines make it to the 2018 World Cup and while Russia may be a long shot, the team is going places under former USA international Tom Dooley.
Until recently the Azkals, as they are known, had won just one World Cup qualifier - ever. In the space of five days in June, that tally was tripled thanks to victories over Bahrain and Yemen. In September Uzbekistan brought the team back to earth with a somewhat flattering 5-1 win but now the Philippines will see south-east Asia’s highest-ranked team travel to Pyongyang to take on North Korea. Avoid defeat and it would be the best result in the country’s history and give it a considerable chance of progressing to the final round of qualification when 12 teams scrap for four automatic spots.
That itself would be highly impressive for the continent’s long-time underachiever – the Azkals have never even appeared at the Asian Cup. It would be akin to Germany – the place of Dooley’s birth – winning the World Cup or the United States, the country which he represented over 80 times in the international arena from 1992 to 1999, getting to the last four. Qualification for the actual tournament would be off the charts. “The World Cup? Oh, I don’t even know if they can handle that, the celebrations would go on for years,” Dooley says as we sit in a Kuala Lumpur hotel but, with eyes and mouth smiling, you just know that he has considered it. And why not? Dreams can come true.
A former assistant to Jürgen Klinsmann with the US national team, the 53 year-old got his current job in February 2014 by giving private lessons to a young player at a California youth academy. The father, a Filipino, was so impressed he asked the former Kaiserslautern, Bayer Leverkusen and Schalke star if he would be interested in coaching the Philippines national team. It happened. “I never got a chance to coach in MLS. I tried to get involved in it and also tried to get into the UFL league but got the answer that I was overqualified, so coming overseas was a good option for me.”
And you can’t get much further overseas from America than Manila, though the capital of this former American colony still has plenty of US-influence: from the ‘jeepneys’ that carry locals and color the streets to a love of boxing and basketball. In a sporting sense, it wasn’t completely unfamiliar.
“You can and can’t compare,” says Dooley. “They have a league here, in the US we didn’t when I arrived in 1992, then football wasn’t really in the market, it didn’t exist. It exists here with the national team. The difference in America is that we had 20 million kids who played and that’s something we don’t have in the Philippines.”
Dooley argues there was a generational problem in the USA over two decades ago. “We had an old generation into basketball and baseball but we had kids who play football. Ten years or so down the line, those grandpas and grandmas are dying and then the teenagers are growing up and having kids who are playing football. It is a question of time until MLS is at the same level as the European leagues and I am 100% sure that is going to happen. In the Philippines, we don’t have a base and have only 15-20,000 kids who play football. We don’t have a generation problem, we have a culture problem and to change that culture into a football culture takes time too.”
But it will happen. “It is all about promotion, marketing and the kids need to see it on TV, then they will get into it and play. Basketball is still number one but the kids will realize that football offers a way out to a better life. In basketball you have to have the height ... but Messi is the best player in the world and he’s the size of a Filipino.”
In his time in Manila, Dooley has impressed players with his attention to detail. “I told them in the beginning that I want to build a team where everyone works for each other and for themselves, I want to have players who want the ball, who want to take responsibility, they are making a lot of mistakes but you can learn from that and I want to play football. I don’t want to kick the ball and rush after it.”
There’s more to it than that. The majority of the current roster of 23 are ‘Fil-foreigns’ – players born in Germany, Spain, England, Australia and elsewhere, all with a parent from the Philippines. The infusion of new blood has made a difference. While none are household names in Europe, success they bring on the pitch may have a major effect down the line. Getting close to the World Cup may attract players of a higher quality – players like Alphonse Areola, the Villarreal goalkeeper who has appeared for the French U-21 team.
“If he does not get called up by France, then maybe he thinks ‘now Philippines have a chance’ and we have two, three, four Italian players who are 18 or 19 years old at clubs like Inter Milan, if they are not playing for the Italian national team, they may think about playing for the Philippines and going to the World Cup,” says Dooley.
First though, it is time for North Korea in Pyongyang later this week. The odds are against the former US colony and this is the toughest test yet. “Of course we can win,” says Dooley. “I would never say we can’t win even against Germany but only if Germany has a horrible game, no luck and we have a lot of luck and are 100% fit. In football, anything can happen.”
But if it doesn’t happen this time, the progress will continue say Dooley. “It’s all step-by-step. It took 20 years in the US to realize we could be a football country and it will take that time in the Philippines too, to realize that we could be the same, we could be the second Argentina.”