The KIA Rio Cup Experience! :)

Days before Christmas, our brothers and sisters from southern Philippines were greatly affected by typhoon Sendong. The death toll has exceeded a thousand and hundred individuals are still missing. This has been one of the worst calamities to hit the Philippines for the past years and probably the worst that Iligan and Cagayan de Oro experienced.

Soon after the typhoon, help poured in from several groups and individuals. One of which is the Kia Rio Cup which is the Azkals’ second charity game for the benefit of ABS-CBN Sagip Kapamilya: Operation Sendong. The first one was against the Internacional de Madrid, a Spanish Third Division team, which concluded in a 3-1 score favoring the visiting team.

The friendly match between the Azkals and Korean’s Icheon City FC was held in the Rizal Memorial Stadium last January 21. This is the first time that our national team will be playing against a South Korean soccer club. The pre-press conference was held last Friday at the Discovery Suites.

Bin Tae Kwan scored the first goal for Icheon in the 21^st minute. There have been several attempts by the Azkals to tie the game in the first half. Denis Wolf, who played his very first game as an Azkals player, had a number of shots but were not successful. On the 89^th minute, Marwin Angeles scored a goal, forcing a penalty shootout to determine who wins the charity game.

#24 Marwin Angeles' goaaaaaaaal! :)

The Azkals lost the shootout, only able to score 2 goals from Chieffy Caligdong and Ruben Doctora compared to the 4 goals of the Icheon City FC.

           
This has been the third friendly game of the Azkals (first: against the LA Galaxy and the second: against the Internacional de Madrid) and sadly, this is also their third loss. Coach Michael Weiß is still optimistic about the Filipinos’ support in football by saying that we should take advantage of the enthusiasm and the euphoria going on in the country to encourage young boys and girls to play the sport at a very young age.

There were a lot of kids who watched the game.

They even got a signed Azkals shirt! (Nakakainggit! :| Hahaha!)

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I don’t really know how it is or what will happen in the Kia Rio Cup press conference and the game itself but I was actually nervous thinking about it. Haha! I really had fun learning and meeting new people especially in the media room. We were in charge of registering and releasing the media passes. Although this game wasn’t that jampacked compared to the previous ones, we got the chance to experience at least how it is to work and deal with the media and organize the press conference.

'Filipino time' is probably one of the most annoying characteristics of Pinoys but I think in certain events such as press conferences, we should definitely consider the limited time that the coaches and the players have. Maybe, one of the most difficult things to ensure in a pre-game press conference is whether there would be enough media to cover the event. It is necessary to get as much publicity as possible to make the event a success. Notifying and reassuring the media about the schedule of the press conference could be one of the challenges the organizers experience.

I watched and observed how Kuya Icko makes sure that everything was set. I must say that it is very difficult. He ran from one place to another, talked to the security to clarify things, briefed us with what will happen and what are we supposed to do, dealt with the media when they have concerns regarding their passes and tickets and organized the post-game press conference. There is definitely a lot of pressure being responsible for making this event a success and I think everyone did their best to ensure that all things fall into place. J

--- Meg Rementina