National Club Tournament in the Philippines

According to Filipino Football, PFF will host the first national club championship in five years.  This is pretty exciting news.  It's been a while since there was a national football tournament (except probably for school-based competitions like the Unigames).  What I can remember is the Philippine League Tournament.  Do we still have those?  Guess, I haven’t been active in the football scene for a long time now… And whatever happened to the Coke-Go-For-Goal Tournaments? They seemed to have stopped holding it...

I think holding national tournaments is a good idea.  But a another great idea would be to have football programs for little kids.  We need to get them interested and encourage the love for the sport at an early age.  And the earlier they start, the longer they get to train and improve on their skills.  Kinda like what Germany did, they focused on their youth system/teams, and now they have this new breed of exceptional players like Ozil, Polodski, Muller, et al.  Ideally, it would be great if it’s nationwide, but that could be a big undertaking for now.  Maybe some key cities, especially those with strong football communities and support like Ilo-ilo, Bacolod and Dumaguete. 

I also like what the Younghusband brothers are doing.  They are targeting the schools and the teachers.  This could be very effective, as teachers can influence the students.  If the teachers understand and appreciate football, they can better relate it to the students.  They can be great ambassadors for the sport.

Now that there has been a lot of attention and support (moral and financial), PFF’s challenge will now be to sustain this public interest and continue improving the ranking/skills/talent of current national squad and football in the country in general.  But at the same time, I hope they also think of long term plans in order to maintain interest in the sport and continuously advance our skills and talent for the game.