It was the day I’ve been waiting for. To finally watch our very own Philippine National Football Team AZKALS play against another team LIVE! It finally happened last July 3, 2011 at Rizal Memorial Football Stadium in Manila, Philippines. And I even had a Pilipinas Futbol Azkals shirt on to boot!
Much, much thanks to my very generous sponsors, Malaysian Ambassador to the Philippines Dato Seri Dr. Ibrahim Saad and his lovely wife Datin Seri Dato Zainab Kader, I had a special front row seat to watch the Azkals play against the Sri Lanka Brave Reds. Just in case you’re wondering, my ticket was worth a whopping Php 3,090.00!
The day was truly memorable. One for the books! The Azkals won 4-0 (woohoo!) and successfully hurdled the first round of the World Cup qualifiers!
Their first duel against the Sri Lanka Brave Reds may have resulted in a 1-1 draw last June 29, 2011 in Colombo, Sri Lanka but it was obvious that the Azkals were inspired to play last July 3. There was a 13,000-strong crowd that day (and I was there, woohoo! :D) and although it rained heavily for several minutes (my seat was located at the section where there was a roof, though), all Azkals fans did not mind. All of us still screamed our lungs out just to cheer for the boys!
Ahhh, I must tell you — nothing beats cheering for the Azkals live! Nothing beats cheering for the Azkals with other fellow Azkals supporters! 🙂 There was a different fire, passion and energy in the stadium that day! I had so much funnnn!!!
Anyway, I’d like to share some of the photos I took during the Azkals versus Sri Lanka game.
Here’s part 1!
Media men got soaked, too!
Goalkeeper Neil Etheridge!
The Sri Lanka Brave Reds:
Azkals striker Phil Younghusband:
James Younghusband:
Anton del Rosario:
Related Images:
Mindanaoan is a multi-awarded blogger, content creator, seasoned social media strategist and publicist with undeniably successful track record. 2012 International Visitor Leadership Program (for global leaders) alumnus and O visa grantee (for people with extraordinary skills and who have risen to the top of their field). Avid traveler and a proud relief operations volunteer. Regular resource person for social media, blogging and content creation. Available for work and travel – [email protected]
In fairness, the newly renovated (?) or refurbished (?) stadium looks decent on TV…I wish the government will build a better stadium for international matches and to help promote other sports besides basketball.
The new Rizal stadium sure is better na. The seats were okay and the tracks looked better. Mas mukhang shiny pa siya kesa sa NAIA 1. LOL.
in fairness we now have a decent place to cater such sports .. more improvements would do .. 🙂 nice pics 🙂
Hi there Johx! Salamat for dropping by 🙂 Yes, the rehabilitation of the football stadium is definitely good news. Thank you for commenting on the pics hehe. We weren’t allowed to bring DSLRs unfortunately so I had to make do with a Lumix digicam
at least we now have a place to cater such sports just some more improvements .. nice pics