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Philippines, 21 Mar 2026 |
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EXCITING WORLD CLASS FOOTBALL IN STORE FOR FANS ON SATURDAY By Ronnie Nathanielsz PhilBoxing.com Thu, 05 Jan 2012  Considering that Spain is the World Cup Champions in football and Spanish football teams play an attractive brand of the No.1 sport in the world, Filipino fans are in for some exciting world class football when the tough Spanish third division squad CF Internacional de Madrid plays the popular Philippine Azkals at the Rizal Memorial stadium on Saturday. Even more touching is the fact that the Spanish team is flying in to engage the Azkals in a match to raise funds for a worthy cause ? that of helping the thousands of victims of the devastating floods and mudslides caused by typhoon ?Sendong? in Cagayan de Oro City, Iligan and other parts of southern Philippines. While charity will be in their hearts, playing top class football will be the aim of the visitors as well as the Philippine Azkals although the local side will have make do with the absence of some of its Europe-based stars who have club commitments. The CFIM team was formed by a group of Madrid businessmen in 2002 and began in Division III Regional. The 2002/2003 season was a brilliant one in which the team surpassed all expectations and showed the excellent quality of its game. Not only did the team win all its games except one but shattered all records by scoring 187 goals and conceding only 25. The CFIM coach Javier Garcia Marquez has said that one of the advantages of the Spanish team is that it?s a compact group anchored by team captain and solid midfielder Julian ?Juli? Bautista who is regarded as one of the best players in the Spanish third division. The visiting coach also mentioned forward Rufino ?Rufo? Sanchez who has dazzling skills and dexterity in front of the goal as one of the stars of the CFIM team. While loaded with stars, coach Marquez emphasized that ?the most important thing about the team is its cohesiveness. The Azkals demonstrated this facet of the game in the first half of their match against the Major League Soccer champions LA Galaxy led by superstar David Beckham, US world cup team captain Landon Donovan and prolific English Premier League scorer Robbie Keane when they held the visitors to a 2-1 lead but collapsed in the second half with the fatigue factor playing a major part in losing by 6 goals to 1.. The Philippine Azkals will once again be anchored by the Younghusband brothers Phil who scored the only goal against LA Galaxy and won accolades from the Fox Sports TV commentators and hardworking James as well as Fil-Spanish Angel Guirado who has played in the Spanish league. Real Madrid coach and former Chelsea mentor Jose Mourinho who heard about the game on Saturday sent a message in which he said "Phil Younghusband was a talented player with potential who worked hard in search of a dream. In part I helped him reach that dream by giving him his debut game with the Chelsea first team". Several talents from the United Football League including Chieffy Calidong and Ian Araneta will bolster the Azkals team. The match will be telecast ?live? by the giant broadcast network ABS-CBN and the proceeds will be donated to the Philippine National Red Cross. Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ronnie Nathanielsz.  |
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