PHILLIPINES AND VIETNAM TAKE SOCCER TO DISPUTED WATERS

The Philippine and Vietnamese navies got together to play soccer recently in the disputed South China Sea island, according to reports.


The navies of both sides have been playing various games on the island for a while but the latest was on Thursday when they met on Southwest Cay.

The Philippine side confirmed that it was the third event since 2014 between both sides on the island. The island in the Spratly Archipelago used to be held by the Philippines but the Vietnamese are in control now.

Both nations are concerned by the assertiveness of the Chinese authorities in the disputed region. They played soccer, volley ball, tug-of-war and other games as part of exchanges to demonstrate unity against the Super nation in the Far East. Continue reading PHILLIPINES AND VIETNAM TAKE SOCCER TO DISPUTED WATERS

CERES FC DENIES NEWS OF HAVING TWO TEAMS IN PFL

The Ceres Negros FC management denied that they will be fielding another team in Mindanao for the inaugural Philippines Football League next year.


Club Administrator Nicolas Golez, over the weekend, said that there’s only one Ceres FC team for the upcoming national league.

Late last week, a report from a Mindanao-based paper said that aside from Bacolod, the multi-titled Ceres FC will have another for Davao City.

Meanwhile, the Ceres FC team is currently on vacation and will resume camp on December 26 for the Asian Football Confederation Qualifying tournament in February – which Panaad Park and Stadium will serve as the home turf.

For its inaugural season Philippine Football Federation General-Secretary lawyer Edwin Gastanes said that PFL will only have one division – playing in a home-and-away, double round-robin format with top four teams advancing in the semis and later in the finals. Continue reading CERES FC DENIES NEWS OF HAVING TWO TEAMS IN PFL

John Burridge on Philippines Soccer Growth

John Burridge reckons basketball is the real hindrance in the growth of soccer in Philippines


Burridge says the Filipinos bother very little about any sport other than basketball. Everyone is into Basketball and with everyone’s attention on that one sport only, the potential in other sports especially the Footballing potential which the country has got more than any of its neighbouring countries is going a waste as most of it is left undeveloped.

As per Burridge, Soccer does not come even on no. 2 among favourite sports in Philippines and apart from basketball; the next sport that the Filipinos take interest in is boxing

Burridge reveals that the soccer knowledge of the Filipinos is such that hardly anyone of them has any idea about Diego Maradona and when he mentions the name Maradona to them, they ask if he was talking about the singer Madonna or what.
Continue reading John Burridge on Philippines Soccer Growth

Sweden was pitted in a tough group for the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifications

The 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification draw results has already been announced and some nations were lucky while some others did not have such a pleasant placing and Sweden is one of the unfortunate ones as the Sweden nation was placed in what is considered to be the toughest group as they have to play against the likes of: France, Bulgaria, Belarus, Luxembourg and Netherlands.

Group A is already being labeled as the group of death due to the amount of top class nations and Sweden has their work cut out if they want to advance into the next World Cup.

Before having any hopes of qualifying to the 2018 World Cup, Sweden has to focus in advancing through the 2016 Euro’s and so far they have managed to hold their ground and are located in the 2nd spot of Group G with 12 points having been gathered from the 6 matches which have been played so far at this point in time.

One of the issues that the Sweden national side might face is the fact that the team of Erik Hamrén is starting to build a dependency on ZlatanIbrahimovic and this is evident by the amount of goals that Sweden has been scoring in their past few matches. Continue reading Sweden was pitted in a tough group for the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifications