Football & chess deliver for the country

By Al S. Mendoza

 

WE just had a double-barreled celebration.

One, our women’s football team advanced to the prestigious Asian Football Confederation proper—a first for the country.

This is a watershed in Philippine sports.

Football not being popular among Filipino women, the feat catapulted the country to heights in Asian football.

So that it’s also about time that our officials start doubling its focus on our female shinbusters.

For so long a time, we’ve been concentrating only on male football through the Azkals.

Not to demean the Azkals’ worth but aren’t many of them not pure Pinoys?

They are mostly Fil-foreigners.  Many of them have Filipinas for mothers who married/shacked up with Europeans.

Nothing wrong there, of course.

They are still of Pinoy parentage.

And, even if they are half Pinoys and half Europeans, they can still make us proud by carrying the Philippine colors in their stints overseas.

But then, with our female booters finally striking gold recently, aren’t we duty-bound to also start giving some extra attention to them?

Hey, this is something we should all be proud of—a team composed mainly of homebred Pinays.

And now to the second hero that recently made it a twin kill for the country:  Wesley So winning the US National Chess Championship in St. Louis, Missouri.

OK, please don’t give me that ugly stare?

Yes, So no longer represents the Philippines after migrating to the US some five years or so ago.

After getting a US chess scholarship, So would eventually adopt America as his country—depriving us of a sports jewel of a lifetime.

The loss has been blamed to sports officials for not giving enough to nurture, nourish and treasure what admittedly amounts to a national patrimony.

But be that as it may, we should still find pride—enormous pride—in seeing So win, again, on the world stage.

His victory without a loss in the grandmaster-laden tournament had earned for the Cavite-born 23-year-old $50,000.

But more than that is the fact he is now No. 2 in the world.

I reckon it won’t be long when he’ll overtake No. 1 Magnus Carlsen of Norway.

In the two-match playoffs for the US crown, So easily won Match 1 before scoring a classic draw in Match 2.

He overturned a two-pawn deficit with a genius maneuver that saw him force a perpetual check for the title-clinching draw.

Only the likes of a Bobby Fischer could author such an escape that So had engineered.

At the rate So is playing, he will sit on top of the world before the year ends.

And when So’s finally done with it, remember, you read it here first.

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