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The UFL as a supplier of nat’l pool talent

It was good to see a number of United Football League players included in the Azkals' line-up for their friendly against Malaysia on February 29. This means that the local league is slowly but surely fulfilling one of its mandates as a feeder to the national team and a training ground for players to hone their skills. It also means Coach Hans Michael Weiss has a deeper pool of locally-based talent that's readily available and on call for national team duties.

Weiss has, with good reason, complained about the difficulty of gathering Europe-based players to suit up for the Azkals, and with no clear solution to this problem in the horizon, it's forced the coach to look more and more to the local league to fill the gaps. There's still a long way to go, of course, and let's not kid ourselves by pretending that Weiss wouldn't enlist the likes of Stephan Schrock and Dennis Cagara if they were available, but at least the opportunities for some UFL players are there for now.

The importance of a local league to the development of a country's national team cannot be overemphasized. During their visit here last December, LA Galaxy coach Bruce Arena and star striker Landon Donovan were one in saying that USA football wouldn't be where it is today without Major League Soccer.

In case you missed it, the 27-man lineup includes, with local team in parenthesis:

Eduard Sacapaño (Philippine Army Fritz & Macziol FC)

Jason Sabio (Kaya FC)

Carlie De Murga (Global FC)

Roel Gener (Philippine Army Fritz & Macziol FC)

Roxy Dorlas (Loyola Meralco Sparks FC)

Ref Cuaresma (Loyola Meralco Sparks FC)

Lexton Moy (Kaya FC)

Emelio Caligdong (Philippine Air Force Phoenix FC)

Juan Luis Guirado (Global FC)

Angel Guirado (Global FC)

Misagh Bahadoran (Global FC)

Phil Younghusband (Loyola Meralco Sparks FC)

Ian Araneta (Philippine Air Force Phoenix FC)

Nate Burkey (Kaya FC)

Neil Etheridge

Ray Jonsson

Denis Wolf

Jason De Jong

Bervic Italia (Stallion Giligan's FC)

OJ Clariño (UST)

James Younghusband (Loyola Meralco Sparks FC)

Rob Gier (Global FC)

Marwin Angeles (Laos FC)

Joshua Beloya (Kaya FC)

Nestor Margarse (Philippine Army Fritz & Macziol FC)

Ruben Doctora (Stallion Giligan's FC)

Paolo Pascual (Global FC)

In the current UFL Division 1standings, Loyola, Stallion, Global, Kaya, Army and Air Force are the top six teams. Thus, it wasn't surprising to see that 21 of the 27 players came from these five squads.

Global leads the way with six, Kaya and Loyola have four apiece, Army three, and Stallion and Air Force two each. However, Gier of Global and Caligdong of Air Force may miss the friendly as both are still recovering from injuries.

All of the UFL players have been named to the national pool at one time or another, so obviously they've got what it takes to play at the international level. But some of them — Cuaresma and Italia, for instance, - had been out of national team circulation for the past few years, and it's safe to say their exposure in the UFL brought them back into consideration.

Five players — Pascual, Angeles, Beloya, Margarse and Doctora — are also in the U-21 team that will be vying for the Hassanah Bolkiah Trophy (HBT) in Brunei from February 24 to March 9. The U-21 Azkals have matches on February 24 and 26 and March 2 and 4, which means the affected players will have to shuttle back and forth from Brunei to Manila then back to Brunei.

Speaking of which, the U-21 team that will be coached by newly-appointed youth team mentor Zoran Dordevic also has several UFL regulars in its fold. The HBT allows each team to include as many as five players above the age of 21, but only three may play at a time.

Aside from the aforementioned five players, the rest of the team that left for Brunei yesterday also includes, with local team in parenthesis:

Amani Manuel Aguinaldo (Far Eastern University HS)

Aaron Altiche (Laos FC)

Marvin Angeles (Laos FC)

Alejandro Baldo Jr. (San Beda College FC)

Jerry Barbaso (Global FC)

Gabriel Borja (Loyola Meralco Sparks FC)

Christopher Camcam (Kaya FC)

Raymark Kenneth Fernandez (UP)

Angelo Marasigan (K.A.A. Gent)

Russel Anthony Pierson (Kaya FC)

David Franz Pusing (San Beda College FC)

Joseph Andrew San Martin (Global FC)

Dwight Kevin Sendino (Philippine Navy Red Juice FC)

Allen Jose Serna (UP)

Jeremy James Theuer (Nomads Auction Manila FC)

Jacques Van Bossche

Gerardo Valmayor III (UP)

Altiche, Barbaso, Doctora and Margarse are the four "veterans" that Dordevic included to beef up the team. With the UAAP finals between UP and UST scheduled for this Sunday, Fernandez, Serna and Valmayor will miss the team's first two matches.

Anyway, the best of luck to both national sides.

E-mail: sid_ventura@yahoo.com. Twitter: @Sid_Ventura.