Courtesy: Inquirer


PSE’s World Cup (sort of)

by Daxim L. Lucas

WHO SAYS the Philippines isn’t a football-loving nation?

Taking advantage of the World Cup craze that swept the globe in recent weeks, the Philippine Stock Exchange held its own futsal tournament recently. Futsal is the indoor equivalent of football (or soccer, as Americans call it) played five-on-five on a hard surface instead of grass.

Several teams played in the tourney, held last Saturday at Club SixFifty, with their players looking every bit like the European and Latin American players you’d see on cable TV (well, almost). The teams were from Campos, Lanuza & Co. Inc.; ATR Kim Eng Securities; the combined team of Alakor Securities and I.B. Gimenez Securities; the combined team of BPI, UBS Securities and Deutsche Regis, and ICTSI.

Being a former Spanish colony, the mestizo players on the various teams made it look like the Spanish Primera Liga. But this was balanced out by the multinational representation brought in by UBS (Swiss) and Deutsche Regis (Germany), while ATR brought in a guest player from DBP Daiwa (Japan).

By far, the best futsal player of the tournament was ATR’s Randy Roxas, who is a former national football player. He amazed the audience with his ball handling skills, which made him the hardest individual player to guard.

Campos Lanuza (with their Spanish heritage courtesy of the Ortigas owners) bested ICTSI with a score of 1-0. This, incidentally, is the same score by which Spain won the real World Cup. Too bad the Dutch weren’t represented in the tournament by the local ING contingent.


Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com