Playing with former LaLiga stars

Also written with Kael Suntay

Anthony: Playing with legends is rare.

Last week, Kael and I had that opportunity to take the pitch with two former LaLiga stars in Nacho Monreal and Luis Garcia at the Sparta Philippines.

We also were on the pitch with former Azkals like Misagh Bahadoran, James Younghusband and Anton del Rosario; as well as current national player Stephan Shrock; not to mention a few more professional footballers, so the quality of play was very high.

But amid all that talent, you could see that Nacho and Luis played at the highest level, as they still dominated on the pitch.

Kael: It was so surreal to be able to play with Luis and most especially Nacho, a player I had followed when I was younger and a player I patterned my game after at the fullback position.

I’ve had my fair share of seven- a-side pick-up games, but none of them were like this one. With a lot of local talent on the field and adding two world class players conducting each of their teams, the game was so easy.

Luis and Nacho knew exactly how to adjust in terms of how their teammates played. There was one instance for me wherein Luis gave me a nice through ball along the right wing of the pitch and I couldn’t run as quick due to wearing running shoes on turf (I haven’t played football in over a year so I don’t own a pair of turf shoes). 

Right after I missed the pass Luis signals to me, apologizing and asking if it were the shoes. I nod and he gives me a thumbs up that basically said, “I got you next time”. 

A few more plays go by and I’m open once again on the wing, Luis and I make eye contact and I immediately knew I was getting the ball. He plays it through to me, and the pass is perfect. It had weight to get past the defender but not too much that it would get past me. In fact, I didn’t even have to control the ball. The pass slowed down right as it got in front of me, giving me time to look up at the goal, see where the keeper was standing, and place it into the bottom left corner of the goal. I turn around and point at Luis acknowledging the great pass, and Luis points right back.

Aside from the time on the pitch, we also had a few minutes to chat.

How important is giving