They recently played a friendly against former LaLiga players.
For many decades, football lurked behind the shadows of more popular sports like basketball and volleyball—at least here in the Philippines. But the 2010s saw the steady rise of the sport, which is a religion for many European countries.
And at the center of that renaissance were the Philippine Azkals.
Azkals skipper Stephan Schrock reminded everyone of that when he posted on Instgram a picture with fellow national team legends James Younghusband, Anton Del Rosario, Misagh Bahadoran, and Darenn Hartmann.
They had a reunion of sorts when they played former LaLiga players Luis Garcia and Nacho Monreal in a friendly during the Legends Asian Tour in Sparta, Mandaluyong last December 13.
“Importance is about being noticed—it’s about being remembered,” Schrock wrote in the caption.
Football fans in the country sure remember Schrock and company.
To this day, in fact, football continues to grow in the country, with the Azkals' counterparts, the Filipinas, beginning to stomp their class in international tiffs over the past few years, including a historic stint in the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
The Azkals haven't had that same success as of late, but it cannot be denied that their own glorious run in the early 2010s arguably set the stage for the sport to grow in this hoops-crazy country.
Indeed, the Azkals etched a legacy that will forever endure. And Schrock, Younghusband, Del Rosario, Bahadoran, and Hartmann were big parts of it.
(MDB)