For love of country and football By James Joseph Younghusband Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 18:49:00 05/13/2008
MANILA, Philippines—Let me begin this story with how my younger brother Phil and I were discovered to represent the Philippines—a country known for its open worship of basketball, billiards and boxing.
It’s been said many times that an unnamed young lad discovered our Filipino lineage via a computer game. This mysterious boy informed the officials of the Philippine Football Federation, who then contacted us in mid-2005 asking us to represent our mother’s homeland. That’s all true. And the rest is history.
I was born on September 4, 1986 to a British gentleman named Philip Younghusband and a beautiful Filipina named Susan Placer. I started kicking the ball at around three, when my father would bring me and my brother to the park almost everyday to play the kicking ball game.
One must understand that football (or what the Western World refers to as soccer) is the national sport of England, and is part of a typical English person’s daily life.
At the age of 10, I entered Chelsea Football Club’s Youth Academy as an athletic scholar. It was at Chelsea where I spent years being trained by some of the world’s greatest footballers, including Frank Lampard and John Terry, as well as being coached later on by the Portuguese Jose Mourinho—considered the best manager in contemporary football and the king motivator and master of mind games.
Note that this is a man who has set a string of Premier League records that include six trophies for Chelsea in just three years, and who remains undefeated in home league games to this day.
Today, I am proud to don the no. 8 shirt for the Philippine National Team (Men’s U-23 Football). The team will again see action this year versus three other countries when the Philippines vies for a slot at the Asian Football Confederation Challenge Cup Qualifying Round from May 13 to 17 at the Iloilo Sports Complex.
Under the leadership of Philippine Football Federation President Jose Mari Martinez and the expertise of Technical Director Dr. Juan Cutillas, the team and I hope to give glory to our country and give back to every Filipino by promoting—and playing with all our hearts—the world’s most popular sport.
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