Chad Songalia, Mike Limpag and Neil Montesclaros are three football fanatics (out of the 3.5 billion who follow the sport) whom I asked to comment on tonight’s World Cup final:  SONGALIA: What have stood out in the World Cup in Qatar? You don’t need big name players to be successful. Look at Morocco. Who would have thought they’d reach the semis? What has stood out also is the emergence of young players: Bellingham, Gavi, Pedri, Gakpo, Musiala and Tchouameni and the strong performances of the goalkeepers (Yassine Bounou and Dominik Livakovic).  LIMPAG: This year’s World Cup, at leas ..read more

MADRID — How does it feel like to experience sitting beside 58,367 screaming fanatics of one of the world’s most famous football clubs? Our JJJ family watched the Real Madrid C.F. vs. Girona FC game in the capital of Spain last Sunday.  Jasmin, Jana and I arrived from Cebu to Madrid early that morning and, within hours, we were ready for the 4:15 p.m. kickoff time. Bull horns echoed outside the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium, home of the Galacticos for the past 75 years. Souvenir booths were scattered around selling scarves, magnets, water bottles — items plastered with the brand “REAL MADRID ..read more

(Photo by Jay LaPrete/AP) LeBron Raymone “Bronny” James Jr. is one of the most famous sons on Planet Earth. He is the first born to the King and heir to the throne. Bronny turned 17 last Oct. 6. Now a sophomore at Sierra Canyon School in L.A., he plays point guard and has set his sights on achieving a dream that’s never been done before: For father-and-son to play together in the NBA. Sure, there have been plenty of fathers and sons in the league. Before Klay Thompson, there was his dad Mychal, who helped the Lakers win two NBA crowns. Kobe Bryant’s dad Joe was a 6-foot-9 power forward who pla ..read more

Thirdy Ravena and Kobe Paras (photos in this post from Rappler) Shaq said it best: I’m tired of hearing about money, money, money, money, money. I just want to play the game, drink Pepsi, wear Reebok. Always the funny man, the 7-foot-1 member of the NBA’s 75 greatest players list is correct.  Sport is entertainment and entertainment means dollars. The Philippine Basketball Association right now is in a quandary. Founded in 1975, the PBA is Asia’s oldest pro basketball league and ranks as the world’s second oldest (next to the NBA, born in 1946). The PBA has a money problem. Sure, the leag ..read more

It has been 19 months since the world changed in March 2020. That’s when the Covid-19 pandemic affected the lives of the planet’s 7.9 billion people.  The world of sports was impaired. The Tokyo Games was moved 12 months later. Wimbledon got canceled. And while we used to watch 25,639 fans screaming inside an indoor arena, we’ve gotten used to observing empty stadiums with fake spectators plastered on LED screens. This was 2020. It’s 2021. In Europe and in the U.S. today, mask-less fans sit side-by-side at Premier League games and the U.S. Open. The world of sports has slowly returned to ..read more

(Photo: Jerry Lai/USA Today) Tennis is unlike any other sport on earth. It’s one on one. No coaches are allowed to sit beside you and whisper suggestions. You only use one racket but you have six extra in your bag.  The surfaces differ. There’s grass. There’s clay. There’s hard-court. You play indoors. You play outdoors. Or, you can start playing outdoors and, when the rain starts dripping, the roof closes and you resume indoors.  The scoring in tennis is weird. There’s “love.” There’s “15,” and “30” and “40.” When you’re at 40-all, it’s called Deuce.  Tennis was said to have or ..read more

Like golf, the sport of tennis has four major tournaments. There’s the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. If you win all four in the same calendar year, that’s called winning a “Grand Slam.”  That achievement is so rare that it has been accomplished by only five human beings — of the estimated 107 billion people that have inhabited Planet Earth. Don Budge was first in 1938; Maureen Connolly followed in 1953; Rod Laver did it in 1962 and 1969; Margaret Court in 1970; and Steffi Graf made it the “Golden Slam” when she also won the Olympic gold in Barcelona in that ..read more

The year was 1999 when my dad Bunny and I visited New York to watch the US Open. For two weeks nonstop, our eyes enlarged gazing at Andre Agassi winning the trophy and Serena Williams defeating Martina Hingis to collect her first major prize at the age of 17. Hundreds of thousands of spectators — including our companions Fabby Borromeo and his dad, the late Kits Borromeo — trooped to Flushing Meadows as we all cramped maskless and side-by-side, far from knowing about the Covid-19 pandemic that would terrorize us two decades later. Tomorrow, the US Open begins anew and an estimated 750,000 fan ..read more

(Photo: Chris Graythen/Getty Images) It’s been 97 years since our first Olympic appearance in Paris. In total, we have joined 22 Olympic Games. The only times we skipped were in 1940 (World War II) and 1980 when we boycotted the Moscow Olympics. In our 97 years of participation and 22 appearances, we have sent a total of 517 Filipino Olympians. Out of that, we have medaled 14 times — that’s eight bronze, five silver and one golden Gold. Our 14 medals were won by 12 athletes. Teofilo Yldefonso (200-meter breaststroke) snapped our first hardware in 1928 in Amsterdam and he won bronze again four ..read more

The Summer Olympics that started on July 23 will end today. The Closing Ceremonies will commence at 8 p.m. (Tokyo time) or 7 p.m., Philippine time. Our silver medalist Nesthy Petecio is expected to carry the Philippine flag tonight as we celebrate our most successful Olympics ever.  Team PHI first joined the quadrennial meet in 1924 in Paris. (Coincidentally, the 2024 Olympics — our 100th anniversary — will also be held in Paris.) There’s a saying that goes, “Ang una ra’y lisod.” (Only the first is most difficult.) I believe this holds true for Philippine sports. After a 97-year-long wait ..read more