KENNETH PORIO | the blog

This is the 3rd installment of posts regarding the accents of the Philippine Azkals. Click for the 1st post and the 2nd post . On my previous post, I talked about the Estuary English of Neil Etheridge , Phil Younghusband and James Younghusband , the Californian accent of  Anton del Rosario , the Dutch manner of speaking by  Jason de Jong , and Persian cliques of Misagh Bahadoran. By now, let's cure more of your curiosity. Many wonder how the recent goal-maker for the team, Fil-German midfielder Stephan Schröck , and the German coach Hans Michael Weiß (pronounced as /'vaisz/, also spelled Weiss)  speak English. Well, I wondered, too, how they speak when I first heard of them. Luckily, I found a video from a TV Patrol report. (Last interview clip shows James Younghusband, the Middlesex boy.) Anyhow, Stephan, while having a deep but sharp, gritty voice, has a thick German accent. His glottals and dipthongs are typical of a south German (He hails from Fürth, in Bava

Angel Guirado Aldeguer hugs a crying Misagh Bahadoran after their loss to Kuwait on 28 July 2011. (interaksyon.com) It's finally over. Their dream to reach the 2014 World Cup has finally come to a heartbreaking but inspiring  end. After a 5-1 aggregate in favour of Kuwait, all hopes broke down as the Philippine National Football Team  or the Philippine Azkals  bowed down to Middle East superpower the Kuwait Al-Azraq for the home leg of 2nd round of the World Cup 2014 qualifiers . Although a glimmer of hope was lit as German 2nd Division Bundesliga midfielder Stephan Shroeck  striked a 25-yard goal at the last minute of the 1st half, it was backfired by goals by Yousef Naser and Waleed Jumah on the 2nd half. Indeed, it was not yet their time. How heartbreaking their loss be, the cheering Filipino audience at the Rizal Memorial Stadium never stopped chanting "Azkals! Azkals!" in support of their national team, together with a standing ovation. It was nevertheless

"Football hooliganism is unruly and destructive behaviour—such as brawls, vandalism and intimidation—by association football club fans."- Wikipedia I do not know  ( yet )  how  to play football (soccer in the US). I intended to enroll on a PE course of football in where I am studying, but my schedules and finances didn't allow me to. I watch football every time CNN or BBC reports about some team/club plays against this team/club. I am actually bored at the constant wins of Manchester United on the English Premier League , or how national teams played head on during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa (which I religiously followed via CNN's extensive coverage). But my journey to be a follower for football skyrocketed when the Philippine national football team a.k.a. the Azkals  qualified for the semi-finals in the 2010 AFF Suzuki Cup. The Azkals led me to know that the Philippines, known to be religious in basketball and boxing, can compete in this world-famous s

This is Part 2 of a series of posts about the Philippine Azkals' accents. Click here to go to my 1st post. Hello there, Azkaleros! Well, my previous post talked about the accents of some prominent members of the Philippine Azkals, the men's national football team. Last time we talked about Aly Borromeo 's accent that's like a mix of Californian, Hispanic and Bisaya . We appreciated the ruff-and-tuff Southeastern American accent of Jason Sabio . We are tickled by the quirky Sussex accent of Simon Greatwich . And we do love the almost-Oxford-standard accent of Rob Gier . Now let's get into another set of players. First up, the prime goalkeeper Neil Etheridge, the 21 year-old lad from London. Now, let's go back to that video starring him in 2008 (We'll observe, too, the other person interviewed here.) As I've been observing his interviews every now and then, I am able to think that Neil's delivery of the language is close to what they call

Hey, fangirls. We just like to scrutinize every foreign-based Philippine Azkal 's English accent. We just have to like it. It just means that Filipinos have diversity of linguistic ethnicities . We're a melting pot  of sorts. Pinoys abroad are melting pots, figuratively. In this above video, four Azkals members, Aly Borromeo, Jason Sabio, Simon Greatwich, and Rob Gier greet during their photoshoot for Metro Society  magazine. Aly and Jason are based in America; Simon and Rob are based in Britain. Well, they have different accents at the continental level, but how do their accents distinct from each other? So how do we start from here? Aly, the captain, is born in San Francisco, California. So I expected when I heard of him for the first time that he would speak Californian twang. But, no. He actually spent most of his teenage years in the Philippines since he played for the U-19 teams of UFL for the 2000 AFC Challenge cup. In an interview with Jessica Soho last Janua

It seems to me that some Filipinos do not yet understand why the Philippine National Football Team , also known as the Philippine Azkals , had to have  Filipino-foreigners (half-Filipinos, half- Pinoy ,  mestizos , whatever you would call them)   playing for the team. Here are some of them: 1. Team captain and defender  Alexander "Aly" Borromeo  (photo at left) ,  American-born Filipino with Spanish mestizo lineage from San Francisco, California. 2. Defender Anton del Rosario,  Filipino-American from San Francisco, California, 3. midfielder James Younghusband , English-Filipino from South East England,   and his brother; 4. forward  Phil Younghusband,  English-Filipino from South East England, and; 5. goalkeeper  Neil Etheridge,  English-Filipino from Greater London. (Other mestizos are half-Castillan Spanish, half-German, half-Scottish, half-Dutch, half-Danish and plenty more.) Why do they have to have them when the team has members who are purely locals

I came across a gorgeous (pun intended) photo of Fulham FC member & Philippine Azkals' goalkeeper Neil Etheridge via a fan Tumblr log . Again, as what I ranted on my previous post, why do fans really exploit these  beautiful men like him , huh? But I was surprised to look at this when I came across a sneak-peek of FIFA '11 by a local sports blog: As a computer scientist and as an enthusiast in computer graphic modelling, I wonder why the 3D designers of the EA Sports game did not  observe the prominent features of this British-Filipino lad from London.  1. A wider pair of shoulders. 2. A bigger set of pecs. 3. A sharper jawline. 4. A rounder cheekbone structure. 5. An upwards spiky hairdo. Why, oh why, these people don't innovate much in imitating at least these important features of this lad over here. But there will be apparently a patch that will include a fix for Neil's virtual self in the coming months. And maybe at the rel

My brother tweeted this before the Azkals match against the Sri  Lanka Brave Reds on July 3rd: Puro pacute lang ang Azkals. Publicity2x eh di naman nag sa stand out. Kawawa naman ung ibang mas deserving at mas magaling na atleta jan. - @greenboyBSEE I thought to myself this time: Is this skyrocketing fame of the Azkals a publicity stunt, or a beg for action? While the Azkals' games were breathtaking, I can't help but think that the Azkals have not yet matured enough in terms of teamwork that Pinoys expect of them. Here are my observations of them so far: 1. Leaderships are meant to be appreciated and emulated. Fil-Am team captain Aly Borromeo (#11 on the above photo )  got a yellow penalty card in each of the 2 rounds of the qualifier leg. This made ground for him to be barred from playing at their match against Kuwait on July 23rd. In the first round of the leg, here's a fan commentary at the Azkals.com forums: Borromeo's boot was so high that any [referee] wit

Source:news.yahoo.com.ph/AP On the 3rd of July 2011, the Philippine National Football Team , also known as the Philippine Azkals , beat the Sri Lanka Brave Reds with an aggregate score of 5-1, part of a series of World Cup 2014 Brazil qualifier matches. Source: news.yahoo.com.ph/AP My question is, is this a good omen for a potential rising fame of the Philippine team? For the past decade, the Philippine National Football Team ranked in between 150th and 160th in FIFA world rankings. This is still a utterly low ranking considering the third-world nature of the country and its misuse of funds to cater to the athletics sector. However, with this victory of the team against another third-world country which at least have enough funds to cater to their athletes, this would therefore be a wake-up call to the Filipino sporting community to urge for support by the local government. In addition, the entire football team is a mix-up of the best and the brightest of football (or