Alfredo Razon Gonzalez: Soccer is his passion
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Soccer is his passion
Jose V. Arcenas and Gerard l. Estrella, Sep 01, 2004
MANILA — He has a generic Filipino name, but he is anything but ordinary.
His name: Alfredo Razon Gonzalez. A young man considered today’s best
Filipino soccer player, whom many of his peers and Filipino soccer officials
declare as the sport’s greatest Filipino striker ever.
Freddy is 26 years old and presently a member of the Philippine Football Squad
and a star player for Eastern Asian Bank, one of the teams competing in the
highly popular Vietnam Football League ( a.k.a. the V-League). The Eastern
Asian Bank team plays its games in front of 35,000 screaming fans, in the Thong
Nat Stadium in Ho Chi Minh City, all of whom consider the Filipino striker
their football hero.
A celebrity in Vietnam, from Da Nang to Hanoi – where soccer is a national
pastime, Freddy is virtually unknown in the Philippines since soccer has no
national following of any kind.
Upon meeting him, one can easily mistake him for a Spaniard or Italian or a
younger version of Irish American actor Aidan Quinn. But he is quick to remind
everyone, “I’m often mistaken for a European…pero Filipino ako. I was
born and raised in Parañaque, near Baclaran Church.”
In an interview with Philippine News, Freddy, dressed in blue denims and a
black football shirt, expressed his passion for “the beautiful game
(soccer)” as Pele would call it, his frustrations regarding the obscurity of
football in the country, and his interest in promoting futsal, the indoor
soccer game.
Freddy related emphatically: “It’s so sad that soccer takes a back seat to
so many team sports in our country. It is the best and most popular sport in
the world. Teams that are great in football are great nations.
In Asia, almost all countries promote soccer as a tool for national
development. It is sad that the Philippines is ranked 189th in the world,
according to the Fifa [Fédération Internationale de Football Association –
the sport’s governing body] world rankings.”
Freddy plays the lead forward-striker, and sometimes midfielder and winger
whenever necessary, for both his country and his pro team. He has been a member
of the Philippine Football Squad since he was 19 and has represented the
country in various international soccer tournaments such as the Tiger Cup
(among Southeast Asian teams every two years), the Asian Cup Qualifying and the
Asian Olympic Qualifying, which are held a year before the Asian Cup and the
Olympics.
At these international meets, Freddy showed the world of soccer his prodigious
scoring skills as a lethal striker. He definitely can lay claim as the
Philippine’s best footballer. He is after all the first Filipino to sign a
professional contract upon joining the Eastern Asian Bank team in the V-League
last January 2003.
While there have been Filipino soccer stars in years past like Eddie Llamas,
Raffy Esteva, Eddie Pacheco, Enrique Beech, Vic Sison, and Ed Ocampo, none of
them were recruited to play professionally abroad, although Pacheco was a
consistent member of the Mythical Asian Eleven in the ‘50s.
He has also been recruited by French and Dutch soccer clubs to play in their
farm teams. Freddy reminisces how proud his mom was when French soccer club
Calais invited him to try out for its farm team in 2000. He showed promise
during the try-outs and was about to be signed but was derailed by a torn
hamstring.
Lately, a Dutch club, R.B.C. Rosendaal, invited him to join its 2nd division
farm team, and would have paid him Euro 475,000 a year. But the deal required
him to become a Spanish citizen. It was an option Freddy could have taken on
account of his Spanish ancestry, but chose not to.
Freddy started kicking the ball at a very young age. His mother, the late Terry
Razon, enrolled him in the Makati Football School (MFS) at the age of six. This
school was run by one Tomas Lozano, a former Spanish professional player, who
saw to it that young boys are taught the proper way to play. Freddy credits MFS
for molding his discipline at the sport.
During his early and mid teens, Freddy became the star player of his high
school, Colegio de San Agustin. Such was his skill that he was able to enter
the University of Portland on a soccer scholarship.
“I really give a lot of credit to my mom. She raised my brother Christian and
me, by herself. My dad moved to the States when I was four and it has been my
mom ever since – bringing us to the games, encouraging us always,” he
fondly recalls.
Next to his mom, Christian, 29, is one of Freddy’s biggest fans. In fact, a
common love for the sport has prompted Christian, who has joined their maternal
uncle’s company, International Container Terminal Services, Inc., to
encourage fund donations for the sport.
But frustration is running high. “My family believes that there is no future
in football in the country,” Freddy rues, explaining that while there are
private projects like the Coke Go-For-Goal and Kasibulan – a program of
German national V. Fischer, which teaches soccer coaching to physical education
teachers nationwide – there is no comprehensive national grassroots program.
He believes that excellence in the sport results from good coaching, which the
country lacks unlike its neighboring countries Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam.
This is why Freddy looks forward to coaching the Philippine team when he calls
it quits as a player.
“The Filipino soccer players have loads of potential. They have the heart and
passion. The players especially from Iloilo and the Philippine Army are good,
but are lacking the technical skills,” he said.
But, retirement is far from his mind. He will continue playing professionally
in Vietnam for a few more years. Later in the year, he will participate in the
Tiger Cup for the Philippine National Team.
He may still give playing in Europe another shot, starting out in the farm team
system to end up in the major leagues. Can you imagine, Freddy told PN, to be
able to play with or against the likes of Zidane, Ronaldo, and Beckham?
It is every footballer’s dream.