JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Our mantra: Philippines 2, Indonesia 0.
Or RP defeats Indonesia 1-0 in regular time, then 5-3 in the penalty shootout.
Neil-nil! Neil-nil! Neil-nil!

Join Chus and myself for our non-football commentary and fan support group therapy at 7:45 tonight.

In the meantime you could try bribing the cosmos for an Azkals victory. What would you give/give up to have the Philippine football team in the AFF Suzuki Cup final?

* * * * *

We’re here! Sorry we’re late, too much multitasking and then Chus’s wifi is on the fritz and the USB dongle is acting up again.

Seven and a half minutes in, the Indonesians have had three attempts at goal, the Azkals none.

Chus: Ang lakas niyang sumipa, parang ako ang sinisipa niya.

Jessica: Masokista! Manyak!

Chus and Jessica: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Neil stops a Gonzales attempt.

Chus: Hoy Gonzales, naka-tsamba ka lang noong isang araw ha. (Hey Gonzales, you got lucky the other day but not again!)

Feel Younghusband takes a shot. Too high.

Some words between Del Rosario and an Indonesian player. Referee intervenes.

Greeeaaatwwwiiiiiiich. . . too high.

Gonzales. . .???

Chorus: I love you, Neil Etheridge.

Indonesia takes two more kicks! Aaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Chus: Why can’t Neil move farther away from the box, I’m sure he could do more.

Jessica: Because he’s the goalie, sweetie.

Yellow card to Araneta.

Younghusbaaaaaand. . .too high.

Jessica (by SMS): Promising?

LeK (by SMS): Entertaining. Katakot.

Del Rosariooooooooo. . .too high.

LeK: The more dangerous forays and shots at goal have clearly been Indonesia’s. But our Neil very good. Our counterattacks okay so far, baka makatsamba (we might get lucky).

Yellow card to Gier for a foul on Gonzales.

Star Sports commentator: No way you’re going to beat a goalkeeper of Etheridge’s caliber with a shot like that. . .

Jessica and Chus: Haaay ang galing-galing ng commentator. (This commentator is brilliant.)

Near-brawl! Greatwich could’ve gotten a red card, gets a yellow.

And Gonzales kicks out their own goal.

Jessica and Chus: Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttt!!!

Gonzales kicks the ball into the net from 25 yards out. Indonesia 1, Phils 0. Brilliant strike, can’t begrudge him.

LeK: Alas aieeeeeee. Ur a gay 2, PHL 0 law of averages. And our defense bumabagsak.

We need more strikers. Feel Younghusband can’t do it all, he gets swarmed every time.

The first half ends.

All right people, moment of crisis. We need to will our balls into the net.

I am going to eat my dinner: nilagang baboy and red egg, prepared by the fabulous Becky.

Second half.

RP’s Gener pushes Ind’s Nasuha who already has a bandage on his head. Silly foul.

Aray! Indonesia has two shots at goal, Etheridge comes out to stop the second one, bumps into Yongki. Who goes down.

Chus: Wag niyong babanggain ang boyfriend ko. Masakit yan. (Don’t crash into my boyfriend, you will know pain.)

Have we any weapons left? Anything else we can try?

Indo’s Zulkifli has had two shots at goal so far in this half and our defense just leaves him alone. Don’t leave it all to Neil, guys.

Greaaaatwiiiiiich. . .almost.

Araneta goes down. Reverse batok (In mid-jump hits the back of his head against the defender’s leg).

The Indonesian goalie is down.

I don’t see a plan B, is there a plan B?

Neil repels an Indonesia goal with a kick from a half-split. Beautiful form.

Two good opportunities for the Azkals, no finishing touch aaaaargh.

Smartbro: Useless piece of crap.

I inhale a bag of potato chips in 5 minutes and I don’t even want potato chips. Stress eating.

The commentator points out that Feel Younghusband has talent but no hustle which probably explains why he’s no longer playing in Europe ouch.

Greatwich gets a red card. We play with ten men. Doesn’t matter.

Indonesia is through to the final with a 1-0 win over the Philippines.

If it hadn’t been for Neil Etheridge the score might’ve been 5-0.

LeK: K na rin yun. Parehong 1-0 lang. We lost honorably to Uruguay. And it had to take a brilliant strike. We fought well. Am sure if it had been at Panaad coliseum we would’ve won the first game, PHL 5 IND 0.

Jessica: And we have a villain! Sabunutan si Martinez!

LeK: Isali na si Raul Gonzales. Malamang kamag-anak ni Ur a gay.

That’s it for our liveblog. Thank you, Azkals; for two weeks we had a national sport outside of basketball. There’s work to be done: first, fix the Philippine Football Federation. But before that, we want Neil Etheridge.

Jessica: Ang lakas din gumamit ng hair gel ng boyfriend natin.

Chus: Pabayaan mo na siya!

Jessica: But you’re the hair fascist. You said no product.

Chus: He’s the one exception.

There’s something about the season of peace on earth and goodwill to all men that brings out the worst in people. So I knew traffic would be hell and the taxi situation impossible. There’s some comfort in being right.

I needed prescription lenses for my new frames so I went to see my optometrist Nella Sarabia at UP Shopping Center. (Incidentally if you are in desperate need of signed copies of Twisted 9 and 8 1/2 they are available at Nella’s shop. Her number is 4355685.) My appointment took ten minutes; getting out of UP Diliman took over an hour. After waiting outside the shopping center for several minutes I figured I’d have as much chance of getting a cab if I walked around the campus as I did just standing there and getting bored.

So I took a walk. A long walk. I remembered Jon’s advice and ate a banana-Q before setting out (I didn’t have breakfast and it was past 3pm.) The campus felt abandoned (the Lantern Parade was held the previous day), the foliage was lush, the weather my favorite kind—cool and gloomy. I don’t know how long I walked, but I finished listening to Avalon by Roxy Music and half of Pirates by Rickie Lee Jones (I picked those two because I listened to them constantly in school). At “Traces of the Western Slopes” a taxi appeared, and the driver agreed to take me to Cubao Expo where I was meeting Noel.

By the time I got to Cubao I was famished so I went to Bellini’s, which is owned by the ex-paparazzo from Pisa, Roberto Bellini. Mr. Bellini is so vivacious he is sometimes asked if he starred in Life Is Beautiful (Roberto Benigni). “What will you have!” he cried. “What have you got!” I replied. “Fresh fettucini with clams in tomato sauce!” he said. “I’ll take it!”

The fettucini was excellent. I mopped up the remaining sauce with fresh foccacia, then I had a slice of Bellini’s classic orange cake and an espresso. Mr. Bellini reminded me that I had been going to their restaurant since they opened in 1999. “This is on me!” he announced. Good as my meal was, it tasted even better afterwards because it was free.

Mr. Bellini

Noel had had to cram into the MRT to get to Cubao. There was this cranky guy by the door of the train car, and every time someone came in he said, “Bakit ka nakikipagsiksikan?” as if the passengers had a choice.

We found presents for our friends in Cubao Expo, then steeled ourselves for the MRT ride back to Makati. But then a taxi materialized in front of us, and the driver overcharged but we figured it was worth it.

After dinner we had cake and coffee at our friend’s new apartment, and the view made us forget how tired we were.

“All that I know most surely about morality and obligations I owe to football.” Albert Camus, goalkeeper. (It is not true that he wore the #1 jersey for Algeria, but he was very cool.)

Photos of Neil Etheridge from the Fulham FC site.

Jon on not eating, not drinking, and not being merry.

The latest from our straight guy columnist Jon Morales.

Warning: This is a harrowing tale.

listbonne: It’s December and most young, single people I know are starting to go broke. Have you ever gone through something like this? Any advice to them?

Jon:

In July I was tight. Real tight. One meal a day tight. Counting my peso coins like cigarettes and waiting for payday like rain tight.

Since I’ve moved to the Philippines I’ve lost 50 pounds, 10-15 of them in those last two weeks of July alone. The thing was, I knew I was going to be tight so I started marshalling my scant resources and looked ahead thinking, “I only have to make it two weeks,” scoured my room, gathered up all the loose change accumulated in the dirty laundry which I couldn’t afford to have washed and under the mat I sleep on, and figured I could make it.

The thing about being broke, and I mean real broke, like Henry Miller Tropic of Cancer type broke, is that you go to bed every night hungry and you wake up every morning even hungrier. Food dominates your thoughts. I woke up every morning and the first thought on my mind was “Where can I hustle some free food?”

I made it through most of the two weeks alright, got to the last Saturday, two days before the last payday. Since payday was so close and I had grown a bit tired of bananas and rice (I had cut out the soup for flavouring the rice by that point due to budget constraints) I decided to treat myself to an eight-peso hard-boiled egg. I was supposed to go to class that morning but had done the calculations and realized that MRT and jeepney rides back and forth to UP from Pasig would cost me a total of 44 pesos. Considering that I had only 20 before I bought the egg, that was clearly unacceptable.

So there I stood in the sunshine happily nibbling and savoring the eight peso hard-boiled egg in my left hand when someone drove up on a scooter and asked for directions around my neighborhood. As I began to tell him I gestured with that left hand and felt the disastrous and sudden lightening of the hard-boiled egg in my hand. Mid-sentence I came to a dead stop and looked down in utter shock as I watched the quarter-nibbled yolk come to a rest on the street in front of me. I’m not sure how much time passed, not much I think, as I stood there staring, eyes like dinner plates, at my yolk lying so tragically in the gutter.

The guy asking me for directions took one look at my face, paused and said “I’m sorry” and motored off. I didn’t even look up. I kept staring at the yolk: “Is it that bad yet? Is it that bad? Am I going to pick this thing up with my neighbours standing around me and eat it shamelessly out of the gutter?” “It’s not that bad yet, not yet.”

I walked home still reeling from my lost protein. I perked up when I remembered I had a bag of chichacorn on my counter that I’d been given as pasalubong a few months earlier. As I opened it ants started pouring out of the bag. I examined the bag and it had been on my counter so long that the ants had actually chewed a tiny hole through the plastic and invaded the chichacorn. “Is it that bad yet? The ants are just sort of extra protein…. right? No… No it’s not that bad yet.”

Only, it was. As I squatted next to my mat and recounted my 12 lonely little pesos I started to panic. “I’ve got no load on my phone, not enough money for more than a single jeepney ride, can only get so far on the MRT, and I only have enough money for two more bananas until Monday if I buy nothing else.” I couldn’t get anywhere, I couldn’t even get in touch with people who could help me. I was going to have to go until Monday, already famished to begin with, having eaten nothing but egg white and drinking nothing but unfiltered tap water for two days.

I’ve never felt worse panic in my life. All I could think over and over was, “My god when am I going to eat?! When am I GOING TO EAT!!!!” The thing about panicking though, for some strange reason, is that it makes me really really sleepy. Can’t keep my eyes open sleepy. Narcolepsy just took a Valium type sleepy.

So that’s what I did at 11 am Saturday morning on an empty stomach: fall dead asleep. I woke up at 6 PM and had the brilliant idea to search through my winter clothes that I hadn’t worn in 7 months for money. And there it was, in my ski jacket that I had no use for in Manila. Andrew Jackson, you were an awful and racist President who oversaw the Trail of Tears. You are the most beautiful man in the history of the world. As I cashed that 10 dollar bill at EDSA Shang I had a new refrain ringing in my head: I’m going to make it! Sweet Jesus I’m going to make it!!

When I finally got back on my feet I saw a friend who I hadn’t seen in about a month and she remarked, “Wow you look really good! Have you been working out?” No, not at all, just ran out of money and couldn’t afford food for a while. “Oh, well poverty suits you, you look good.” Thanks dear. Thanks.

Here’s my advice to people facing the same predicament and with too much pride or too few friends: Bananas. Those little unappetizing ones they sell at sari-sari stores. Through careful sampling and trials I have come to the conclusion that bananas have the highest satiation-to-price ratio of any food available in the Philippines. They taste like cardboard. But you feel full.

The other piece of advice: kawawa face. There’s nothing quite like the pressure of not eating to really give your acting skills that extra oomph of emotional sincerity. My kawawa face is unbeatable. My kawawa face could melt the glaciers and convince them to sell me some bottled water on credit. Swear to god I’ll pay you back as soon as I get paid, Ate.

Azkals AFP photo. Shorts too long.

Make sure you’re near a television tonight at 8 when the Philippines takes on Indonesia in the semifinal of the AFF Suzuki Cup. The game will be aired on Channel 23.

Visiting Azkals hope to upset Indonesians at home

We will liveblog the match! If you’re online, join us in cheering for the Azkals and supporting each other as we threaten nervous breakdowns with every possession. See you in the Comments section!

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The Pre-Show

We asked the esteemed Couch Kamote for his thoughts on the underdog Azkals’ chances in Jakarta. Couch Kamote has been waxing poetic on the national futbol team, even confiding that Philippines’ goalkeeper Neil Etheridge is “dreamboat billboard material” and confusing his chromosomes.

LeK: Can’t go octopussy against our own. Hoping for and would be happy with nil-nil, but it may be 0-2. Ngek.

JZ: What! Have you no faith in Neil honey and the Azkals??

LeK: Have. But Indon, in Jakarta, can run amok. Our backline may not sustain the Big D for 90 minutes of mounting frenzy. Would be happy to be proven wrong.

JZ: Then I’d better start hexing the competition. Kulamin!

LeK: Sige, me too. Sacra ng draco ko sila.

* * * * *

Random messages and long-distance dedications:

Chus: I love you, Neil Etheridge!

JZ: Well they’re not even supposed to have gotten this far. Life is randomness. There is always a chance.

* * * * *

2000hrs. The match has begun.

Apparently there are 90+ million Filipinos and only one football commentator. Yes, it’s still that guy. Is it 1974?

Chus: OMG, (verb redacted) ang (noun redacted) ni Neil!

JZ: For crying out loud pretend to watch the futbol.

2015. LeK: So far so good. We have majority of possession, and are on the offensive surprisingly.

Aaaaaa! Almost.

Aaaaaaa! Another almost.

Hey the Azkals are attacking attacking attacking. Surprise!

LeK: Ang galing natin. Inspirado.

!@#$%^ my internet connection. Continuing in Comments.

Defensive lapse. Etheridge comes out to stop the ball, Jonsson bumps into him, ball flies past them, bounces, bounces off the post and into the net. Indonesia 1, Phils 0.

* * * * *

The Azkals are fired up and dangerous. Our strikers need room to work. Stop going on and on about the miscommunication, there is plenty of time.

We do dwell on our mistakes.

LeK: At the risk of fulfilling my prediction, attack more in the second half but judiciously, without giving up defense. If we tie we demoralize the Indons. But. The Indons have so many more strikers and could turn up the heat in the second half.

* * * * *

Second half.

Two minutes to go. The Azkals have not had many chances. Three minutes added.

Indonesia whiles away the time. They win, 1-0.

Chus: Neil, darling, don’t blame yourself. You’ve been great throughout the tournament and it was just bad luck. You have another game on Sunday. Win that by a two-point differential and you’re in. The final. Since you are already in my heart.

LeK: A 0-1 defeat in Jakarta is okay, an achievement. I am proud of our boys.

It was a fantastic effort. We can still make the final! Chus and I will be back on Sunday with our pointless commentary on non-football matters. Join us! Hey, we should all watch the game in a bar.

* * * * *

Turns out we didn’t have to put up with the martial law throwback doomsday commentator on channel 23 because Star Sports or ESPN is airing the RP v Indonesia semifinals live hahaha!

Chus and I will watch the live telecast on cable on Sunday at his house because we need space for all the voodoo paraphernalia and alcohol. Join us for the liveblog this Sunday at 8pm!!!

LeK: I would give up (something important) for an Azkals 1-0 squeaker and then Neil saves two penalty kicks in the shootout and we kick in 4!

JZ: I will rename my eldest cat Koosalagoopagoop (Koosi) Galadriel Ivanisevic O’Brien-Etheridge if the Azkals make it to the final!

Not just a cat, The Mighty Kooshball!
Koosi: You forgot “goddess”.
Not just a cat, The Mighty Goddess Kooshball!