That desire will be put to the test as Saintfiet hopes to guide the Filipinos to a pair of favorable results against Iraq when the second round of the joint qualifiers for the 2026 FIFA World Cup and 2027 AFC Asian Cup resume.

Ranked 133rd in the world, the Philippines faces a gargantuan task against No. 68 Iraq, which it will battle on the road at the Basra International Stadium on March 21 and at home at the Rizal Memorial Coliseum on March 26.

The set of home-and-away games against the Iraqis will mark the first time that the Belgian mentor – who boasts of an extensive run coaching for multiple African countries – will call the shots for the Philippines.

“I think that will be for sure the most difficult match. Iraq is a powerhouse in Asian football. I think personally Iraq will go to the World Cup,” said Saintfiet on Friday, March 1, after wrapping up a national team training session.

“The game is not lost before you play it. We will need motivated guys who are ready to play disciplined.”

Iraq, the seventh-highest ranked team in Asia, is poised to reach the third round of the qualifiers as it owns the top spot in Group F with 6 points, being the only unbeaten team in the bunch which includes Indonesia and Vietnam.

A pair of wins against the Philippines will further boost the Iraqis’ bid of inching closer to a World Cup return since their maiden appearance in 1986.

Taking its 5-1 romp of Indonesia and 1-0 win over Vietnam into consideration, the Arabian Gulf Cup champions is a clear-cut favorite against the Philippines.

But Saintfiet aims to surprise as the Philippines (1 point, -2 goal difference), which sits third in Group F behind Vietnam (3 points, +1 goal difference) and ahead of Indonesia (1 point, -4 goal difference), looks to stay in the mix.

The Philippines opened the second round in November with a 0-2 loss to Vietnam and a 1-1 draw with Indonesia.

After playing against each other twice, only the top two teams from each of the nine groups will advance to the third round.

“If you could play a draw in Iraq, that would be fantastic. After that, we will see what we can do here. I would prefer to win both, but I’m dreaming too much, then I wake up,” said Saintfiet.

“Let’s go for a good zero-zero and I will be very happy with that,” Saintfiet added. “If we could win one, that would be amazing. But let’s not dream too much, let’s work.”

Saintfiet and the team will hold a weeklong training camp in Dubai before they fly to Iraq for the first of their two matches against the former Asian Cup titlists. – Rappler.com

The Junior Golden Booters asked fans to look at two sides of the story after UST substitute goalkeeper Ben Sabuga attacked FEU defender Bryan Villanueva following the Baby Tamaraws’ 3-0 win in the final of the UAAP Season 86 boys’ football tournament on Thursday, February 29.

While his teammates were celebrating, Villanueva walked past the UST bench and appeared to shush spectators before a rushing Sabuga punched him at the back of the head. 

“[A] senior player from FEU, donning the captain’s armband charged towards UST’s technical area, hurling offensive taunts at their coaches, players, and supporters. He continued unchecked by anyone from FEU,” the Junior Golden Booters said in a statement posted on their Instagram account on Friday, March 1. 

“The actions of this player have been captured and been posted in the social media. Unfortunately, some parts of these videos being circulated may have been spliced and only showed the reactions of some UST players.”

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Although the Junior Golden Booters do not excuse Sabuga for his reckless act, they said disrespecting opponents should also be frowned upon.

“We do not condone these reactions by our players as we strongly believe that violence has no place in sports. But we also do not tolerate disrespect and rude behavior towards opponents, coaching staff, and supporters,” the team said. 

“If a spontaneous reaction of a UST player warrants criticism and discipline, it is also with more reason that a deliberate and shameless display of rudeness by this FEU player, who instigated this incident after all, should be equally condemned and addressed.”

Sabuga received a scolding from UST coach Marjo Allado after the incident and the Junior Golden Booters said they are dealing with him privately.

“Our team’s culture is built on the spirit of sportsmanship, respect and fair play, and some of our players may not have live up to these expectations during that time. We want to assure everyone that we are taking immediate action to address the situation internally,” the team said.

“In the spirit of fairness, we only asked for your consideration and understanding and look at the incident on both sides with objectivity and impartiality.” – Rappler.com

UST goalkeeper Ben Sabuga punched FEU defender Bryan Villanueva after the Baby Tamaraws captured their 12th consecutive crown with a 3-0 demolition of the Junior Golden Booters at the UP Diliman Football Stadium.

While the rest of his teammates were celebrating, Villanueva walked past the UST bench and appeared to shush fans in the crowd.

Sabuga then rushed from his place near the goal post and hit Villanueva at the back of the head.

Cooler heads prevailed, but not without Junior Golden Booters head coach Marjo Allado giving Sabuga an earful for his careless act.

The match gave the players a chance to showcase their wares as new Philippine men’s football team head coach Tom Saintfiet watched.

FEU star Theo Libarnes scored in the final for his seventh goal of the season to clinch the Golden Boot and Best Striker awards.

Baby Tamaraws senior Gian Carlo Lucha earned season MVP honors, while UST’s Edcel Lauron and Kent Laurenz dela Peña bagged the Best Goalkeeper and the Best Midfielder awards, respectively. – Rappler.com

Such was the case for the FEU-Diliman Baby Tamaraws as they ruled the UAAP Season 86 high school boys’ football tournament for the 12th straight time, toppling first-time finalist UST Junior Golden Booters with a 3-0 romp on Thursday, February 29.

Even after UST led the standings for much of the season, FEU snuck right back on top after a stellar elimination round wrap-up, followed by a masterpiece finale that saw the Baby Tamaraws hold a 1-0 lead just 18 minutes in.

Eventual Golden Boot winner Theo Libarnes, who pushed FEU further away with his seventh season goal 8 minutes after intermission, echoed the struggles his team went through and was just glad that when the lights were brightest, they shone brightly right back.

“I was shocked to get the Golden Boot award because I didn’t score in the first round,” he said in Filipino. “I did bounce back in the second round, but still, our struggles to get to the final were evident.”

“But now, we’re in the FEU history books. I gave it all I got for my teammates,” added the graduating forward.

Fellow senior Gian Carlo Lucha, the Baby Tamaraws’ ace defender, likewise bowed out of high school competition in style by winning tournament MVP.

UST’s Edsel James Lauron and Kent Laurenz dela Peña nabbed Best Goalkeeper and the Best Midfielder honors, respectively. Bacchus Ekberg, a vital piece in La Salle-Zobel’s third-place finish, bagged the Best Defender award. Ateneo, meanwhile, secured the Fair Play Award.

“It feels unreal because I never thought this award would be mine,” Lucha said in Filipino. “We struggled a lot, lost twice in the eliminations, but I just said to my teammates to steel their hearts and trust God.”

“Thankfully, our sacrifices paid off.” – Rappler.com

After the final whistle on Sunday, social media videos captured Ronaldo cupping his ear before repeatedly pumping his hand forward in front of his pelvic area. The action appeared to be directed at the rival Al Shabab supporters.

In the background, chants of “Messi” could be heard, referencing Ronaldo’s longtime football rival from Argentina.

The committee said the Portuguese star would have to pay a fine of 10,000 Saudi riyals ($2,666) to the Saudi Football Federation, and 20,000 riyals to Al-Shabab to cover the costs of the complaint filing fees.

The committee said the decision is not subject to appeal.

In April last year, the 39-year-old Ronaldo appeared to grab his genitals while on his way to the dugout following the end of a league game against Al Hilal, which Al Nassr lost 2-0.

– Rappler.com

The squad nicknamed the Azkals will be called that no more under the tutelage of Belgian coach Tom Saintfiet, whom the PFF introduced on Monday, February 26.

Saintfiet, who boasts 26 years’ worth of managing experience, succeeded Hans Michael Weiss, who was recently brought back to call the shots for the men’s crew before his second removal from the post.

“I was in need of a new task, an ambitious task…. I was needed and [I was] in need of a project,” Saintfiet told reporters.

“And I’m very thrilled to be very happy and very proud to be part of this ambitious project. And I’m sure, we, all together, can help us succeed in our dreams [of making the FIFA World Cup],” he added.

Saintfiet made a name for himself coaching in Africa, where he most recently led Gambia to consecutive appearances in the Africa Cup of Nations.

He resigned just last January after Gambia exited the Africa Cup of Nations, where they finished last.

The 50-year-old former player also had stints in Malta, Trinidad and Tobago, Bangladesh, Togo, Malawi, Yemen, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Qatar, whose national U17 team he guided to the FIFA U17 World Championship in 2005.

His immediate concern is the Philippines’ current campaign in the FIFA World Cup Asian Qualifiers, where they will face Iraq on March 22 and 26.

“We are looking at dynamic young people who can use our team as a jumping place to reach higher goals,” said Saintfiet.

“Players, maybe who are not yet there where they want to be on club level, can benefit from being in an ambitious, a well-organized national team, to achieve [their] goals in winning games with the national team going to the Asia Cup…. Every player that can play anywhere can benefit off that on the club level. So it’s a win-win situation.”

Azkals no more

The team also quietly retired the Azkals moniker earlier in February, coinciding with new management and coaching.

Former national team player Freddy Gonzalez was appointed as the team’s new manager in January, succeeding longtime patron Dan Palami, who held the role from 2009 to 2024.

“Right now, we’ll just call the team the Philippine men’s national [football] team…. We feel that while the Azkals name was great, it has served its purpose,” Gonzalez told reporters.

“We feel like we’re going into the next step of Philippine football. So that’s something that we’re not really thinking about but will eventually come to play at some point, whether by us or by the fans.”

Gonzalez denied allegations surfacing online that the move to drop the Azkals name was due to Palami owning the trademark, which makes it hard for the PFF to use.

He added that Palami was very gracious to hand the trademark over, but the PFF opted for a change to eliminate stereotypes that come with the name.

“With this administration, we don’t distinguish anymore between half-Filipinos and [full-blooded] Filipinos,” said Gonzalez.

“Therefore, the Azkals name has no relevancy anymore in the team. We’re all Filipinos. There’s no more half-half.”

The term “askal,” a portmanteau of aso and kalye, meaning “street dog,” refers to mixed-breed dogs which roam outside and often have no owners.

As the Azkals, the national men’s team had drawn flak for signing and fielding more foreign-based mixed-race Filipinos than pure-blooded ones.

Under Palami’s watch, the country experienced its best showing of football this century, a rise that began in the 2010 AFF Suzuki Cup, where the team upset defending champion Vietnam in what was dubbed the “Miracle of Hanoi.”

Players like Phil and James Younghusband, Neil Etheridge, Manny and Mike Ott, Patrick Reichelt, Misagh Bahadoran, and many more starred for the better part of the past decade, bringing the basketball-crazed country to greater heights.

The team rose to its best-ever FIFA ranking of 111 in 2018, much higher than the current placement of 139. – Rappler.com

The two suspects, arrested shortly after Wednesday’s shooting, were being held at a juvenile detention center on charges of firearms violations and resisting arrest, according to a statement from Jackson County’s Family Court.

Police have said both suspects are teens, but they have not been otherwise publicly identified because they are minors.

The charges were filed on Thursday, according to the announcement, which noted that further family court proceedings would be closed to the public under Missouri law.

“It is anticipated that additional charges are expected in the future as the investigation by the Kansas City Police Department continues,” the statement read.

Jackson County prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said in a written statement on Friday that her office was working closely with family court authorities overseeing the case, though she noted her office had no authority over family court officers.

A spokesperson for Baker’s office has said county prosecutors would start a process to charge the two minors as adults once they were charged as juveniles. That procedure could take days or weeks, the spokesperson said.

Police said the shooting erupted during a quarrel among a group of people as the Chiefs’ rally wound down. Several firearms were recovered from the shooting scene.

The rally and parade preceding it in celebration of the Chiefs’ Super Bowl triumph over the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday drew over a million fans, Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves said on Thursday.

The sound of gunshots as the event was breaking up sent throngs scrambling for cover. Two fans attending the rally ended up tackling and detaining one of the suspects.

Police said the 23 gunshot victims’ ages ranged in age from 8 to 47. Lisa Lopez-Galvan, 43, a popular local radio personality, was the lone fatality.

Pop superstar Taylor Swift, whose boyfriend – Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce – was attending the rally, donated $100,000 early on Friday to a GoFundMe page set up by the family of Lopez-Galvan. Swift was at the Super Bowl game but was back on tour in Australia when the shooting occurred.

Children’s Mercy Hospital said it treated the nine children who were shot and all were expected to recover. Two other children with non-gunshot injuries and an adult victim were also treated there, the hospital said.

Graves, who said on Thursday that investigators had ruled out any apparent connection to extremism or “homegrown terrorism,” also said that police were still seeking to determine if anyone else was involved in the shooting.

“We will not relent until everyone who may have played a part in these crimes is apprehended so that they may be punished to the fullest extent of the law,” she said in a statement on Friday following the announcement that the two juvenile detainees had been charged.

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas on Friday thanked prosecutors and police for their efforts, adding: “I know more investigation and potentially further charges are ahead as we pursue justice for all impacted.” – Rappler.com

At the end, it was hugs and kisses for her Kansas City Chiefs tight end boyfriend Travis Kelce on a field smothered with glitter and ticker tape as the world digested an epic, dynasty-creating victory over the San Francisco 49ers.

Swift was central to the Super Bowl story all week but at the conclusion of the 25-22 overtime win she was just another exhausted, ecstatic fan like so many around her, happy to share superstar billing with Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes – for one day at least.

Swift performed in Tokyo on Saturday, and when she took her seat at the Allegiant Stadium, it ended a week-long will-she-won’t-she saga that had dominated the lead-up to the football event of the year.

Her arrival some two hours before kick-off had fired an almost palpable frisson around the stadium and social media rapidly filled with pictures and video footage of the singer.

The cameras followed her as she walked through the bowels of the stadium with friends Blake Lively and Ice Spice dressed in a black top, black jeans, and with a red Chiefs jacket slung over her shoulder.

A punishing travel schedule in which she had flown from Japan to the US for a brief stop before she heads on the long flight down to Australia for seven more sell-out concerts meant her presence had been far from a foregone conclusion.

When giant television screens showed Swift for the first time, a ripple of cheers went around the still-mostly empty stadium.

But while Chiefs fans, neutrals, TV viewers, and legions of “Swifties” all the world over were delighted by her presence, the overwhelmingly pro-49ers crowd in the stadium was perhaps understandably less enthusiastic.

In the first half when cameras showed Swift up on the big screens, it prompted 49ers jeers. She handled that by quickly grabbing her drink, and chugging it all down before slamming the glass on the surface in front of her.

It was the first of what seemed to be several unguarded moments, and as the on-field tension ratcheted up and the game headed into overtime, Swift nibbled a nail, hugged her friends, and hid her face.

Swifties

Swift, who last weekend won the Grammy Award for album of the year for a record fourth time, has attended 12 Chiefs games since she began dating Kelce last year, boosting already sky-high NFL ratings.

With her army of devotees known as “Swifties,” the 34-year-old brings megawatts of superstar power to the NFL and the Swift-Kelce love story marks a collision between two of the most powerful forces in American pop culture.

As shirt sales spike and viewership grows, the romance has brought millions of dollars of added brand value to the Chiefs and the NFL, according to research done by Apex Marketing Group.

“Taylor Swift’s association with Travis Kelce and appearances at the Chiefs game has generated an equivalent brand value of $331.5 million for the Kansas City Chiefs and the NFL,” Apex President Eric Smallwood told Reuters in an email.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell could be forgiven for rubbing his hands in glee.

“Having the Taylor Swift effect is a positive,” he told reporters this week.

“She knows great entertainment and I think it is great to have her a part of it. Obviously it creates a buzz … another group of young fans that are interested and saying, ‘Why is she going to this game?'”

“They’re – both Travis and Taylor – wonderful people and they seem very happy.”

Happy hardly covers the enormous smiles sported by America’s golden couple after the latest chapter of their adventure. – Rappler.com

The three-time Super Bowl champion and two-time league MVP marched his team down the field and capped the comeback win with a three-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Mercole Hardman.

Mahomes was quick to credit his teammates for the triumph in Las Vegas.

“What we’ve come through, dealt with this year, the guys never faltered,” he said.

“I just got to give God the glory man, he challenged us to make us better. I’m proud of my guys man, this is awesome, it’s legendary.

“It’s the start of (a dynasty), we’re not done. I know we’re going to celebrate tonight but we got a young team, we going to keep this thing going.” – Rappler.com

Mahomes guided the Chiefs on a 13-play, 75-yard drive after the 49ers had settled for a field goal on their overtime possession. The victory made Kansas City the first team to win back-to-back Super Bowls since the New England Patriots won consecutive titles in the 2003 and 2004 seasons.

Mahomes was 34-of-46 passing for 333 yards, two touchdowns, and one interception as the Chiefs won their third Super Bowl in the past five seasons. Two of their victories have come against the 49ers.

Travis Kelce caught nine passes for 93 yards and Marquez Valdes-Scantling also caught a touchdown pass for Kansas City. Harrison Butker tied a Super Bowl record with four field goals, including a record 57-yarder just one quarter after San Francisco’s Jake Moody set the mark with a 55-yard kick.

Brock Purdy completed 23 of 38 passes for 255 yards and one touchdown for the 49ers. Christian McCaffrey had 160 scrimmage yards (80 rushing, 80 receiving) to go with a touchdown catch while Jauan Jennings threw a touchdown pass and caught another for San Francisco, which last won a Super Bowl in the 1994 season.

Moody kicked a 27-yard field goal with 7:22 left in overtime to give the 49ers a three-point lead.

Moody also booted a 53-yard field goal with 1:53 remaining in regulation to give the 49ers a 19-16 advantage. The Chiefs rallied to force overtime on Butker’s 29-yarder with three seconds left.

Steve Christie of the Buffalo Bills set the former long mark with a 54-yarder against the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl XXVIII on January 30, 1994.

Mahomes connected with a wide-open Valdes-Scantling to give Kansas City its first lead of the contest at 13-10 with 2:28 left in the third quarter.

San Francisco recovered to take a 16-13 lead on Purdy’s 10-yard touchdown pass to Jennings with 11:22 remaining in the game. But Moody’s extra point was blocked by Kansas City’s Leo Chenal.

The missed point was magnified when Butker kicked a 24-yard field goal to tie the score with 5:46 remaining in the fourth quarter.

Moody broke the record with a 55-yard field goal 12 seconds into the second quarter for the points of the game.

San Francisco stretched the lead to 10 when Purdy threw a lateral to his left to Jennings, who then threw a toss all the way back to the other side of the field. McCaffrey caught it and easily sped ahead to score the game’s first touchdown with 4:23 left in the half.

Kansas City finally got on the board on Butker’s 28-yard field goal with 20 seconds left in the half. His record-setting boot in the third quarter cut the Chiefs’ deficit to 10-6. – Rappler.com