Looking at this year’s Clear Dream Match Draft

Last Saturday, August 10, the draft for the second Clear Dream Match was held at the atrium of SM Megamall.

The Clear Dream Match is an all-star football game of sorts wherein brothers James and Phil Younghusband are on opposite teams. Then they draft their first five teammates who come from the different United Football League teams. The succeeding names are all drawn from fishbowls in alternate fashion.

A look back at last year’s Clear Dream Match

Last year’s Clear Dream Match Draft held at the Tuloy sa Don Bosco (the beneficiary for this event) in Muntinlupa saw Phil Younghusband with the first pick.

The younger Younghusband took a more conservative approach where he shrewdly went for defensive players. His first choice then was Kaya goalkeeper Saba Sedeghi then he went on to get a bunch of outstanding defenders beginning with Pachanga’s Yves Ashime, then Loyola teammates Park Min Ho and Roxy Dorlas before rounding it out with Kaya utility player Armand Del Rosario.

James, who had the second pick, selected Kaya forward Nate Burkey. He rounded out his four other choices by tabbing Green Archers United’s Patrick Bocobo and Patrick Deyto and Kaya players Jonah Romero and Anton Del Rosario.

During the match on August 25 at the University of Makati, Team Phil walloped Team James, 5-1.

Revenge or domination?

In this year’s Clear Dream Match, the game offered a new twist when football legends Fabio Cannavaro and Dennis Wise were invited to join the game. Cannavaro, who made a name for himself playing first for Napoli before going to Serie A giants Juventus and the Galactico squad in Real Madrid and Dennis Wise as well as former Chelsea and England star, Dennis Wise made themselves available.

The brothers would be unable to select whom they wanted. It was up to the two football legends to decide which team they wanted to play for (of course, they were informed of all that had transpired before).

Since James lost last year’s match, he picked first this year and he took Phil’s approach last year by going with a more defensive-oriented line up beginning with Yves Ashime. 

Phil looked for more flexible and multi-purpose players and his first pick is the multi-talented Carlie De Murga from Global who can play any spot on the field.

And their succeeding four picks all followed that philosophy.

James – Jason De Jong, Misagh Bahadoran, and Oussenyou Diop with Saba Sedeghi as goalkeeper!

De Jong and Bahadoran are first time players in the Clear Dream Match while Diop and Sedeghi were both with Team Phil the previous year!

Phil’s first next four choices were (in order) Jeffrey Christiaens, Park Min Ho, the exciting OJ Porteria, and goalkeeper stud Patrick Deyto.

Amazingly, a lot of the players were from Global and no one from Loyola! In last year’s draft, the first bunch of choices was mostly from Kaya! And by happenstance, James took a lot of former Team Phil players.

These are the respective teams:

Team James:

Yves Ashime (Pachanga)

Jason De Jong (Global)

Misagh Bahadoran (Global)

Saba Sedeghi (Kaya)

Ousseynou Diop (Pachanga)

Roxy Dorlas (Loyola)

Chieffy Caligdong (Green Archers)

Toni Toni

Nicolas Bolzico (Kaya)

Jonah Romero (Kaya)

Ian Araneta (Air Force)

Simon Greatwich (Loyola)

Andrew Santiago (Pachanga)

Daniel Matsunaga (Stallion)

Slick Rick

Fabio Ide (Stallion)

Ref Cuaresma (Loyola) - later replaced by Ed Sacapaño because Ref was not cleared by the doctor to play

And the wild card pick (wherein he could select anyone not on the list) Izzo EL Habbib (Global)

Fabio Cannavaro

Team Phil:

Carlie De Murga (Global)

Jeffrey Christiaens (Global)

Park Min Ho (Loyola)

OJ Porteria (Kaya)

Patrick Deyto (Green Archers United)

Chad Gould (Loyola)

Masanari Omura (Kaya)

Jinggoy Valmayor (Pachanga)

Chris Greatwich (Kaya)

Byeong Yeol Jeong (Loyola)

Anton Del Rosario (Kaya)

Boyet Cañedo (Loyola)

Sam YG

Nick O’Donnell (Kaya)

Armand Del Rosario (Loyola)

Mikko Mabanag (Nomads)

Ronald Batisla-Ong (Pachanga)

Phil’s wild card pick – Rufo Sanchez! (Stallion)

Dennis Wise

Who drafted better?

This year, it seems that James drafted better by going with a more defensive-oriented lineup. Cannavaro manning that backline will make it even more solid. With the defense solidified, he’s got scoring punch up front with Misagh, Izzo, and Ian. He has speed and creativity in the middle with Chieffy and Diop.

Phil has a lot of players who can play multiple positions. Their middle, depending on where Christiaens and De Murga are lined up, are terrific. More so with Boyet who is a long bomb threat. It’s their defense that is suspect though.

If Masa, Chad, Ronald, Anton, and Armand can hold that back line, they’ll allow Team Phil to be able to get their offense going.

It will also be interesting to see how good Cannavaro and Wise still are. If they are in shape and into the game then this will truly be a special football match for all. After all, how many times does a Filipino footballer get to be on the same pitch with a former Ballon d’Or winner and an England captain?

Personally, I thought that James has a better lineup – on paper. However, the game is played on the pitch, and it will be fun to find out on August 24 at 730 p.m. at the University of Makati which Younghusband is better for this year.