Four teams ready for IPPC Cup

MANILA, Philippines - Two days before the 2012 IPPC Football Pre-Season Cup kicks off at the Nuvali Football grounds in Sta. Rosa, Laguna tomorrow, four schools have expressed readiness in the first-ever pre-season collegiate football festival among the leading teams from the UAAP and the NCAA.

Coaches from La Salle, Mapua, Arellano and Emilio Aguinaldo College were one in saying that the league will be a big boost to their respective campaigns in the coming football season.

La Salle coach Hans Peter Smit said the other day that the upcoming event is just what college football needs at this stage.  

“The IPPCA Pre-Season Cup is a very good thing. This is what most university/collegiate coach/players wanted for years now. To pit the top university/college teams against each other. Definitely, it will prepare my team for the upcoming UAAP season,” said Smit.

La Salle will be led by goalie Patrick Deylo, the first keeper for the Green Archers Globe United FC team and considered as one of the top goalkeepers in the country.

Arellano coach Ravelo Saluria, EAC’s Michael Agbayani and Mapua’s Casper Ngo all agreed that the tournament organized by the Filoil Flying V Sports and sponsored by Nuvali, Nature’s Spring, Molten, N20 Gastropub  and Bacchus Energy Drink, will keep their teams sharp going into the regular tournament.

“This (tournament) will help us a lot in terms of exposure, as such, this will serve as a venue for us to gauge the readiness of our team, identify its weaknesses and be able to work on it,” said Saluria, a native of football-crazy Barotac, Nuevo in Iloilo, who donned the national colors in 1981-1982.

Saluria said he will be counting on team captain Alvin Obero and co-captain Cristituto Pino along with rookie Abel De Castro.

Agbayani, meanwhile, said he will use the tournament as a gauge to measure their goal of becoming this year’s NCAA champion.

“This tournament will be our gauge on how well our team has been doing. This will serve as my evaluation on my team’s performance as a whole and individually,” said Agbayani, who played football for Don Bosco Makati and later for College of St. Benilde in 2000.

Ngo, who suited up for Mapua from 1995-2000 and is presently a member of the Lions FC, said he’s looking forward to playing against the rest of the squads in the tournament.