By this time, the word is out: the Philippines men’s national team just won the first leg of their AFC Challenge Cup qualifying match vs. Mongolia by a scoreline of 2-nil, “Chieffy” Caligdong and Phil Younghusband scored the goals, it was a sea of white in Panaad Stadium, et cetera.

But there is more than what is being said.

If you were only there, I highly doubt that 25,000 is a good figure to describe the flock of people that were witnessing a much anticipated match in the stadium. By my personal account, it could have reached around a good 27,000 or more with the number of people squeezing into the nooks and crannies of the venue.

Filipino football fanatics everywhere, especially a good number of people from Manila, made it to the fairly secluded location which hosted the men’s football tournament in the 2005 Southeast Asian Games and other games during the team’s obscure years.

For the first time ever as a sportswriter, I’ve finally experienced a match played under conditions that are somewhat deemed fit for international standards. For instance, the lights inside the stadium were so bright that the glow could be seen from a few miles away and that no one would get lost in trying to track down the venue.

By the looks of it, event security was pretty much poor but kept the crowd in control from creating a riot, although fans in the grandstand section flung their paper fans into the air by the final whistle.

People were standing on stell drums and stacks of monoblock chairs at the outskirts of the bleachers sections to get an outside look of the game. Random people were able to get into the grandstand sections, where the tickets were sold at Php300 each during the weeks leading to the match, and drew the ire of some irritated spectators who had obstructed views of what was a great game.

Also, during the press conference after the match, there was no sense of organization during the interview session, similar to those during college basketball games.

Although the overall fan experience was not that great within the stadium due to the lack of proper seating through an all-bleacher type of seating and the disorganized manner in which the concessionaires were placed throughout the surrounding areas within the complex, Filipino football fans were treated to a great match and see the home team get deeper into the Challenge Cup tournament.

There aren’t really much words to say about how the game felt but this: the feeling of watching your own country being represented by a group of talented men in an international competition gave me goosebumps.

Watching a great football match like this has been a dream since I was watching UEFA Champions League matches live at 3 o’clock in the morning as a kid.

Finally, we have another set of great athletes we can be really proud of.