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In less than a week, 5 womens football teams will be starting the 70th season of the UAAP games.

I’m playing for UP in my fourth and last year of college and after 3 seasons it’s hard not to have mixed feelings about this season. I’ll do a quick recap of my first three years.

First year- I played central midfielder all throughout the tournament. We swept the first round but lost games in the second round. Played in the championship match against DLSU, who had a twice to beat advantage. That game ended in a draw, then we had extra time, then finally a shootout. My kick was saved by Louise. We lost. It was good enough to reach the championship, and we were pretty happy with the results. Penalty kicks are pretty much 50/50, my coach told me once.

Second year- This season started out okay, with us winning games. The low point of this season came against our second round game against UST. February 5, 2006 will be the day I will forever remember as the day I tore my ACL. We still had two more games of the second round to play, but I was injured. I got my knee operated on Feb 24.

Third year- ACL rehab took me 10 months. So it was December of 2006 when i started training with my team. The season started in January, and with less than a month of preparation, I played. I was moved to the striker position in some games, which made me appreciate strikers more, and discover that I don’t really fit there much. DLSU didn’t play this season, so some people favored us to win, but we didn’t make it. I was really sad.

Now in my fourth year there are some people I really miss.

I miss my previous captains, from the time I was a freshman up to last year. As one of two seniors in this team it’s sometimes difficult to explain just how things are done. It was a lot easier when I didn’t have to think so much about things like team budgets, christmas parties, jerseys and stuff. I’m not the best motivator in the world, which makes being one of the captains this year a task I’m feeling nervous about. I’m scared that I’ll say the wrong thing and my teammates won’t like it.

I know just how hard it is to decide what’s best for a group of 20. What makes it even more complicated is that 20 different girls can want 20 different things.

My team now is young, and very promising. It’s great to come to training and see so much potential. We have 2 seniors, 6 juniors, 4 sophomores and 8 freshmen on our lineup. I’m excited to see what we can come up with this year. DLSU is returning to the competition, so we have more games.

We’ll be playing ADMU first. I’ll keep this updated on all things football related.