Even with playing legacy secured, Younghusbands prepare for continued involvement in football

Even in retirement from their playing career, the Younghusband brothers are ruling out any possiblity of walking away from football.

In fact, they have already had their plans to continue their role in propagating the sport in post-playing role, with their decision to call time brought the curtains to an era where both Phil and James have been a fixture not just domestically, but also internationally as they are the most prominent faces of the Azkals in the past decade.

With his retirement just past week, the elder Younghusband has revealed that he had to put forward his plans to hang up his boots, owing to the coronavirus pandemic that brought a halt into the sporting scene.

"I just felt it was time to announce, I’ve decided to end it a bit earlier," James said on Cedelf Tupas' Crossover vodcast last Tuesday.

The brothers made their bow in front of the Bacolod crowd in 2005, as they are the biggest names in the original iteration of the Azkals headed by Aris Caslib that almost went into the medal rounds of the Southeast Asian Games.

In the build-up, they have been struggling to adjusting to the conditions back then, as they are used to get into the comfort of Cobham when they were academy players from Chelsea.

"I didn’t think we realize what we would, what role what part we would play at the time, it was just we’re really proud to be playing for the Philippines,"  James quipped.

"We have to give the credit to the players and staff because they did everything in their power to make us feel at home," Phil added

As the younger Phil had called it full-time on his career seven months before, sadness had dominated his expression on James' retirement but he was proud on what they have done to the sport in the country, having the rare distinction as one of the siblings who rack up at least 200 appearances between them.

"I’m sad it’s ended now but I look back on old memories we had and James’ milestones because I think a lot of James’ milestones went under the radar," he said, citing that equalizer against Laos in the 2010 AFF qualifiers that preceded the Miracle of Hanoi.

Both admitted that the possiblity of the 100-cap club got to them lately, as in the early stages of their Azkals careers, matches were few and far between before the Miracle.

"I didn’t realize it till you get around 90," said Phil.

"When I got towards 60, 70, I was that’s one of my goals now to get to that milestone," James added.

The brothers have planned it in advance should their careers have wrapped up when they opened their own youth academy in 2010, and that gave them the clue on their future after playing.

"My goal was always to help develop Philippine football and to go abroad, learn and come and share that to the Philippines," said James.

As they reflect on their time together on the pitch, both have admitted that the family-oriented culture of the Filipinos have a huge impact not just in their game, but also to their legacy in the game.

"I think we like to send that message that football is a team sport and me and Phil really promoted that with kids getting to the sport because of what me and my brother and the rest of the Azkals did," James concluded.

"We wanted to make sure that we had success in the pitch because there’s no point doing all the commercials and the modeling without having success in the pitch," Phil added.

Photo by the Philippine Football Federation/Glen Charles Lopez (file)