For the long haul: United City lays its plans beyond the upcoming PFL wars

For Eric Gottschalk, United City is here for the long haul.

The founder of MMC Sportz Marketing and one of the co-owners of the newcomers in the Philippines Football League graced football's pilot at Bull By The Horn Saturday evening, alongside Azkals skipper Stephan Schrock who had a dual role as the captain and its playing assistant.

He himself was excited for the league's kick off which is slated on October 24, yet they will play their first fixture on the 25 when they take on newcomers Maharlika in Carmona.

"We're looking forward to a great season," said Gottschalk, who came all the way from Dubai. "It's about time."

For him, he and the consortium that bought the former Ceres-Negros has moral responsibility to continue the winning tradition of the Busmen, who had undeniably the country's best football club.

With four league titles, including all three in the PFL, the Negros-based squad owned by the country's biggest bus company was a fixture in the AFC competitions since 2016, before selling it to Gottschalk and co. owing to the pandemic.

"Ceres has been the more dominant, not only in the Philippines but also in Southeast Asia," he said. "It's very unfortuately of what happened, but at the same time it's also an opportunity."

Those honors are a huge shoes that they are trying to fill, as getting most of the Ceres squad led by Schrock was the first step to their lofty ambitions.

"You would not enter a competition if you don't want to win," said Gottschalk. "And since we've been very fortunate of pretty much retaining the winning group of players from the Ceres team obviously our ambitions are very high."

"It's not added stress, it's not added pressure. We want to make sure that we represent Philippine football well. If Ceres showed us how to do it, then United City Football Club is ready to continue."

With those challenges, Gottschalk and co. nearly wastes no time for them to introduce United City to the Filipino football community, as they already laid out their blueprint for their future beyond the 2020 season.

The past week has been eventful for the club, in which they have revealed that their plans of building their own field of dreams is on its way, a huge step towards self sustainability which has been the problem of the sport in the country ever since it turned professional alongside the perpetual concerns regarding lack of proper football infrastructure .

"One of the reasons why football is having an issue is that the clubs are not self-sustainable. The self-sustainability comes with its house," he said, citing Schrock's Bundesliga experience where he plays in various quality stadia accross Germany.

For him the stadium that they are planning has not just football on their minds, as they are keen to use it for other purposes.

"Our venue has to be different. We need different facilities to generate income from advertising, sponsorship, retail and usage for other facilities. So therefore we have to actively look for facilities and locations that will allow us to put the stadium up that allow us to put a stadium up that's not only our house, but it also allow us to generate the money that we need to continue the football club."

Once it is put up, the club is also putting up its own academy to generate talent from within, keeping in line with the licensing requirements as a professional football club.

"Our field of dreams means we've trying to bring hope and opportunities to the community," Gottschalk then said, as they are are looking for a temporary home while their stadium is waiting to break ground.