Long Way Away: Trojan Senior Plays for Philippines

LITTLE ROCK – Freshly touched-down in a new country and stuck inside a guarded hotel complex surrounded by large cement walls, Hali Long needed to run.
 
Long asked for permission and got it. She found a large grassy area inside the facility and sprinted for 15 minutes. It was 10 p.m. She had too much energy to sleep.
 
Such is the excitement of advancing to the biggest soccer stage of her career.
 
In the dark of night in the Southeast Asian country of Myanmar, the reality finally dawned on her. Long and teammates needed a release from all the tension, and running made the most sense.
 
Just days earlier, Long found out she had been named to the Philippines National Team, a huge honor for her and the first of its kind for any Trojan soccer player. Now she would be competing with 19 other young women, representing the Philippines at the ASEAN Football Federation Women's Championship, competing against Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore.
 
"It didn't get real until we were in Myanmar," Long said. "That's when it hit me."
 
So she went for a run. But to get to that run, and the soccer in the coming days, Long had to endure long flights, multiple tryout camps and even a hospital stay.
 
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Hali Long's mother, Lilie Candido, was born in the Philippines. She moved to the United States in the 1980s and has never been back to her home country.
 
In order to play for a national soccer team, you must be at most two generations removed from someone who was born in the Philippines. Long – with her mother a Philippines native – was only one generation removed.
 
And despite being eligible, Long doubted the authenticity of the first emails she received to try out for the Philippines National team.
 
She was playing club soccer in high school before coming to Little Rock, and her club made brochures for prospective college coaches and others to see. Long believes that a representative from the Philippines got a hold of one of those, saw her picture, and inquired if she was Filipino.
 
But with that possibility of competing for the Philippines' Under-19 national team opened up to her four years ago, Long declined. She wanted to focus on school instead of soccer. At that point in her career, she still had plenty of soccer to play.
 
Four years later, though, with her senior season at Little Rock looming and the possibility of her soccer career ending, Long had to jump at another chance to try out for the Philippines.
 
So she hopped on a plane to Corona, California, last fall during Thanksgiving, spending her holiday trying out for the Philippines National Team with 40 other Filipino-Americans. The competition was intense, and Long felt out of place because so many of the other girls had played for the Philippines National Team or Under-19 team before. And the other girls' youthful energy also made Long think that her chance may have passed her by.
 
"I felt competition from the younger girls especially," Long said. "They brought 16- and 17-year-olds to come train with the older girls. There was no way to take an ice bath or recover in between. My body started feeling it on day three when [the young girls] were still flying."
 
Long was also discouraged when she heard that the coaching staff preferred native-born Filipino women to make the final roster over Filipino-Americans.
 
Long's biggest proponent may have come in the form of Thomas Dooley, a former United States national team captain who is now the head coach of the Philippines Men's National Team. Dooley – born in the United States but raised in Germany – scouted the camp and took a liking to Long and reinforced in her that her non-native Filipino status did not prevent her from representing the Philippines as well as any native Filipino could.
 
"He just proved that it doesn't matter where you're from," Long said. "It's about how well you represent who you are and what you're made of."
 
With – she feels – some recommendations from Dooley and strong performances in the camp, Long was invited back to a second camp in March. But since she would be in England with the Trojan soccer team, she could not make it out to the second camp in California.
 
She emailed the Philippine Football Federation with her reason for not being able to attend, expressed her continued interest in playing for the team, but never heard back. She thought her chance was over.
 
But one month later, as the school year wound down, Long heard from the Philippines again. She was invited to the team's final camp in the Philippines. She had just one more step to make the official national team roster. But it came at a price: Only the 20 girls who made the final cut would have their expenses recouped. Long's mother decided the trip was more than worth risk.
 
"I didn't know if I could handle that pressure," Long said. "Not going to be able to work over the summer, take an internship, putting everything on hold to take a big risk. But my mom didn't give me a choice."
 
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Long arrived in the Philippines, and the first round of cuts came quickly.
 
From 40 girls, the head coach eliminated 10 after the first four practices. Long made the cut.
 
She then moved into dorms with nine of her teammates for the remainder of tryouts. Ten girls shared one room. Five bunk beds and three toilet stalls, but only two of the toilets were good.
 
When Long made it to the Philippines, she wasn't so worried about the competition anymore. She knew she could compete on the same level as all the other girls.
 
What she didn't expect was a bacterial infection that sent her to the hospital.
 
Long has had stomach issues since she was young. "My gallbladder is not my friend," she says. Greasy foods are a no-go, and a high-fat diet full of coconut and non-lean meats in the Philippines didn't agree with her. Long ended up buying much of her own food to eat and still had trouble.
 
So she was sent to the hospital for an overnight stay. It turned out she had a bacterial infection and was struggling to fuel her body to compete. Her diet shifted almost entirely to bread, rice and other carbohydrates. She feared eating foods that she didn't cook.
 
After three days of recovery, Long returned to camp. She missed not only instruction on the field, but also a free day with crucial team bonding.
 
"I felt like I missed years when it was only three days," she said.
 
Long had to redouble her efforts once she returned. And with eight or nine other girls vying for defender positions, Long knew the numbers didn't look great. For practice games, the camp competed against local boys' teams for the most part.
 
One of Long's biggest breakout moments came against a local women's university team. In that game, many of the university's players had to attend class and couldn't make it. So the national team girls were essentially playing against themselves. Long scored two goals as a defender, showing that she could provide some offense as well. Her side won 7-0.
 
Two days before the team left for Myanmar to compete in the AFF Women's Championship, the coach made the final cut to 20. Long made it.
 
"We didn't even think about who was going to get cut," Long said. "We all thought we had a chance."
 
Long's chance, apparently, came through.
 
Despite missing three days of practice to a hospital stay, despite never having played for the Philippines before, despite being an American-born player in a foreign land, despite her relatively advanced age for the team and despite the competition at her position, Long was set to become the first Trojan to ever represent her country on an international stage.
 
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The team's flight landed in Myanmar. Long went for a run.
 
A few days later, she was shocked to learn she would be the Philippines' starting left defender and co-captain in a competitive game against Thailand. When the coach named her a starter and co-captain in the locker room right before the game?
 
"I just lost it," she said. "I was covering my face, and smiling out of disbelief. My jaw was pretty much on the floor."
 
Then came what was maybe the most poignant moment of her entire trip: Standing on the field of a 30,000-seat stadium with the Philippines' national anthem coming from the speakers.
 
"I get shaky thinking about it now," Long said. "Just because the stadium was massive. You walk through the tunnel and it was just indescribable. I can't put words to how I was feeling."
 
Not a historically strong women's soccer nation, the Philippines lost their opener to Thailand 4-0 and followed that with a 4-0 loss to Vietnam. In the team's final game, the Philippines defeated Singapore 2-0. Long started all three contests.
 
During the trip, there was hardly any time for sightseeing. But in Myanmar, the team got to visit a monastery as wells as U Bein Bridge, one of the longest wood bridges in the world. When the team got back to the Philippines, Long enjoyed some meals with her teammates. Before she knew it, she was flying back to the United States to get ready for the Little Rock soccer season.
 
Her time abroad went quickly, but it certainly left a lasting impression. Long is considering returning to the Philippines for graduate school. She has also considered just to enjoy the country with her mother as a graduation gift.
 
Of course, there's still the possibility in the next few years that Long could go back to play more soccer for the national team. Though her college career is ending this year, her national career with the Philippines could continue for a while.
 
Long will be eagerly waiting for another shot at international soccer. Next up on the Philippines' calendar: the Southeast Asian Games in Malaysia in August 2017.
 
"I hope they call me up," Long said. "If not, I'll probably just show up."