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Former Philippines Azkals team captain and now one of the major stakeholders in Philippine football, Anton del Rosario recently gifted the Filipino American community with a new pathway of an opportunity to play for the national team and play professional football in the Philippines.

Del Rosario went back to his roots in the San Francisco Bay Area To hold the first ever football combine to give Fil-Ams and even non-Filipinos a shot at playing pro back home.

"It was always one of my advocacies to be able to come back especially to the Bay and to provide opportunity to play just like this," he said. "I know how difficult it is to be able to get that shot to be able to play at the professional level. And now that I have access to be able to do it, I want to be able to provide it to Filipinos overseas. I want to provide it to college students who want to go pro but just fall through the cracks. And this is what this program is about."

Del Rosario was in awe with some of the talent he saw, grueling it out amidst chilly winter weather in the Bay Area, and he looks forward to seeing some of the kids make their way to the Philippines.

The combine was a special one as it was meant to find talent not just for the Philippine Azkals but also for a handful of professional teams playing in the Philippine Football League.

One of the kids who tried his luck is Philippine-born Gabriel Bagtas who flew in all the way from Southern California. Bagtas moved to the US eight years ago and said it was his lifelong dream to be an Azkal.

"We will do whatever it takes to take that chance, take that opportunity," he noted.

One key component to keep this pathway going is the partnership Del Rosario struck with the SF Glens, a long standing soccer club in the Bay Area that he once played for in his younger years before heading to the Philippines.

Ryan Maquiñana of the Glens is the driving force of that vision.

"I feel like Anton is the perfect guy to lead this charge. This is someone who was born here in the Bay Area, or played here for the Glens and then went to the Philippines as a pro and as a captain of the national team for several years," Maquiñana said. "He's living proof that when these players show up to tryouts like these, that it can be done and you can make it and with him having the connections to get them to follow his footsteps. I feel like this is something that we could do for years to come."

Maquiñana and del Rosario share that the success of the womens' national team was a big inspiration to establish this future pipeline of talent from the US.

"I think one thing that really inspired us was the success of the Philippine Women's National Team qualifying for the World Cup for the first time. They did it with a lot of naturalized or dual citizen Fil-Ams, but that didn't happen overnight. And they did an amazing job, building a fairly extensive scouting network in the United States where the women's game is the most developed in the world so they can ID potential players for the team," Maquiñana pointed out.

Though the Azkals in recent years had primarily scouted for talent in Europe, where the pro game is much more developed than in the US, Maquiñana and del Rosario believe that the youth development in the US has grown leaps and bounds in the last five years and there will be abundance of talented Fil-Ams coming up.

They added that the long term goal for Philippine football should be self sufficiency with a grassroots program back home. But for now, they are ready to help give them a shot in the arm with the talent ready and willing to come from the Fil-Am community.