It did not turn out to be a memorable final for Ateneo Blue Eagles midfielder Carlo Liay. Aside from his team losing the match 4-1 to the UP Fighting Maroons, the Season 75 Rookie of the Year was unable to complete the match as he needed to be taken off after just half an hour into the match. Nevertheless, the soon-to-be captain of the Blue Eagles team chose to look on the bright side of what he calls a ‘crazy ride’.
“My only frustration is getting injured right away and not even putting up a fight with my teammates. Not even being able to help them,” Liay said. Landing badly on his knee in a collision early in the match, the midfielder, who also plays for United Football League club Kaya FC, attempted to play through the pain. He managed to last for half an hour before Ateneo head coach JP Merida decided to take him off for Paolo Alilam. It was difficult for Liay to see his team stumble, yet he isn’t entirely despondent with what happened.
“We had ups and downs and I can say that I am really proud of my team,” Liay expressed after the game. As he had implied, Season 78 was pretty much a roller-coaster ride for the Blue Eagles. After playing the season’s first six games, Ateneo was in sixth place and only had one win against fellow contenders. It all changed after they sneaked past UE twice inside a week. Gaining momentum, the Ateneans went on to finish in third place by winning six of the next seven games. They then knocked out DLSU via penalties for the right to battle for the title.
For Liay, the main factor to Ateneo’s resurgence is their togetherness. Sticking with each other through thick and thin helped shape the Blue Eagles into one of the league’s toughest teams. Just falling short in the end, Liay believes the team should face the setback with the same mindset they had when they were struggling earlier this season. “This is meant to make us stronger. There’s only room to improve talaga with this team,” he stated.
It may be just silver medals for the young Blue Eagles side that will only have one graduating player in Mikko Mabanag, but the fact that they made it until the last day of the season just goes to show much of a force they can become in the future. For now, however, the moment belongs to the Fighting Maroons who Liay acknowledged as worthy champions. “Props to UP, they’re a very tough team. They fully deserved this win and that’s it. [As for us] We start with what we’ve accomplished this day and we just go forward,” the Ateneo midfielder voiced.
Not lacking in desire, Ateneo actually kept pace to stay in the game with UP until rookie striker Kintaro Miyagi buried his second and UP’s third goal to widen the gap to two with only around 20 minutes to play. Convinced that the team wanted to win as much, if not more, than their opponents, Liay thinks it all went down to decisiveness in front of goal. “I guess circumstances, the circumstances and the chances. They took their chances. We had our chances, we didn’t play them and that’s what made the difference,” he furthered.
As a player who had won a championship in his rookie year, Liay knows how it feels to get it right for the first time of asking. While nobody else in the team experienced the same thing, the veteran midfielder is hopeful that the defeat in the final will encourage jis younger teammates to become better players in the coming seasons. “I think this is just a positive experience for them because they will remember this day forever and they will not want to feel this way anymore so it’s good that it wasn’t the best start for them–like coming to the collegiate experience–but they will learn for sure something from this,” he concluded.
