2016 United Football League

The 2016 United Football League was the seventh and last season of the UFL since its establishment as a semi-professional league in 2009. Division 2 is disbanded for this season with all teams competing in one division.^[1]

United Football League

Season	2016
Champions	Global
AFC Cup	Global Ceres
Matches played	102
Goals scored	544 (5.33 per match)
Best Player	Hikaru Minegishi
Top goalscorer	Adrián Gallardo (30 goals)
Best goalkeeper	Nelson Gasic
Highest scoring	17 goals Kaya 16–1 Manila Nomads
Longest winning run	10 games Global
Longest unbeaten run	15 games Global
Longest winless run	11 games Pasargad
Longest losing run	8 games Pasargad
← 2015

The league competition which started on April 30 and ended on October 24 will followed a pure double round robin match with no play-offs.^[1] For this edition the foreign player cap is reduced to four from five foreign players in a playing squad of 18 players, including 7 substitutes. At least one of the four maximum allowable foreign players must be from the Asian country. This was to align to the guidelines followed at the AFC Cup and AFC Champions League. However, a club with more than 25 players may have more than four foreign players in their whole squad provided that they comply with the 4-player foreign player limit rule during match day.^[1]

Global F.C. won the league with one game to spare.

The 2016 season was the last UFL season following the appointment of UFL President Randy Roxas as part of the task force for the upcoming Philippines Football League which had its inaugural season in 2017.^[2]

Venue

Matches are played at the Rizal Memorial Stadium.^[1]

Clubs

The league is composed of 12 clubs.

Club	Head Coach	Captain	Kit manufacturer	Shirt sponsor
Agila	Richard Leyble	Shinji Shozu	LGR Sportswear	None
Ceres	Risto Vidaković	Juan Luis Guirado	Puma	Ceres Liner
Forza	Arvin Jay Soliman	Stephen Burda	LGR Sportswear	Orient Freight International
Global	Leigh Manson	Misagh Bahadoran	LGR Sportswear	None
Green Archers United	Rodolfo Alicante	Tating Pasilan	LGR Sportswear	Globe Telecom
JP Voltes	Yu Hoshide	Masaki Yanagawa	LGR Sportswear	JK Mart
Kaya	Chris Greatwich	Alexander Borromeo	LGR Sportswear	LBC Express
Laos	Jovanie Villagracia	Badreldin Elhabib	LGR Sportswear	None
Loyola Meralco Sparks	Simon McMenemy	James Younghusband	Under Armour	Meralco
Manila Nomads	Ronaldo Luis Bernardo	Ubiam Ugochukwu Okoro	LGR Sportswear	True Blue Tools
Pasargad	Joel Villarino	Jean Claude Delos Reyes	LGR Sportswear	None
Stallion	Ernest Nierras	Ruben Doctora	Vizari	Giligan's Restaurant

Managerial changes

Team	Outgoing head coach	Manner of departure	Incoming head coach
Kaya	Fabien Larry Lewis	End of contract	Chris Greatwich
JP Voltes	Shinichiro Maeno	End of contract	Yu Hoshide^[3]
Laos	Rudy Del Rosario	End of contract	Jovanie Villagracia
Forza	Jun Mark Saraga	End of contract	Arvin Jay Soliman
Agila	Ramon Vicente Roxas	End of contract	Richard Leyble
Pasargad	Mike Agbayani	End of contract	Joel Villarino
Ceres	Ali Go	New coach under contract	Risto Vidaković

League table

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification or relegation
1	Global (C)	19	15	2	2	80	15	+65	47	Qualification to the 2017 AFC Champions League Preliminary round 1 or 2017 AFC Cup Group stage^[a]
2	Ceres (Q)	19	13	2	4	109	18	+91	41	Qualification to the 2017 AFC Cup Group stage
3	Loyola Meralco Sparks	19	13	2	4	83	23	+60	41
4	JP Voltes	19	13	2	4	51	16	+35	41
5	Kaya	19	12	1	6	78	25	+53	37
6	Stallion	19	8	7	4	43	28	+15	31
7	Green Archers United	19	6	3	10	29	48	−19	21
8	Forza	19	4	2	13	20	82	−62	14
9	Manila Nomads (D, E)	11	3	0	8	20	65	−45	9	Withdrew from the tournament^[b]
10	Laos	19	2	1	16	22	111	−89	7
11	Agila (D, E)	11	1	1	9	6	56	−50	4	Withdrew from the tournament^[b]
12	Pasargad (D, E)	11	0	1	10	4	58	−54	1

Updated to match(es) played on 24 October 2016. Source: rsssf.com, soccerway.com
Rules for classification: 1) Points; 2) Goal Difference; 3) Goals Scored
(C) Champions; (D) Disqualified; (E) Eliminated; (Q) Qualified for the phase indicated
Notes:

1. Global qualified for the 2017 AFC Cup Group stage by winning the 2016 UFL Cup. However, since they already qualified for the 2017 AFC Champions League Preliminary round 1 by winning the 2016 UFL Division 1, the spot awarded to the cup winners was passed to the next best-placed team (2016 UFL Division 1 runner-up Ceres FC).
2. Manila Nomads, Agila and Pasargad did not participate in the second round of the league.

Positions by round

Team ╲ Round	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19
Global	4	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Ceres	8	6	4	3	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	3	2	3	2	2	2	2
Loyola Meralco Sparks	5	3	6	5	3	3	3	3	3	3	4	3	2	3	2	3	3	3	3
JP Voltes	2	1	5	4	5	5	5	4	4	4	3	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4
Kaya	1	5	3	2	4	4	4	5	6	6	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	5
Stallion	9	10	7	7	6	6	7	6	5	5	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6
Green Archers United	6	4	2	6	7	7	6	7	7	7	7	7	7	7	7	7	7	7	7
Forza	6	9	11	10	11	11	11	9	8	8	8	8	8	8	8	8	8	8	8
Manila Nomads	3	7	8	9	8	8	8	8	9	10	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9
Laos	12	12	12	12	12	10	10	11	11	9	10	10	10	10	10	10	10	10	10
Agila	10	8	10	8	9	9	9	10	10	11	11	11	11	11	11	11	11	11	11
Pasargad	11	11	9	11	10	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12

	Leader
	2017 AFC Cup group stage

Source: UFL League Table

Results

Home \ Away	AGI	CER	FOR	GLO	GAU	JPV	KAY	LAO	LMS	NOM	PSG	STA
Agila						0–5	0–3	1–0	0–11		2–2
Ceres	10–1		11–0	3–3	7–1	4–2	5–0	8–0	4–1	6–0		2–2
Forza	4–1	0–10		0–2	1–1	0–3	0–5	3–1	1–5		2–0	1–4
Global	8–0	0–5	12–0		4–0	0–2	3–2	8–0	1–0		3–0	3–0
Green Archers United	5–0	2–1	1–1	1–3		0–3	1–5	3–0	0–4		2–1	1–3
JP Voltes		1–0	7–1	0–4	3–1		0–1	3–0	2–3	5–0		0–0
Kaya		1–0	10–2	0–3	6–0	1–3		8–0	1–2	16–1		0–1
Laos		0–11	0–3	0–7	0–4	0–4	2–10		2–13	8–3		2–2
Loyola Meralco Sparks		3–2	4–0	0–0	2–1	1–2	0–1	11–1		9–2		3–1
Manila Nomads	3–0		2–1	0–12	3–4							2–4
Pasargad		0–16				0–6	0–6	1–6	0–9	0–4
Stallion	5–1	1–4	3–0	2–4	1–1	0–0	2–2	8–0	2–2		2–0

Source: United Football League (Philippines)
Legend: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.

Season statistics

Top goalscorers

Rank	Name	Team	Goals
1	Adrián Gallardo	Ceres	30
2	Phil Younghusband	Loyola Meralco Sparks	21
3	Stephan Schröck	Ceres	18
	Robert Lopez Mendy	Kaya
5	Hikaru Minegishi	Global	17

Hat-tricks

Player	For	Against	Result	Date
Jay Baguioro	JP Voltes	Pasargad	0–6	30 April 2016
James Younghusband	Loyola Meralco Sparks	Stallion	3–1	8 May 2016
Nate Burkey	Ceres	Manila Nomads	6–0	14 May 2016
Jay Baguioro	JP Voltes	Forza	7–1	15 May 2016
Takumi Uesato
Robert Lopez Mendy^4	Kaya	Forza	10–2	18 May 2016
Patrick Reichelt	Ceres	Agila	10–1	18 May 2016
Bienve
Kenshiro Daniels^4	Kaya	Manila Nomads	16–1	9 June 2016
OJ Porteria^4
Joshua Beloya^4	Stallion	Laos	8–0	9 June 2016
Adrián Gallardo^8	Ceres	Pasargad	0–16	11 June 2016
Stephan Schröck
Phil Younghusband	Loyola Meralco Sparks	Agila	0–11	15 June 2016
Akira Miyayama
Adrián Gallardo	Ceres	Forza	0–10	15 June 2016
Patrik Franksson^4	Laos	Pasargad	1– 6	19 June 2016
Robert Lopez Mendy	Kaya	Pasargad	0– 6	25 June 2016
Stephan Schröck	Ceres	Stallion	1–4	25 June 2016
Phil Younghusband^5	Loyola Meralco Sparks	Laos	2–13	26 June 2016
Curt Dizon	Loyola Meralco Sparks	Manila Nomads	9–2	3 July 2016
Alvaro Castiella
Carlos Ortiz ^4	Global	Agila	8–0	5 July 2016
Phil Younghusband	Loyola Meralco Sparks	Pasargad	0– 9	7 July 2016
Adrián Gallardo^6	Ceres	Laos	0– 11	7 July 2016
Patrik Franksson^5	Laos	Manila Nomads	8–3	10 July 2016
Stephen Appiah	Manila Nomads	Laos	8–3	10 July 2016
Misagh Bahadoran^5	Global	Manila Nomads	0–12	14 July 2016
Phil Younghusband	Loyola Meralco Sparks	Forza	1– 5	7 August 2016
Omid Nazari	Global	Forza	12–0	10 August 2016
Misagh Bahadoran^4
Hikaru Minegishi
Jorrel Aristorenas	Loyola Meralco Sparks	Laos	11–1	17 August 2016
Louis Clark	Kaya	Laos	8–0	24 September 2016
Stephan Schröck	Ceres	Loyola Meralco Sparks	4–1	24 September 2016
		Laos	8–0	28 September 2016
Hikaru Minegishi	Global	Laos	0–7	2 October 2016
Matthew Hartmann

⁴ Player scored four goals
⁵ Player scored five goals
⁶ Player scored six goals
⁸ Player scored eight goals

Own goals

Player	For	Club	Own goals
Ronnie Aguisanda	Loyola Meralco Sparks	Green Archers United	2
	JP Voltes
Christian Nana	Global	Stallion	1
Michael Atienza	Global	Laos
Jayson Cutamora	Global	JP Voltes
Rezziel Villaespin	Agila	Laos
John Lloyd Bastasa	Loyola Meralco Sparks	Laos
Fidelis Nnabuife	Loyola Meralco Sparks	Manila Nomads
Joseph Rigoberto	Global	Forza

Honors

Player

• Golden Boot:  Adrián Gallardo (Ceres)^[4]
• Golden Glove:   Nelson Gasic (JP Voltes)^[4]
• Golden Ball:   Hikaru Minegishi (Global)^[4]
• Best Midfielder:   Matthew Hartmann (Global)^[4]
• Best Defender:   Masaki Yanagawa (JP Voltes)^[4]

Team

• Fairplay: Stallion F.C.^[4]

References

1. Guerrero, Bob (13 January 2016). "What to expect in Philippine football in 2016". Rappler. Retrieved 13 January 2016.
2. . The Visayan Daily Star. 15 October 2016. Archived from the original on 18 October 2016. Retrieved 16 October 2016.
3. "Line ups for JP Voltes Vs Kaya". Twitter. UFL Philippines. Retrieved 27 February 2016.
4. "Global and Voltes dominate UFL Awards". Dugout Philippines. 23 October 2016. Retrieved 6 November 2016.

External links