A True Keeper: How Inna Palacios Turned Grind Into Gold

Few athletes – in any sport – have served the national team as long as Inna Palacios has for women’s football. And even fewer have walked away with as perfect an ending.

As the Filipinas made their way up to the makeshift stage for the medal ceremony of the women’s football competition at the 2025 Thailand Southeast Asian Games, Inna Palacios knew this was it.

Whatever the result, whatever color medal they would win, if they would even win one, this would be her last tour of duty as national team goalkeeper. She had come to terms with it months before.

“I decided a long time ago that SEA Games was going to be my last,” Inna told The GAME. “I was coming in SEA Games with a headspace and a mentality of, I won’t regret anything that happens in SEA Games.”

As it turned out, the Filipinas ended up occupying the very top spot of the medal podium, right in the middle in the area reserved for gold medal winners. It was a historic result, the country’s first-ever SEA Games gold medal in football – any type of football – which meant that Inna Palacios was going out a winner.

So as she climbed those steps on that December night in Chonburi, the realization finally hit her.

“I wanted to be present in every single thing I did. So when we reached the top step in the podium, and singing our national anthem because we won the gold, what I was feeling was something I couldn’t even describe up to this day. It was all of the emotions, the happiness, the excitement, the sadness, the grief.

“It was everything flashing back in front of my eyes as I was hearing the national anthem. It was all the years I’ve given to the national team, all the hard work I’ve put in. It was all of it.”

As Lupang Hinirang blared through the speakers at Chonburi Stadium, a gold medal draped around her neck, Inna at first instinctively moved her right hand over her heart in accordance with protocol. But moments later, her left hand moved to cover her face as tears came down.

Behind her, a teammate gently tapped her on the shoulder.

“Every single moment led to that moment. I couldn’t be any prouder to be able to experience all of it. The growth of football and to be where I am right now is something I never would have imagined and dreamed of.

“But because of that belief, that hope that one day it will all come back to you, suddenly it became worth it.”

Over 20 years ago, Inna never would have imagined that her athletic career would lead to this moment, and would numerous historical achievements. After all, her 10-year-old self only wanted to go out and play.

It starts with a dream

Before Inna Palacios the national team goalkeeper, there was Inna Palacios the young girl who was active in multiple sports.

“I always grew up as a very active kid, me and my brother. My dad would always teach us all the different sports. And I was studying in CSA (Colegio San Agustin) Makati. CSA has a huge field and a lot of covered courts as well. We get the luxury to be able to learn all the different sports there.”

Interestingly, Inna’s first serious sport did involve a lot of kicking, but it didn’t involve kicking a football.

“My parents enrolled me and my brother in taekwondo together. And then we were both excelling. And I think we were getting pretty serious.”

Fate, though, has a funny way of intervening when you least expect it. Near the end of fourth grade, a teacher popped into Inna’s classroom and asked if anyone wanted to stay after class for a physical activity.

“When I got to our meeting place in the covered courts. They rolled out like a basket of balls. And in CSA at that time it was just like a dark basket. You can’t see through it.

“Then I looked inside. I saw black and white balls. So it was football.”

What began as an after-school fun activity turned into a passion for Inna that is still burning to this day.

“Since then I never stopped. I wasn’t a goalkeeper at first. I was playing field. And then I was very fortunate that at a young age, I was exposed to higher age groups.”

In another twist of fate, Inna was forced to abandon her original position in-field after she went back down to her age group and no one wanted to be the goalkeeper.

“They put me in goal. Also I was one of the tallest back then. But I wasn’t using my hands first. I was just sliding, sliding and like blocking.”

Soon, football became all-consuming for Inna, to the point where her parents advised her to just stick with one discipline. On the one hand, she had made significant progress in taekwondo, having reached low brown belt level. On the other hand, she enjoyed the team dynamics of football.

Eventually, football won out, and soon she had already made it to the national youth teams, even though she was three years younger than her teammates.

“I started representing the Philippines in 2007 in under-16. I was 13 years old. That was the first time I wore the flag. And since then I have been representing the Philippines every year.”

It was thrilling for Inna to be playing for flag and country at such a young age, even as the magnitude of her accomplishment still didn’t weigh as heavily as it later would.

“I remember singing the national anthem for the very first time,” she said. “And how I get to do something very different from all my schoolmates. And how I’m the only person in my school that get to do that at that time. It was a feeling of parang, you know, you get to show where you’re from.

“But more than anything it was like, we were kids so we were always having fun. It always felt like a big sleepover at that age. The responsibility wasn’t as big as what it became to be for me. When I was growing older, especially when I got to the seniors, it became bigger.

“Suddenly my dreams became bigger also.”

Taking her talents to Taft…and into history

“I think my favorite memory watching football would be the 2010 World Cup,” Inna Palacios said when asked about her football viewing habits. “I was in high school and at that time you really have to wake up to watch the game.

“The replays weren’t that popular yet. So you really have to watch. I remember waking up early in the morning knowing that I have school the next day.”

The World Cup wasn’t the only significant football event in 2010 that had an impact on Inna.

Towards the end of the year, the Miracle in Hanoi happened, and Philippine football was never the same.

For Inna, it was a special moment because manning the sticks for the Azkals in Hanoi was one of her earliest mentors.

“I’ve always looked up to Neil Etheridge,” she said. “I learned a lot from him. He did a camp here and he taught me some techniques I still do up to this day. And he knows that. So when they won that game, it was a huge feeling of pride and honor.

“And more importantly I was excited because I also get to experience something like that. Because I also was representing the Philippines in that stage. So I think more than anything I was so excited that we get to show the world what Filipinos are made out of.”

Eventually, Inna found her way to De La Salle, where her full training as a goalkeeper finally began in earnest.

“The first time I actually trained goalkeeper, every single day was already in college when I went to DLSU.”

Inna trained under legendary La Salle coach Hans Smit, and under his guidance she was twice named Best Goalkeeper in the UAAP women’s football tournament. She also ended her collegiate stint with a championship in Season 79.

Parallel to that, Inna continued serving the national team. She was there during the dark ages, when the Malditas, as the team was known then, would routinely lose big to their regional rivals.

She was also there when the first subtle gains in women’s football began to manifest themselves. Inna first noticed it in college.

“I think when obviously our schools would cover it, then more reporters, more media people are starting to cover it and talk about it. And I think with the rise of social media also becoming more accessible to many of us, that’s when people started covering women in sports in general.”

Then came the Philippines’ hosting of the Southeast Asian Games in 2019, where the Malditas made their way into the medal rounds.

“That was our first chance of a bronze medal match and we lost to Myanmar in Rizal (Stadium),” she recalls. “And then since then, little by little, we had more people interested in the sport, more stories coming in. People see the players not just as a player but who they are.

“And I think that’s more important. I think the character really shows. I think it transcends who you are on the field, who you are outside the field into the field.”

Then came the big leap. The Malditas battled through the AFC Women’s Asian Cup Qualifiers and made it to the Asian Cup itself, where five slots to the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup were at stake.

Even as early as the qualifiers, Inna just knew they would make it.

“It was very clear that we weren’t just there for the Asian Cup. We were there to get to Asian Cup, to qualify for the World Cup. And that had been very, very, very clear as a vision of the team then.”

The squad made the quarterfinals, where they faced Chinese Taipei with the winner qualifying for the World Cup. The match extended to a penalty shootout, where Sarina Bolden converted the deciding free kick that sent the Malditas into Philippine sports history.

“The mindset was, we didn’t work that hard to only go that far. So it absolutely took every single ounce of everyone in that team to make it through our very first World Cup. And it did show. It had to last the penalty shootout for that.”

The full circle moment

Shortly after qualifying for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, the Malditas became the Filipinas. The name change coincided with a dramatic rise in the team’s fortunes and popularity, which in turn were further amplified later in the year by a bronze medal in the SEA Games, the country’s first in 36 years, and their winning the AFF Championship for the first time ever, in front of a home crowd at that.

Suddenly, the players were celebrities. Media outlets featured them non-stop, and their social media accounts picked up followers faster than Messi scoring goals in this current World Cup.

For Inna Palacios, it was the culmination of a lifelong dream.

“Finally, all the things I’ve worked for. It’s like a dream within a dream. My dream for the national team is like, I started small. And then when I started getting that dream with the team, you start dreaming bigger and bigger and bigger. And then the World Cup. It did feel like suddenly everything, all of the hard work paid off.

“I’m not going to set myself up and say, at that time when I was 16, ‘Oh, we’re going to go to the World Cup.’ I’m not being realistic. I had the dream of winning the UAAP Championship. That was more realistic for me then. And then when we started going to SEA Games, Asian Cup, then the dream became bigger. Then it became possible. Then it became attainable. So it’s about putting the work to make your dreams come true, to make sure they are attainable.”

The collective belief in herself, her teammates, the team leaders, in everything, kept Inna going even in the darkest of times.

“It’s not easy, definitely. It’s so much easier when things aren’t going our way and a lot of it weren’t going our way, to just pack up your bags and just do another thing. But there was this belief and hope I had in me that I couldn’t explain. But I just knew that if I kept going, we’re going to get somewhere. And I remember that headspace.

“I remember really saying it to our team manager back then, Sir Jeff (Cheng), that this team will really make it to the World Cup. But we have to act now. If not, I don’t know when we’ll get the chance again.

“Because I really believe in what we’re capable of as Filipinos. And I think more than anything, if I can just make a kid believe in themselves and have a better life, that’s all I could ask for.

“I think it’s a huge lesson for a lot of kids that no matter what you put your heads in, it can happen if you really, truly believe it. Because when you believe it, your actions will follow. And when they do, everything else will fall into place without you even realizing it.

“And then one day, you’re just there.”

The Filipinas continued making history in the 2023 Women’s World Cup. They shocked co-hosts New Zealand, 1-0, on a header by Bolden. Although they failed to advance to the group stage, registering a win at that level was still a huge accomplishment.

Then, as the calendar turned to 2025, Inna Palacios began thinking of retiring from national team duty. She had hardly played the past few years with Olivia McDaniel locking up the starting goalkeeper position, and she wasn’t getting any younger. She had given her all for flag and country. It was time.

“When we get older, life becomes a little bit more complicated than how I remembered playing football would be like when I was 16,” she said. “So to be juggling all the different aspects of life, there’s a lot at stake. Just to be able to show up still, even if you’re not your 100%, but because you believe, you still show up. I think that’s more than enough.

“Twenty twenty-five was definitely not the easiest year for me. But in the end, at least something great happened.”

Always the Philippine football keeper

When Inna Palacios stepped down from the medal podium on that December night in Chonburi, she was also stepping away from a national team career that began when she was barely in her teens.

Asked what kept her going all these years, Inna’s answer was simple.

“I think more than anything, it’s love. It’s love for the country, love for the sport. And all of that. I just want to give back to the country that gave me everything. To the country that I grew up in, to the country that is all I know.

“And to me, that’s my service to the country because what it gave me is something much more invaluable. It can’t be measured. And if I can give it and share it and grow it in ways that I can, I will.”

She is also content knowing that she’s leaving the national team in a much better place than when she started.

“Definitely (there’s) a huge, immense growth from the time I started. Just like seeing even how the tournaments are set up nowadays, it’s very different. It’s much more put together, more professional feeling, especially internationally.”

Whereas Inna started with no blueprint, no trailblazer from whom to draw inspiration, she’s also happy in the knowledge that today’s generation can look up to Inna Palacios and the rest of the Filipinas.

“I didn’t grow up thinking I would be a role model, but the responsibility just became bigger for me as well as I was becoming the person I am. And with, I guess, the influence I have to the younger ones after me, it’s, to me, more than anything, it’s paving the way for them.

“Because when I was younger, I didn’t know this was all possible. I didn’t have a role model to look up to. I had to figure it out. And now, we’re kind of like showing the kids that there is a way. You could do this and you could do more.”

Ultimately, Inna Palacios is the living embodiment of everything that’s right about Philippine women’s football. Work hard. When the going gets tough, work harder. And never stop believing. It’s a message she hopes will resonate with the next generation of Filipinas.

“I just want them to always dream big and to believe in themselves and believe whatever they put their heads in because it is worth it. It is very, very much worth it.

“And most importantly, enjoy the journey. Enjoy the little moments because those little moments are what makes the big things happen.

“Nothing worth it comes easy. Everything worth it comes in time.”

Spoken like a true champion.

Text SID VENTURA
Photography KIM SANTOS
Grooming CZARINA NOLASCO & RONNIE TUMAMAK
Creative and Art Direction SOFIA RODELAS & ROBIN TOPACIO
Styling JM GUMATAY
Sittings Editor SID VENTURA
Production Coordination VIANCA JIMENEZ & SOFIA RODELAS
Special thanks to ARCHIVE HAUS STUDIO