Alexandria native and Filipino soccer star Nate Burkey saw his first shot at a World Cup appearance come to a disappointing end late last month. 
    
The Azkals, the Philippines national soccer team, fell to Kuwait at home in Manila during the second round of World Cup qualifiers July 28. The international squad headed into the game as underdogs, after a 3-0 drubbing in the two teams first matchup. 
    
They would have needed four goals to beat the Kuwaiti team on aggregate and advance to the next round. Instead, the Azkals roughly translated as street dogs in English fell 2-1 to the higher-ranked Middle East squad. 
    
The loss put the finishing touches on the Azkals deepest World Cup run in team history. Burkey, who grew up in Alexandria and worked for a time as a Washington teacher, joined the international team earlier this year.