Philippines midfielder Tahnai Annis, right, heads upfield against Indonesia during the 2022 Asian Cup in India.
Submitted photo
Tahnai Annis’ journey to the biggest stage in women’s soccer has been anything but conventional.
The journey has included a three-year stop in Columbus when she was in elementary school, then club and high school soccer in Ohio, college soccer in Florida and professional stints in Iceland and Australia. But it’s the native homeland of her mother Myla Annis that has provided Tahnai the opportunity to play in the 2023 Women’s World Cup.
Earlier this year, Tahnai, 32, captained the Philippines national team to the final four of the Asian Cup. The top five earned bids to the World Cup, which will be in July 2023 in Australia and New Zealand.
The Philippines qualified for the World Cup for the first time. The “Malditas” had fallen one win short in 2018, when Tahnia was making her debut with the national team.
“We definitely learned a lot and I think were able to come in with a little bit more confidence of kind of just knowing what to expect and playing at that level,” she said. “Definitely, having that experience in 2018 was helpful for this time around, and I think as the team is able to play more games at that high level, it will be good for us.”
Growing up
Tahnai’s father Rusty Annis, who grew up in South Bend and played soccer at Grace College, finished college at Ohio State, where he met Myla.
Tahnai was born in 1989, and the family lived in Columbus from 1993-96 when Rusty worked as a physical therapist at Southern Indiana Orthopedics. When Columbus Regional Hospital bought SIO, the family moved to Zanesville, Ohio.
Rusty coached Tahnai in club soccer and for two years at Tri-Valley High School. After her third year at Tri-Valley, they moved to Pickerington, Ohio, and enrolled Tahnai at Pickerington North in hopes of getting more exposure for college.
Tahnai, who led Pickerington North to a final four appearance in Ohio’s largest class, signed with University of Florida. The midfielder had 38 goals and 16 assists in 96 games and helped lead the Gators to the NCAA Tournament all four of her years, including a Sweet Sixteen appearance as a junior. She made the All-SEC All-Freshman Team and SoccerBuzz.com Freshman All-America team in 2008 and was an All-American and second-team All-SEC player in 2010.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in sports management with a minor in business administration from Florida, Tahnai was drafted by Women’s Pro Soccer Elite’s New York Flash, but the league folded a couple months later. She was picked up by team in the top women’s league in Iceland and played there from 2012-14, scoring 19 goals in 62 games.
Tahnai was with the National Women’s Soccer League’s Washington Spirit for a preseason, but ended up taking a job as a graduate assistant coach at Division III at Averett University in Virginia and working on her master’s in business administration.
A long process
Tahnai originally found out in 2015 that because of her mother’s origin, she could play for the Philippines.
“I connected kind of through a friend of a friend,” she said. “One of my close friends that I played with in Iceland was on the men’s team, and he was from America, as well. He started a company a few years later that sets up men’s combines for aspiring men’s professional players. I was working with him kind of off and on whenever I wasn’t playing, and I would go with him and help him run his events, and he would bring in scouts from all over. At one of the events that I was at with him, one of the coaches that he had brought in was one of the assistant coaches for the men’s team.
“I didn’t even know that the Philippines had a national team at the time,” she added. “He let me know that they had a women’s national team, and I told him that I was half Filipino, and he gave me a contact. He actually was close with one of the players, so I contacted the player, and then she gave me the information for their scouting and player liaisons. They let me know when they were having one of their ID camps.”
But after going to a camp in 2015 in California, the plan hit a snag. Because Myla had already become a naturalized American citizen before Tahnai was born, she no longer had Philippine citizenship.
“So we had to jump through a bunch of hoops,” Tahnai said. “I had to actually go to the Philippines in person and get a bunch of different documents. My mom had to reapply to get her dual citizenship so that she could be considered Filipino again. Once she was considered dual, then I could use her documentation to take that over to the Philippines, and then I had to get a bunch of different documents that proved that I was of Philippine descent. Then once we got all of those, then I was finally able to get my passport, but it was a long process.”
Tahnai went back to California in 2017 for an ID camp and made the Philippine national team that would play in the 2018 Asian Cup. She finally got her passport in April 2018 and played in the Asian Cup in Jordan.
Making the World Cup
Philippines midfielder Tahnai Annis, right, battles a South Korea player for the ball during the 2022 Asian Cup in India.
Submitted photo
After playing in Australia in 2019 and spending most of 2020 in Columbus, Ohio, during the COVID pandemic, Tahnai spent the early part of 2021 in Costa Rica. In September, Tahnai joined the Philippines for the Asian Cup qualification in Uzbekistan.
Tahnai scored a goal in a 2-1 win against Nepal and another goal in a 2-1 victory over Hong Kong. That put the Philippines in the Asian Cup in January in India.
The Malditas beat Chinese Taipei on penalty kicks, with Tahnai converting the second one, to reach semifinals. That was their first win ever against Chinese Taipei.
Philippines midfielder Tahnai Annis plays in the 2022 Asian Cup in India.
Submitted photo
“You could tell they improved a lot from 2018,” said Rusty, who moved back to Columbus, Indiana, with Myla about three years ago.
This spring, the Philippines will be training in California for three upcoming events — the Southeast Asian Games in May in Vietnam, the Asian Football Federation Championships in July in the Philippines and Asian Games in September in China.
“We haven’t really had the opportunity to get together often, but luckily for this past Asian Cup, we were able to train a lot, probably more than any other team there. We were training together for about two solid months even before the Asian Cup.”
Tahnai moved to Chicago since September before going to Anaheim, California, for the training from November to January. Then, it was on to India for the Asian Cup, where they would make history for the Philippines.
“It’s the first time a lot of us had taken an exhale in a long time because we had just been training for so long, and we were together for a long period of time,” Tahnai said. “By the end of the Asian Cup, we had all spent three months together continuously, no breaks. It was only that group of 20-25 people, and we were pretty much a COVID bubble for almost all of that, so we didn’t have outside contact with anyone else. We weren’t allowed to go anywhere outside of hotel and training. So it was definitely a big relief, and it was pretty surreal, as well.”
