Slow Building Crowd

The kick-off for today would be rather late. 11pm. And that would take the game well past midnight. And I have a morning clinic as well as ward patients tomorrow morning.

Still many empty seats. But it would be full later tonight.

Looks like I would be suffering by the afternoon ....

Exasperating Commentary

So, the SEA Games had begun in Jakarta and Palembang. The weekend gave me some opportunity to catch up with what was going on. The athletics has yet to begin, but other team sports, such as football had already started.

Sitting in front of the TV on the Sunday afternoon, I was treated to a football match. Malaysia was playing an already eliminated Cambodia. We were three up by halftime. But Cambodia played to a different rhythm in the second half and gave Malaysia a bit of a scare. Considering Indonesia had previously beaten Cambodia six nil, we were expecting a lot from the match. It has yet to finish, but it was clear that we needed to bulk up.

But, I did not write this entry to lament about out sporting mental toughness. It was about the coverage on TV, especially the quality of the commentary. It was atrocious. And I was being diplomatic here ....... No insight into what was on the television. He might as well be in a studio in KL to dub the audio. It was a waste of time sending him all the way to Indonesia. Shambolic!

It had never improve in the last couple of decades. At least Hasbollah Awang could be tragically funny.

Update on Sunday, November 13, 2011 at 7:29PM by Haris Abdul Rahman

Malaysia won 4-1 in the end, wasting plenty of chances to score even more

We Came Up Short

You win some. You lose some. And occasionally you get well beaten. And tonight was one of those occasion. Citeh played well. They wanted the game more. We were lackluster. We lacked passion. We deserved to get beat. And did they not half delivered it to us. Would really hate to be in United's dressing room at this very minute. The hairdryer must be out at full blast!

Hopefully we would learn a thing or two from this mauling. We were far too comfortable. And that bread overconfidence and arrogance. I felt that we did not give enough respect to the opponent. They had certainly improved. And in all honesty, only Rooney turned up for the game.

The only consolation was this heavy defeat came early in the season, with enough time for us to adjust. Hopefully, in the next few matches, we would get things back on track, while hoping City drop a few points as well. There were times when we were soundly beaten before and went on to win the Premiership - although to be fair, these tended to be away from home.

At NZ earlier, getting my tandoori fix before the game. Obviously that did not work this time ....Sports-wise, it had certainly been an eventful day. The horrific death of Marco Simoncelli at Sepang MotoGP. The Old Blacks lifting the Webb Ellis on home soil. And then this defeat. My thoughts though goes to Simoncelli's family. RIP!

Back to My Ritual

After hanging around for quite a bit at KLCC, we made it home at nearly 6pm. Since there would be a game tonight - United playing Norwich - I made a quick pit-stop at NZ.

After missing out on tandoori in the last couple of games which United drew, I better get back to my celebrated ritual. That would meat stopping over for a rake-out of mee ladna and tandoori chicken at NZ. I can bet Norwich would be slaughtered tonight at Old Trafford!

Home to Chelsea

It was one of those games which we could have ended up losing. And losing badly. We were lucky, and my thoughts went with Torres. That miss in the second half would haunt him for the rest of his career.

On the whole, Chelsea did not play badly. They did what they had to do, and was still down three by halftime. United's first was offside, second was another off side, but the shot itself deserved a goal - a mother of all thunderbolt off Nani - and the third was a fluky bounce, falling down invitingly for our man Rooney. We had it easy.

AVB did something almost unthinkable. He replaced Lampard at halftime, and putting Mata in the middle seemed to make Chelsea tick. And ticked they did. Anelka opened up the defense, exposing the inexperience of Phil Jones within half a minute of the restart. And United were on the back foot since.

Poor Torres ......In preparation, I went to NZ as usual for the Tandoori and Mee Ladna take-outWe were given a lifeline when Nani hit the woodwork and was fouled in the area when he pounced on the rebound. Rooney, slipped on his standing foot, and missed. That goal would have made such a difference, restoring the three goal cushion. As it stood, pressure was mounting on United's young shoulder, and we were exposed a few times.

Then came THE miss. Torres was put through, rounded the keeper, but skewed the tap in on his unfavoured left peg. That would have made the last 15 minutes more interesting.

Not only that we were lucky, but Liverpool self-destructed, and Citeh gave away a two goal lead to just come away with a point from Craven Cottage. We were standing two points clear this morning, taking maximum points from the first five games. And it made such a refreshing change that we stopped talking about De Gea for a start.