A Touch of Local Football

It was a toss between watching Mania, or a glimpse of what Malaysian football had to offer. Sime Darby was playing Kelantan in the FA Cup Final tonight and the match was shown live on TV. Should I be rooting for Kelantan, or be a loyal servant of Sime Darby?

The match so far had been a drab affair. It was almost unfathomable how this bunch of "professionals" managed to get even the basics of trapping the ball and making 10 yard passes wrong. But what they managed to do right was copy their European counterpart at diving and feigning injuries. In the last 10 minutes alone, I had seen a few cynical challenges, and the majority were coming from the Sime Darby ranks.

Kelantan were clearly playing the more attractive football, but they were being frustrated by the Sime Darby defensive formation. And don't get me started with the crowds taking with them the laser devices. Malaysia clearly still have a long way to go Even to reach the heyday of Mokhtar Dahari ....... But we are getting there hopefully.

Harimau Malaya Reflection

It has almost been a week since the nation was hit by the Harimau Malaya fever. A very potent strain this, and no antibiotics can keep the heat down. TwitterJaya was abuzz, the mass media was in full swing, and of course, the politicians put their own spin on things. I was in PD during the first leg, and couldn’t believe it when we scored the third. All the fuss then was about the laser-gate! With the return leg in Senayan coming just three nights after, one can expect retribution from the Indonesian. Everybody was anxious on how things would play out.

Yes, it was a great night for the nation. So much so that the power that be thought that the nation deserved a day off. That reminded me of the time in school, when the headmaster in his closing speech during the annual Sports Day, would announce that the day after would be a holiday. And everyone rejoiced!

I had different take though on things. Well, a couple of things. The first being the underestimated togetherness amongst Bangsa Malaysia. Or at least on twitter. The majority of the players were Malay. Despite this, most of the buzz on TwitterJaya were coming from my non-Malay friends. How I wished that this phenomenon can be studied and formulated into a plan to garner in the new era in Bangsa Malaysia. Should Najib wanted to take credit for it, I would be sure he will name it Bangsa 1Malaysia, but that was irrelevant.

Similar spirit was observed when we were playing at the Thomas Cup. Imagine if we were to beat China and got into the Finals - another public holiday I was sure. But I was sure, members of the fairer sex would complain, as should Chong Wei won the match, they would denied the sight of Lin Dan doing the half-naked dance in the middle of the court!

Malaysians love their sports, and when it come to sports, everyone forget if they were Malay, Chinese, Indian, Punjabi, Iban etc. We all become one Bangsa.

Another thing I observed was how sporting the Indonesian were. Some of them even saluted our players and stayed behind during the prize-giving ceremony. Would we have reciprocated? Instead, all the news were about some Indonesian supporters camping outside the Malaysian hotel, interrupting their planned training session. Even during the games, at certain point it could have turned nasty, but all the players seemed to manage to put their emotions in check. Considering the stakes, the game as played with great sportsmanship. I think the Indonesian deserve some credit for this.

Well, that’s my two sen. All this got me thinking about what would happened should we made it into the World Cup Finals. Will it be a whole month holiday?