Praise the boys...
Written on 3/25/2004 09:46:00 am by sikapitan
I'm being sarcastic. Malaysia lost 1-0 to hot favourites South Korea through a penalty in the 43rd minute. Cue the typical backpage headlines in our local dailies - "Brave Malaysians","Unlucky" etc. I hate that. We, the footballing fans of Malaysia, has suffered enough without our papers ridiculously praising a performance worthy of the district league. After years of 'development', and millions on 'rebuilding', the national team still can't pass the ball, or even stop the damn thing. It doesn't matter who plays, or who coaches, the football is typical of Malaysia - pass it amongst the defenders, then just ignore the midfielders by pumping the ball straight to the frontline, despite the fact that our strikers are smaller than any other defenders in Asia. We can't maintain simple possession, can't defend crosses, can't outrun our opponents. We were playing at home, where the humidity and heat should have led to the Koreans gasping for breath, but instead we were the ones looking tired. Indra Putra went about "imposing" himself. Dude, you're lucky the ref didn't see you throwing around those elbows.
And if they want to criticize anyone, it would be the coach. I pity Alan Harris, or any other foreign coach in Malaysia. I bet if you put Alex Ferguson as the Malaysian coach, we wouldn't fare any better. The fact is that our footballers do not have the correct attitude. The Malay dilemma that Mahathir tried to combat during his reign is prevalent amongst our footballers. If he can't do it, why should we expect some gweilo to change the Malay attitude. Our footballers just don't care ("tak apa la, korea mmg tere, makan anjing,lari pun laju"). We lack the discipline, intelligence and desire to play proper football. Our footballers are - dare i say it- stupid (they are not the cleverest bunch of people are they?). The 'kampung' element is in their blood. I'm sorry, i'm really pissed.
The saddest thing is that, if we had managed to score a goal in the last 10 minutes, everyone would forget the pathetic display of the previous 80 minutes, and praise the lads like they're heroes. Typical Malaysians. Go figure.
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