Malaysian football used to be a good thing, something that got most Malaysians excited whenever Saturday evening came. The lucky ones thronging the stadium while the others at home glued to their radios listening to Arena Sukan for the latest score updates and live commentary. Yes, we’ve heard all this before, nothing new there. The likes of Mokhtar Dahari, how we qualified for the Olympics, etc. Even someone who’s NEVER even seen Supermokh play is convinced that he was a footballing GOD.
A packed Stadium Nasional.
But NO, I’m not referring to the 70s, but to a more recent era - The late 80s and early 90s when I was in my primary and early secondary school days. The pre-Astro days, to be more precise. Back then, kids having a kickabout were pretending to be Hashim Mustapha, Zainal Abidin, Dollah Salleh, Radhi Mat Din, Azman Adnan, Yap Kam Choon, Ahmad Sobri Ismail, etc. No one cared about English football. For those few who DID care like me, we had to wait for up to TWO days after the match to know the results from the papers as we had no internet nor any live telecasts back then. However, the infamous betting scandal happened, which affected every single team in the league, and many regular internationals, including a few really promising ones, were banned from EVER playing again.
These were the dark days, when Malaysians were just disillusioned with local football. Add to that the introduction of live matches from the English Premiership via Astro, and attendances at local football matches almost trickled to a stop. It has been much better lately though, and most teams can even boast of sold-out matches every weekend. Well, those that keep winning regularly anyway. Like KEDAH, who have won EVERYTHING in domestic football in the 2007 and 2008. No other team before have ever done the TREBLE, and Kedah did it TWICE. IN SUCCESSION. And Kedah are my team. Despite being brought up in Kelantan, my father’s side of the family hails from Alor Star, and in my younger days I made it a point to catch the Hijau Kuning at the Darulaman Stadium.
But because I was brought up in Kota Bharu, I did go watch the odd Malaysia Cup match in Kelantan (which was not that often). Apart from local heroes like Hashim Mustapha, Kelantan were honestly not that good a team. Just finishing in the top half of the table was good enough, and MAYBE if they were lucky they will make it to the Malaysia Cup quarterfinals. However, this year (their first year back in the top tier of domestic football in some time), helped by the coup of getting two seasoned internationals in Indra Putra and Khalid Jamlus, Kelantan have surprised everyone by becoming a serious challenger for the league title and even qualifying for the FA Cup Final. The latter is certainly a huge feat, as this is their first final in 39 years!
A rare sighting of the Malayan Red & White Zebra
So a few hours before the Final I found out that a cousin of the Missus managed to get hold of a few tickets, and there I was with a bunch of relatives on our way to Bukit Jalil! I have been to a few football matches in my time, including a few at Old Trafford and Wembley, but none can match the atmosphere at Stadium Nasional that night. It was simply AWESOME. When we got there with still an hour to go before kickoff, the stadium was already ROARING, and when inside, we had to walk quite a bit to find a small pocket of empty seats so we could all sit together. Come kickoff, the stadium was FULL, with not an empty seat to be seen (apart from the buffer zone that separated the two sets of fans, of course). It was just a sea of red and yellow (Selangor) on one side and red and white (Kelantan) on the other. The Selangor fans, with their famed loyalty to the team and having been in so many finals, were the more organised, with everyone singing and waving their flags in unison. You couldn’t hear yourself, however, when 40,000 Kelantanese started shouting “Gomo Kelate Gomo!!”, which loosely means “Fight, Kelantan, fight!”.
Sadly the football itself barely deserved the huge support. Yes, Malaysian football is nothing compared to most other Asian countries, let alone the European leagues. Yes, the watching supporters shouldn’t expect great shows of skill and it’s unfair to compare what they’re watching with what they watch on TV every weekend. Skills aside though, from what I saw there were A LOT of things, BASIC things, wrong with Malaysian football. Which is made worse when considering we were watching supposedly THE BEST two teams in Malaysian football right now.
- It’s not that apparent on TV where the camera always closes in on the action, but if you watch any proper team play, you can clearly see the formation of the teams, and how the players stick religiously to the formation throughout the 90 minutes of the game. During the Final, I could see that both teams had 2 central defenders, and 2 strikers, but everything else was a BLUR. 4-4-2, 3-5-2, 4-5-1? I had no idea. And so, it seems, the players.
- There was no such thing as “marking”. It’s not that difficult a thing to do, really. Just make sure whomever you mark does not get the ball, or at least make it difficult for him to do something with the ball. That’s all there is to it. But NO. Offensive players were running with the ball with ACRES of space, sometimes you even had 3 attackers against 1 defender. It’s telling that both goals came from unmarked diving headers and point blank range.
- Long passes were just ATROCIOUS. I don’t expect players to ping accurate 40-yard balls around the park ala Gerrard, Scholes or Pirlo. But even simple passes that were barely more than 20 yards seemed unable to reach their intended target. If you can’t make long passes, then make SHORT ones. Easy.
- A good first touch was simply BEYOND anyone. Yet despite this, everyone still thought that hitting the ball first time was the better option, which meant that EASY balls were given away at an ALARMING rate. Because of this, problem 3) above was somewhat neutralised. Two wrongs DO indeed make a right.
- One thing unique to Malaysians when playing football is that if you’re an attacking a player, whenever you get the ball, there’s only one thing to do: put your head down, and do your best to dribble ALL the way to your opponents’ goal. Even if you’re most likely to end up hitting a wall of defenders. There’s just no sense of maybe, just MAYBE, trying to switch play or even passing the ball BACK to a defender to stage the attack from a different angle. But then, with problem 4) above, I guess that going forwards is the safest option after al;.
Don't mess with us, we are KELANTAN supporters!
So there you are. Don’t want to dig into too much about Malaysian football, as many others have done so, and I can hear all your “I told you so“s. Difference is, I CARE. I actually look for the local football results in the papers or watch the goals on the evening news. The above BASIC problems, to me, are just that - BASIC. You honestly don’t need that much skill to win a football game. Just look at the English Premier League, with shite teams like Stoke and Middlesbrough managing the odd win against far superior opposition. As long as you have the discipline to adhere to team tactics and get the basics right, you can give the best teams a good fight.
So what about the match then? Well, Kelantan were the better team in open play, and it finished 0-0 after 90 minutes. After extra time it finished 1-1 and went to penalties, which Selangor won easily.
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