Malaysia — a football nation?

The night Malaysia won the Asean Football Federation Cup at the Gelora Bung Karno Stadium in Jakarta, I updated my Facebook status: A lousy football team beat another lousy football team. WOOPDEEDOO!!’

I’m sure you can imagine the barrage of comments that ensued. Although I was just trying to be funny by irritating Malaysia’s football fans, I did believe my statement.

Some laughed along, agreed and supported me. But most of the comments that came were against what I had posted.

A couple of people said that the Malaysian national team might not be world class yet, but this is a good start and I should give credit where it is due.

But think about it. Malaysia was at a good international level in the 1970s and early 1980s and even qualified for the Olympics. But that was it.

We’ve never reached that level since and have been playing at only Southeast Asian level. So after 30 years, how is winning the AFF Cup a “good start”?

Then some other people accused me of only wanting to support the team if they win and not when they are down.

Well, I used to support Malaysian football. I went to all the matches, read all the articles and even memorised the players’ names.

But due to the tens of years of mediocrity and bad results, I’ve been jaded by Malaysian football. So I will only believe it when I see it now.

Hardly my fault, is it? I even dare bet money that the AFF Cup win will probably be as good as it gets for Malaysian football for the next 30 years.

I will give credit where it is due. But after all the money, time, effort (and talk!) spent, the recent win hardly deserves the celebration that is being dished out right now.

Come on. A public holiday on New Year’s eve to celebrate the victory? I just feel it’s not an adequate return on investment.

To satisfy me (after all my tax ringgit has been used to develop the sport), it needs to be a bigger success story.

Overcoming harmless laser beams to beat Indonesia (even though technically, we actually lost to them on aggregate) just won’t cut it for me.

Some comments also accused me of not having national pride. That hurt me a little because I am as patriotic and nationalistic as anyone.

So to this, my response is: I would really be betraying my national pride if I act and say otherwise.

Opinion

Zan Azlee is a documentary filmmaker, journalist, writer, New Media practitioner and lecturer. He runs Fat Bidin Mediawww.fatbidin.com