Malaysia Tak Boleh

The recent performance of the Malaysian football team in the Asian cup has drawn nothing but critics from our multi-racial country. Well, i am not planning to band the wagon and throw in further critical comments as it has already been well publicised in various medias, local newspaper, talkshows, radios etc. I can't help but feeling envious of our fellow host Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia as they played with boundless energy, great passion and teamwork. Something that we as fans can only be proud of, even if they bow out of the tournament they did it with great pride and dignity unlike..... never mind. Let's not go there.

After reading and listening to some of the comments from the public and also local figures, i feel that the root of cause for the poor quality of Malaysian football is more a less a national issue. While i do agree that one of the problem do lies within the coaches, manager and board, where there should not be any royal connection related to football as the decision-making process will definately be affected, there is no apparent strategy for the team; they look clueless and what annoys me the most is when the manager if i'm not mistaken stated before the match that they are no match for the opppositions and so on. What kind of manager is this? If the manager himself gives up before the team, then what are they supposed to do? I say sack them all, revamp the whole football system and bring in fresh approach.

Now here is my two cents on what i think will hinder the growth of Malaysian football no matter what happens. As i mentioned earlier, this is more like a national issue whether directly or indirectly. Basically, i do not believe that our country is lacking of talents. But where are the talents? If you take a look at the obvious facts that probably about 90% of the local footballers are Malays. Being a multi-racial country where are the chinese and indians? Dont get me wrong here but i am not suggesting that Malays are not talented but i feel that if there were more contributions from other races, surely there will be more talented players.

Unfortunately, this is not something which is changeable since it is more a less a fixed mentality from other races. Coming from a chinese family myself, parents always expect their child to be future professionals, doctors, lawyers, engineers etc. I can imagine if a chinese kid declaring he's ambition, " Mom, i wanna be a professional football player when i grow up" . Possible responds would be, " lu siao ahhh??" or probably the kid would get smacked and brainwashed. I am pretty sure this will happen in an indian family as well since at some point it seems like all indians are meant to study medicine. It kind of amuses me when i listen to chinese and indians giving critical comments on the state of Malaysian football but do wonder if they do have a sense of responsibility rather than just pointing fingers.


Ciaoz,
EJ