We used to be so proud of our football team, and despite all the failures all these years, as Malaysian we have no choice but to still love our football team, no matter how sad or how mad we are currently feeling.
We used to have our glory days...
In the late 60s and early 70s, we are one of Asia's powerhouse..
Remember our team played in the Munich Olympics in 1972? (Yeah...so we lost to West Germany, but take note... West Germany go on to win the World Cup in 1974!)
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Malaysia vs. West Germany (1972 Olympic Games Munich)
Remember we won the Bronze at the Asian Games in Iran in 1974. We beat both South Korea and North Korea in the tournament!
Part of the Malaysian Football Team that won the Bronze medal at the 1974 Asian Games Tehran
Remember all the Merdeka Cups that we won? The Merdeka Cup was oldest international competition in the Asian region, and considered as the premier tournament as it has attracted many strong national teams. What happen to the tournament? It has lost its luster, similar to our football team!
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Recently something beyond our imagination happened. We lost to Palestine. If it is a normal lost, then it may be OK,
But we lost to Palestine (a country at war), with a humiliating scoreline of 6-0, and it happen right here in Malaysia.
And we also did terrible in the recent SEA Games!
Our current ranking is 162, lower than Bhutan (159), Faroe Islands (102) and a group of many other Caribbean Islands and South Pacific Islands.
Compared to our football facilities - big stadium such as Shah Alam and National Stadium Bukit Jalil, these countries probably do not have the funds and the land to build football infrastructure, and yet we rank lower. Unimaginably embarrassing.
It is true to say that football is our number one sports. Well if it is our number one sports why are we ranked so low. Probably we are a nation that just love to WATCH football and actually do not like to PLAY football. You can never be good at football by just watching. You can never kick a free kick like Ronaldo if you only learn how to kick like him just by watching a film of how he kick the ball. Even if you watch it 1000 times, you will never be able to come close to what he do if you don't actually practice it.
Ever wonder how and why we are good last time? I remember when I was young in the late 60s and early 70s, we play football for fun. We really do have fun. Even though we play in a tiny patch of grass covered land, or even on the outdoor badminton court, usually barefooted, in our baju melayu (my friend even wear a folded "kain pelikat"), we do enjoy and love the game.
Players now are too 'manja'. They never go through the hard times. To play nowadays, they need to have expensive boots (we play barefooted - or for those who can afford it - they buy what we called 'guards'), they need branded attire, they need to have a proper playing field...
Look at the young Maradona, young Pele, they all played football in the streets!
I remember when I was young, almost everyday, the real football field is full of people playing football, nowadays our young people no longer play football, they just like to WATCH only, on TV.
To be a great footballing nation we need everybody to be involved and actually PLAY football. Just like Germany, Argentina, Italy, Brazil, Spain...they really do eat and sleep football. The more people we have playing at the grass-root level the better are our chances of producing the cream who will eventually become our national player
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