sirsimplysaw.com – one breath at a time

If you are in Malaysia you probably know about this but if you are in Malaysia and you are a Malaysian and yet you dont know about this then SHAME ON YOU !!!

MALAYSIA FOOTBALL TEAM WON the GOLD MEDAL in the 25th SEA GAMES hosted by Laos. There I said it. Honestly I am very proud of our Malaysia football team and their achievement in Laos come as a suprise to me , a very very pleasant suprise. I mean our senior football team currently ranked 161th in the FIFA  out of 210 football association which you can say we are sort of very last because those team thats behind us are mostly countries that just recently received their independent or football is not that country main/national/popular sport.

Although the rest of the ASEAN team are not particularly in front us but still the best place among the ASEAN country is Thailand at 101th place which is not that bad because KOREA DPR that position at 87th in the world manage to qualify for the WC2010. Anyway back to our SEA Games football team, well I have to admit that most people dont really bother about the gold medal from SEA Games and some might not even know where  South East Asia located but to us Malaysian , this GOLD medal does signify something very important.

Is been a while since the last time our football team did anything the nation can be proud of , the last time would be qualifying for the Olympic in 1972 and 1980 which we later boycott as a form of protest for Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in 1979. After those achievements our national football keep on making headlines of the newspaper for the wrong reason such as :-

- in the 90s our football scene was embroiled in the one of biggest bribery scandals ever to hit the country
- our national team lost to teams that we never imagine we will lose to
- football teams in our national football league facing bankruptcy and couldnt afford to pay the players wages
- corruption at the highest level within the FA
- political figure who tries to manipulate the FA for their own benefit and also cheap publicity
- paying teams like Man Utd, Chelsea, Newcastle, Brazil and etc to play against our national team

So we do welcome this Gold medal with an open hand, I am sure the rest of Malaysia felt the same way. I am not very sure is this a one hit wonder or is it a new beginning to a much better prospect for our national football but somehow this achievement do gave me a glimpse of hope that Malaysia might qualify for the World Cup in my lifetime.

You see attending the World Cup event for the whole month was part of my life plan and earlier I was telling myself it would be so much better if Malaysia could qualify for WC then I will have a much better purpose to be there by supporting my national team. I mean I am sure the World Cup experience would be awesome but being in WC supporting other national team like England or Netherlands doesnt really give you as much kick or satisfaction then supporting your own national team and in my case it is MALAYSIA.

I do hope those youngsters will keep on improving and bring our national football to a height no one ever imagine. Hopefully some day our country would be the center stage for football, I wouldnt mind paying our footballers RM500,00 a week ( current value of course, doesnt consider the inflation rate and etc till the day ) if they are worth the money, in fact I am more than happy paying them those figure because it is a prove that our football team are a force to recognise by the world. We no longer need those cheap publicity by then to promote ourselves.

Here is a clip to show you our journey in 25th SEA GAMES in Laos

ps. I just found out that there is Malaysia football player who played for Hertha Berlin from 1990 till 1994 then Bayern Munich from 1995 till 1999 and he is currently the assistant coach for Bayern Munich youth team. His name is LIM TEONG KIM