I had a long but satisfying Sunday due to All-England Championship, bought a ticket to the Final eventhough not very sure any of my countrymen or countrywomen will make it to the last day, don’t get get me wrong I strongly believe in their abilities just that at times luck is not on our side. I was disgusted and sad when the news of our top men doubles pair Koo Kean Kiat & Tan Boon Heong was knock-out in the first round by a Danish pair , they were ranked first for the tournament for God’s sake.

Anyway my day started by waking up at 4am , thats correct 4 in the morning. I can’t remember the last time I woke up at 4 in the morning although sleeping at 4am is a norm to me but definately not waking up at 4am. After getting myself ready, took public bus to coach station to catch my coach at 7 to proceed to Birmingham. It was a generally comfortable 3 hours journey with a short stop in Coventry.

Reach the Birmingham coach station around 10am , try to find my way to the National Indoor Arena but most of the road in the city center were closed due to St.Patrick’s Day parade and unfortunaly the security person not very helpful in providing me the information I need to get bus to the NIA. Spend like 1 hour walking around before I manage to find a bus to get to the NIA, seen plenty of ASIAN when I am there at the venue.

Is like some ASIAN invasion in Birmingham NIA and the best thing is that they are plenty of young and gorgeous ladies there.
They are here ,
They are there ,
They are fucking everywhere ,
Oriental chicks , oriental chicks.
( Is a famous chants dedicated to Joe Cole in Stamford Bridge )

It was quite crowded in the common are on NIA, I see alot of Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, Korean and the thing is I can’t really tell them apart as most of them look like Malaysian to me, Hmmm I guess Malaysia Is Truly Asia after all. That’s why Malaysia is such a unique and great country as everybody could fit in anytime they want.Of course there were plenty of Msian as well as Datuk Lee Chong Wei make it to the Final to set up a match against a rising youngster, Kenichi Tago of Japan.

The lighting , the atmosphere , the seat in the NIA were awesome. We were entertain by a group of Punjab drummers as an opening performance, that’s something I don’t expect. After that , some award presentation to certain individuals who serve the sports for a very long time followed by a poem recition from a college student about badminton which sounded more like rapping then poem reciting to me.

The matches start of with the mix double event , it was a very exciting match where the second seed were upset by a pair ranked over 100 in the world. Then continue by the women single event , the top seed played miserably in the first set then bounce back on the second but eventually at the end of the 3rd set she just not in the game and finally conceed defeat to her opponent.

After all this come the event where I believe 20% of crowd were waiting for the 100th Edition All-England Badminton Championship Men Single Final a game between Lee Chong Wei ( Mas ) 1st vs Kenichi Tago ( Jap ) . Kenichi started well and at one point he was leading by 6 points then Chong  Wei slowly gain his composure and started to take control of the game and eventually won the 1st set in a very tight match by the score of 21- 19.

The 2nd set started well for Chong Wei but eventually Kenichi start to give him a run of his money. When the score at 20-17 for Chong Wei I can sense the excitement around the arena waiting for the game point but Kenichi manage to gain another 2 points to the horrow of most of the crowd. Then Chong Wei did a shot that Kenichi claimed to be out of the line but the linesman pointed in , the crowd went crazy and I am among the lucky few to be there.I seen the replay of the last point when I am home and I am quite sure the last point was out of court but I rather have a lucky winner than unlucky loser right ? A win is a win after all.

Chong Wei celebration lasted the longest as he was extastic, the organizer sort of trying to push him off the limelight ASAP as they were behind schedule due to 2 long double set game before this. The next 2 game were exciting as well as all of the them went to double set. Eventually 2 title went 2 China , 2 went to Denmark and 1 for Msia.

Rush to the Birmingham Coach Station to catch my bus back to London. Another 3 hours journey back but it was all worth it. Finally reach my home at 2am. Well is a good experience after all , no regret for having such a long day.

Hmmm Chelsea was knocked out of Champions League Group of 16 . I m dissapointed but  well life goes on.

]]> http://sirsimplysaw.com/2010/03/16/datuk-lee-all-england-success/feed/ 0 http://sirsimplysaw.com/2010/02/09/derby-match-is-just-so-awesome-especially-when-the-team-you-support-won-chelsea-4-life/ http://sirsimplysaw.com/2010/02/09/derby-match-is-just-so-awesome-especially-when-the-team-you-support-won-chelsea-4-life/#comments Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:30:14 +0000 SirSimplySaw http://sirsimplysaw.com/?p=687 Last Sunday , 07/02/20 I finally manage to get a ticket for Chelsea match against one of the so called Top 4, I failed to get ticket for Utd and Liverpool but thank God I get my hand of a ticket to watch Chelsea vs Arsenal. I was just sitting beside the Arsenal Fans section and the atmosphere of a derby game is really very very different , at times it could be a little intimidating.

Anyway it was a great game since Chelsea manage to win quite convincingly. Well I am not going into details about the match as I believe you guys can easily find it in the net and with much better and exciting writing but I do like to share with you guys some pictures I manage to took during the match , is actually more like before and after the match as I was too occupied during the match , watching it , cheering for Jt and also insulting Arsenal . No offence Gunners fans , is just part and parcel of the atmostphere when you are inside the stadium.

On why most of the pic are about Arsenal ? Like I said earlier I was sitting just beside Arsenal fans section so Arsenal team were nearer to me this time but I manage to see both Drogba’s goals because it is also just in front of the Gunners fans. Sweet.

It seems that the media got bored and decided to bring you to the spotlight again for the wrong reason. The last time I met you was during the Youth FA Cup match against Portsmouth which we won 1-0 , it was just the night before the news splash across every front and back page of the newspaper in the morning. I know you are there because you care and I am proud of you to be our Chelsea captain. Your dedication, your skills, your leadership was never in question.

You were born and raise in a council flats but yet you decided to break out from it and excel in football , the game you like. I strongly believe which ever field you choose you will definately excel in it with those kind attitude you had , you can lead the strongest gang , you can be the richest thug , you can even control the drug empire if you ever choosen that road but no you choose the other road for that I SALUTE you , you are source of inspiration for millions and millions of people out there.

The media been saying alot of means thing regarding your relationship with Mr.Bridge EX partner. Although I am not very sure what happened but JT your ability to lead England shouldn’t been in question. I am not very sure whats freaking wrong with those people that wanted your armband stripped off. They might be barking all over the places now but those hypocrite will be singing your names and shout your name when they cum when you lead England to lift the World Cup.

I understand why you will never quit your position as the captain of England football team is not because you are some arrogant guy but because you know you could lead your team to lift the trophy and you know that no one else at the moment could do that better than you. If you quit your position as captain is like betraying your own country and you are not someone that will betray you own country.

Then they were saying you give bad impression to the kids out there , hmmm thats not a very good thing isnt it Mr.Terry . Well just a piece of advise to all the parents out there, if you want your kids to be holy why dont teach them to idolize the priest instead, oops I forgotten some of them actually make love with young boys. Seriously if you cant even take care of your own child and teach them to be a proper person the next time you drop by a local convenient store please purchase a packet of condom.

Anyway JT before I end this letter of my I would just like you to know that there is whole wide world of ladies out there and the next time around don’t play with your mates ladies. If you ever be single again after your wife divorce you , I would suggest you to give those oriental ladies a chance and I am sure you will never ever regret it. If you ever need personal assistance with that area of the world I am more than happy to assist you personally.

Regards,
Team JT

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

Hosts

South Africa
Prediction : Round of 16
Their best record so far in WC is just in the group stage but being the host I do see them advance to the round of 16. Home ground advantage will definately help them but that should be as far as they could get even with player like Benni McCarthy, Aaron McKoena,Rowen Fernandes and Kagiso because this is the WC we are talking about.

EUFA Region

Denmark
Prediction : Round of 16
They performed extremely well during the qualifying but since the Golden Generation of Brian & Michael Laudrup, Peter Schemical and Jon Dahl Tomasson they dont have much depth in their current squad. This is only their fourth time making it into WC finals so I dont really put much hope on them even with their rising young striker Niklas Bendtner in the squad.

England
Prediction : Finalist
They last won their only WC back in 1966 man is really very very long time ago. If just if they could get a very reliable GK and a very reliable strike partner for Wayne Rooney then they could be a very serious contender for the trophy. I do see them reaching the final in this WC with the depth in the squad but lifting the trophy might prove a little difficult. The only downside with the squad is that almost all their players are England based so not much exposure to other countries playing style.

Germany
Prediction : Quarter-finalist
Germany are always a very solid team in competitions but their current squad might be a little too young to challenge for the trophy next year with the squad average age at 26. I do expect some suprises from them but challenging for the trophy ? Maybe next term.

Italy
Prediction : Semi-finalist
Being the 2006 edition champion I do see them reaching the semi-finals in South Africa but sometimes the previous champion might flop in the next campaign so do expect some suprises with Italy. They might even got eliminated in the group stage if things doesnt go well for them.

Netherlands
Prediction : Quarter-finalist
I really dont understand why they never win the WC with the quality of players they had over the years. Is it because they doesnt have the luck to excel ? Sometimes I wonder how they loses the games that they could easily won.The prospect of seeing Arjen Robben teaming with Robin Van Persia and Wesley Sneijder really mouth watering. They are always one of my favourite with their exciting playing style and I do hope that miracles might happen.

Serbia
Prediction : Group stage
Yes they might perform superbly in the qualifying stage but group stage is as far as they could go. I dont see them creating any upset or suprises during the WC. Just another team to make up the numbers of teams.

Spain
Prediction : Quarter-finalist
Spain is a team full of quality players but yet to win the WC. The partnership of David Villa and Fernando Torres will send shivers down spine of any defensive line up in the world and with Iniesta,Alonso and Fabregas in the midfield they can create wonders but can they win the WC ? Is a question very difficult to answer but we shall see next summer.

Slovakia
Prediction : Group stage
This is the first time they enter an international competition but I dont see another Croatia in the making in them. So we shall only see them for 3 matches and thats about it.

Switzerland
Prediction : Group stage
Struggling to top  the easiest group in the Eufa qualifying grouping tells it all even though they are ranked at 13th place in Fifa world ranking at the month. I guess they will be relying on Hakan Yakin and Alex Frei to push them through. Oh yea they were the only team didnt conceded any goal in normal regulations time in WC 2006.

Greece
Prediction : Group stage
Not every year is the year 2004 and I seriously do not expect any suprises form Greece this time. I am writing them off at this moment either you like it or not. Although I do admire Karung Guni, I mean Karougunis but thats about it. I dont see Otto Rehhagel creating another miracle in WC10.

Slovenia
Prediction : Group stage
I dont understand how they overcome Russia in the qualifying match. I have nothing against them but a WC without the hot russian chicks and Andrei Ashavin, Pavlyvucenko,Zhirkov and Akinfeev is not really complete. So curse you Slovenia , ahha…Please dont be offended all the Slovenian people out there, I am just ranting. I do like you guys.

Portugal
Prediction : Round of 16
Football isnt an individual game , they wont be able to challenge for the trophy if only depending on Ronaldo although they manage to make it through the both legs against Bosnia. All their recent matches they only manage to win narrowly even against lesser known team so in order to make an impact in WC10 they will need to work as a team and by playing at their top form then maybe they might exceed my prediction.

France
Prediction : Group stage
Just look at how they played against Ireland, it was a disaster. There are no teamwork, there are no communication, there are no tactics and there are no sportsmanship. 2010 will just be a repeat of 2002, they will fare miserably even Anelka wont be able to do anything. So Bon Voyage while in South Africa.

Conmebol

Brazil
Prediction : Finalist
Although they do struggle a little bit during away matches during qualifying but Brazil will always be Brazil and somehow they always manage to pull through during the real competition. With so many quality players in their squad that they can even spare other countries that lack of football talents with some players. It will be exciting to see them in final.

Paraguay
Prediction : Group stage
Easing through the qualifying group consist of Brazil and Argentina are really very impressive but I guess it stops there. Another team that will just make up the number in WC10 although I do see Santa Cruz scoring a few goals during the campaign.

Chile
Prediction : Group stage
Honestly I dont know much about Chile other than Marcelo Salas and Ivan Zamorano partnership in the late 90s and early 21st century. Say I am ignorant but group stage is where their journey will end.

Argentina
Prediction : Group of 16
Not all great players are great managers, honestly I still havent see any management quality from Maradona yet and I dont foresee it in the near future. With squad of so many quality players they should be able to manage to squeeze through the group stage but after that is finito.

Uruguay
Prediction : Group stage
After winning 2 WC trophy in the first 4 campaign they have nothing much to show soon after that. Mostly their journey ends at group stage or the most group of 16. So for WC10 their journey should end at group stage as well.

Concacaf

Mexico
Prediction : Group of 16
I do expect Carlos Vela to shine for Mexico in WC10 and they do have some depth in the squad so progressing to group of 16 shouldn’t be a problem provided they can play some world class football.

United States
Prediction : Group stage
If traditional football is one of the high profile sports like basketball, american football and baseball in the US I strongly believe that US will be the team to beat in order to be WC champion but unfortunately football isnt that popular in US but I am looking forward to Freddy Adu and Brian Ching performance during the WC.

Honduras
Prediction : Group stage
What can Palacios do during WC ? I am not very sure but I do expect some suprises from this inexperience Honduras side. This is only their second appearance in the WC so do not expect too much from them.

Caf

Ghana
Prediction : Group of 16
The Black Stars are only making their second consecutive appearance in the WC although they been quite dominant in the Olympics. With players like Michael Essien, Muntari, Appiah and Paintsil they can be the dark horse of the tournament, so be prepared all those top rated team.

Ivory Coast
Prediction : Semi-finalist
Ivory Coast as semi-finalist ? Are you joking or what. Yes I am dead serious they are my favourite to occupied one of those semi-finalist spot in WC10 even though WC10 are only their second appearance after 2006 WC. Have a look at their squad and you will know that I am not joking. They have so many quality player plying their trade in so many top league in the world and it will be a note worth taken.

Nigeria
Prediction : Group of 16
The trio of Yakubu, Martins and Kanu is a strike force to acknowledge but maybe they will just make it to group of 16. They might go even further if their backline can provide the cover needed in a WC campaign.

Cameroon
Prediction : Group stage
A good brunch of players and a world class striker in Eto can the Indomitable Lions pose a threat to the usual favourites ? I dont think so. Can Paul Le Guen perform his magic with Cameroon during WC10 ? I dont think so.

Algeria
Prediction : Group stage
Algeria is a country that produces player like Zizou and Samir Nasri but unfortunately both players decided to represent France instead. If you cant keep your talents you cant win, simple as that.

Asia

Australia
Prediction : Quater-finalist
Australia joined the Asia Federation in 2007 in order to increase their standard of football as football is getting more serious business and no longer just friendly matches to them. So I do reckon that they will reach the quarter-final after all the upgrading. Haven’t see Harry Kewell playing for quite some time , I wonder how is he doing right now.

Japan
Prediction : Group of 16
Although Japan hardly make in through the group stage in their WC campaign except in 2002 when they are the co-host but after so many exposures they should be able to shine a little in WC10.

Korea
Prediction : Group stage
Trust me fourth place finish in 2002 is simply a flop. Although they have an unbeaten run of 27 matches until last week when they lost to Serbia in a friendly match in Craven Cottage , I dont see them proceed far in WC10 even with players like Park Ji Sung and Seol Ki-Hyeon.

North Korea
Prediction : Group stage
The first and last time North Korea qualified for the WC is during 1966 when England won the WC so I guess this must be another good omen for England that North Korea qualified for WC10. Hmmm what else to say about them ? I dont know.

Ocenia

New Zealand
Prediction : Group stage
Is been a while since the last time New Zealand manage to make it this far, I guess they must be smiling when Australia decided to join Asia Federation. Well after a hard fought match with Bahrain they finally manage to secure a place in WC10 but seriously group stage is as far as they could get.

All those are solely my personal opinions and predictions, you shouldnt take it too seriously or as guideline when making your WC betting although betting on Brazil and England to lift the cup seems like a good bet. All those predictions are just a guideline on what I think how those team will perform during the WC10 of course there are other factors involved like grouping , forms,match fixing and luck. Thats what make football so interesting and WC one of the greatest event on Earth.

Cheers and remember put your money on Brazil and England. Paddy Power is giving the odds 5-1 for Brazil to win and 6-1 for England to win.