Malaysian Football: Drunken, Toothless Tigers!

I hardly write about Malaysian football.

Because there is nothing to write about, since the footballing heydays of Soh Chin An, Santokh Singh, Mokhtar Dahari, R. Arumugam, James Wong, Chow Chee Keong, Wong Chong Wah and Hassan Sani & Co in the 70s and 80s.

Then, we were the Asian tigers. And we even managed to qualify, not once but, twice for the Olympics.

Now we are just mosquitoes in football. So, I was ROTFL when the Star sport writer R. Manogaran wrote (Star Sport 22 Nov 2012) that it was disappointing that the Malaysian football team had suffered two defeats and only managed two draws in friendlies against lightweight teams in their preparation for the AFC Suzuki Cup tournament.

Dear brother, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Bangladesh and certainly Thailand are not lightweight teams (anymore) compared to the Malaysian football team. We are the minnows now really, there just to make up the numbers.

But I do agree with you that the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) has no clue at all on how to improve the standard of Malaysian football. Do they bother or care? They are just content to let things be. And how can we blame them for their lack of initiative when they have no idea what football is all about, except making up the numbers and letting the world know that at least we still have a football team to talk about?

No wonder we have been staggering around like drunken, toothless tigers who have lost their roar something like three long decades now. Left only to confer datukships and monetary rewards on players and coach on the rare occasions that we managed to win something like the Sea Games a year ago or the insignificant Suzuki Cup the last time around two years back. Ha ha!

And how can we expect Malaysian football to go far when players nowadays act, think and behave more like prima donnas, minus any prima to boast of or about in the first place and officials in the position to instill discipline coyly giving in.

Look at how the Terengganu state football officials recently sacked their state team coach Peter Butler just because the latter dared to take disciplinary action against errant players for lack of discipline and behaving badly for being substituted and perhaps you might have an idea of how difficult it is to uplift the standard of Malaysian football.

Dear R. Manogaran, you are right. Malaysians, including yours truly, no longer give a hoot to Malaysian football.

We are better off enjoying the EPL or even European football, and, like you correctly pointed out, most of us know the names of every player of our favourite EPL team. Few of us, if any, can correctly tell you the names or even some of the names of the Malaysian team.

I, for one, can't tell you even a single name of the current Malaysian team. And I don't care a hoot!

The travesty is that we still call our national football team "Harimau Malaysia" or "Malaysian Tigers"!

Toothless, drunken tigers - more like!

Is Arsenal RIP As In A Goner ?

Star Sport 5 Nov 2012

I have not written about Arsenal for some time already because there is not much (good) to write about the team.

Arsenal are still finding their feet, and the earlier they succeed in doing so the better it is for them.

But to say that Arsenal as a team is RIP (without RVP - Robin Van Persie) as in a goner following the 2-1 loss to MU, is a little too earlier in the day. The season is still young and there will be many twists and turns yet.

Other than saying Arsene Wenger should go, the first thing I want to say is that Wenger should not play Giroud..

I don't understand why the manager still persists with Giroud when it is obvious that the player is no footballer.

Giroud can't play football. Period. He can't hold a ball, he is even lousy in the air despite his height, does not backtrack to help out his team mates, doesn't know how to score and often loses his footing when challenged,

He is really useless and stands in the way of play.

I would rather have faith in Chamakh. And we need Gervinho of course, not Giroud!

And Arshavin and Walcott on the wings at the same time. If nothing else, Arshavin is one of the few Arsenal players who has the guts to take on defenders and is quite nippy in tight situations. All he needs is more play time.

As for Walcott, Wenger should tell him to stop being one-dimensional.

And tell his team mates to play the long ball to him early so that he could use his strength here to outrun the defenders and cross the ball into the box.

What is the use of having a nippy winger and not play to his strength?

And what has happened to Arteta? That guy seems to have lost his touch, can't string together a decent pass nowadays. And lacking commitment to chase after a 50-50 or even a 60-40 in favour ball like what happened in the match with MU.

Santos? This guy is too much of a tortoise. Why did Wenger not play Jenkinson? What's happened to Wenger? Has the gaffer lost his mental mojos?

Poldoski has suddenly lost his early promise and now plays as if he doesn't know what he is doing.

Arsenal needs to pull up their collective socks unless they really want to RIP as in a goner!