How about just being the best football spectators?

 

I was a big football fan growing up as a child. I am from Johor and, of course, the Johor state team was my team.

In the late 1980s into the 1990s, my favourite players were Khalid Shahdan, Salehan Mohd Som, Nasir Yusof, Hassan Miskam, Ervin Boban, Alistair Edwards and Abbas Saad.

When they won the double in 1991 - the Malaysia Cup and the League Cup - I was overjoyed. I was a fan even before the terms JDT and Ultras were ever coined.

I was a big fan of the national team as well. If there were any chance my father and I got to watch the team play, we would.

I remember cheering them on during Asia Cup qualifiers at the Merdeka Stadium and also seeing them play on television in the Tiger Cup (later known as the Suzuki Cup and now the Mitsubishi Electric Cup). We only won the cup once, in 2010, and the nation celebrated like we won the World Cup.

Underperformers

And this leads to the point of my article today. I am no longer a football fan. I lost interest when Johor was relegated to the second division in the late 1990s.

I also lost interest in the national team because, with all the hype that was always surrounding them, they never seemed to ever perform well. We would give them all the support but then be disappointed.

Harimau Malaya players after drawing 3-3 against South Korea

From the 1980s, through the 1990s and up till today, the national football team has never achieved anything significant.

Now there is nothing wrong with that.

The only problem is that football is treated like a national sport. It is the sport that gets the most funds, the most attention, the most everything. We are a football-crazed nation and from just that, one would think that Malaysia would be a world player when it comes to the sport, but alas, it is not.

Take for example the recent Asian Cup in Qatar. The Malaysian team fared very badly. They didn’t win a single match. They lost 4-0 to Jordan. Then they lost 1-0 to Bahrain. They managed a 3-3 draw with South Korea in their final group match, but the way the team and the entire country celebrated the draw was as if they won the World Cup.

This triggered memories of when they won the Suzuki Cup in 2010, of which a celebration was way more worthy than this draw with South Korea.

Nothing special

It was so funny to see how fans were overjoyed in their reaction. The team was welcomed like heroes when they arrived at the airport. The prime minister even announced RM5 million for the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM).

I do not understand. How does a team that did not win a tournament (they didn’t even win a single match!) get rewarded? It was just a draw with South Korea. Sure, we didn’t expect them to win the tournament, but they didn’t even achieve their target of being in the top 16.

I think that our national team and FAM must realise they are nothing special and that whatever they have been doing all this while is probably not working. We need to call a spade a spade. Don’t celebrate something that shouldn’t be celebrated so that they don’t think that they are actually heroes.

Harimau Malaya team

The draw with South Korea was definitely a fluke. The South Koreans were probably off form for some reason and I doubt that they will perform badly again. I’m even betting that they will probably go on to win the Asian Cup.

But, if South Korea does win the cup, those celebrating Malaysia’s draw with them will probably be thinking that Malaysia deserves to be ranked as high as South Korea because, hey, we drew with them in the first round!

Fans deserve better

Sorry people. Football does not work that way. Sure, a win is a win and a draw is a draw, but consistency plays a more significant role when it comes to the overall performance of a football team, and Malaysia is a more consistent loser compared to South Korea.

For a sport that has been given so much focus, I think more results should have been produced. Sometimes, I feel the national team is like England. All hype but no results but at least England has a top-notch football league. How is Malaysia’s football league ranked against other leagues around the world?

I think I better catch myself now before I go overboard. It’s just that for 45 years of life as a Malaysian, I have become jaded with local football. Can you blame me?

I don’t blame the fans for still giving support to the team. It’s their national team, and of course, their support goes to them.

I also admire Malaysians who are still positive and hopeful. I believe that they should hold on to that. I understand that there are off days in sports now and then, but Malaysians do not deserve to be disappointed all the time.

I want to have that hope too, but I’m putting it on hold till they achieve something. Too much disappointment hurts.

Look, I love playing basketball but the highest level I have ever been able to play is representing my school and university campus. I am never going to play in the NBA, but I’m okay with that. I realise what my capabilities are and I accept it.

Now I just play with a bunch of friends on Friday nights for a laugh, followed by a teh tarik session at the mamak. Maybe Malaysia needs to also realise that our passion for football is not to play at the highest level, but to just be the best spectators.

But deep down, I hope not. - Mkini

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ZAN AZLEE is a writer, documentary filmmaker, journalist and academic. Visit fatbidin.com to view his work.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.