My grandad,the late T.Nadarajah was our very first Malaysian football referee. Not many know this, till this very day, his existence remains solome. I remember being the grandchild of his where when I was a little kid he used to take me to stadiums where we both would enjoy a football match together. The crowd of approximately 50,000 would floud the stadium to come watch our national team play. The whole country would stand by Malaysia when it came to football those days. I use to listen to my grandfathers stories of how the Malaysian team played. How it felt scoring a goal. It was a fantastic feeling. Whenever Malaysia team had scored, the Malaysian fans would cheer and scream thier lungs out! Besides that,the other fans who weren't at the stadium, never gave up thier determination to support the Malaysian team. I use to remember him telling me how the people would gather at the 'mamak' stall which had a small radio broadcasting the match commanteries. Everyone at the stall would gather by the radio and listen, anxiously..
As soon as the Malaysian team scored a goal, the people at the stall would cheer and give each other hugs, some would even tear. The determination and support shown by our people towards the Malaysian team at that time were unquestionable. As we all know Malaysia football teams performance which we all witness now has dropped tremendously compared to the late 60's. MALAYSIA was once ranked 50 in the world of football ; today it stands at 179. At that time players like the late Mokhtar Dahari and Arumugam where the nations best. We could even beat teams like China, South Korea and even England. Mokhtar Dahari was the only Malaysian to score against England. Malaysia had chances for a world cup entry, but today we are like a million years away from achieving that. Lately, Malaysian hosted a friendly match against Manchester United. These two teams came up against each other twic which had Malaysia losing 3-2 and 2-0 in the second. In Malaysian first match, the players showed extreme determination and confidence. We even managed to score two goals contributed by Amri Yahya. The equaliser which silenced 85'000 people,which had Malaysia on its way to a historical draw, but the winning goal which sank the Malaysia team had thier hopes all faded. It was really dissapointing yet impressive seeing the Malaysian team playing well against one of the worlds best club which such little fan support.There was only a spot of Malaysian supporters that were seen in the stadium. Even theres was foreigners supporting Malaysia. The whole stadium were filled with red shirts which symbolised the Manchester United team.
Our own people would rather choose Man U than Malaysia, but yet the Malaysian team played well. Ours is not the commitment of the players. To give an analogy (and I don't mean to insult anybody), it is like asking donkeys to run against horses. Its a worthless battle. No number of system changes or structural changes or coaching tactics can make donkeys run faster than horses. Even the world's best coaches can't do that. Frommy view, i definetly think there is hope for the Malaysian team. One of the factors for our team to soar is the fan support, the faith of ours. MALAYSIA BOLEH!
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