I have added some stuff to Asian Football Memorabilia and Asian Football Pictures regarding the Malaysia v Arsenal game...
I know the general perception in Singapore is that their football is shite but then most of them sold their soul to the EPL a decade back and pine for queen and empire once more.
But the SLeague continues to be one of the most exciting leagues in the region.
Not like Thailand where Buriram PEA had won the TPL before the season had kicked off, allegedly, or Indonesia where much depends on outside factors.
I've devoted a fair bit this season to what has been going on outside the title race because for me that is just as exciting. Geylang United's unbeaten run and Balestier Khalsa & Hougang United's transformation from whipping boys to good, solid mid table fodder are three just for a start.
Friday night saw Hougang host this season's cannon fodder, Woodlands Wellington. With 10 goals in 21 games and just two wins the rams have been fighting for bottom spot with Tanjong Pagar all season.
Hougang meanwhile, under Adie Iskandar, are showing what a bit of continuity can bring to a football club. They sit 6th and have been scoring goals. All a big change from the days when they were known as Sengkang Punggol 0.
In their last game they had won 1-0 at SAFFC's formerly impenetrable Choa Chu Kang Stadium and to show how much things have changed nobody was really surprised. Hougang have also beaten another title challenger this season, Tampines Rovers.
So Friday night they come up against the shot shy Woodlands at Jalan Besar. In their first 10 away games Woodlands had managed just one win, at Young Lions. A blank against Tanjong Pagar was their only other point on their travels.
The Rams won 3-2! 75 goals in their 20 games this season.
It's a crying shame that more Singaporeans who think their Liverpool fans would have travelled to Kuala Lumpur to see their adopted heroes than attended a thrilling game in their own backyard.
With a queue forming at around 10.30pm the night before, it was no surprise when the ticketing booth at the South Gate of Jalan Besar Stadium had the ‘SOLD OUT’ sign displayed at 2.20pm this afternoon. Fans of all ages came together and stood in line, eagerly awaiting their chance to purchase the match tickets while some others were singing and cheering in unison as they waited for their turn.
Ridzal Saat, FAS Deputy Director for Marketing and Competitions said: “The queue started late on Friday night at around 11.30pm and the crowd progressively grew bigger as it neared the 8am sale time. By 2.20pm, all tickets on sale were sold out and we would like to thank the fans for coming out to support the Lions. It would be a wonderful sight to see Jalan Besar Stadium in a sea of red and we would like to encourage all fans to come decked in red to support our Singapore National Team in the match against
Another exciting week of football in Singapore and I've missed it all so here is the table and top scorers. Hopefully normal service will resume next week.
1 - Tampines 20 14 3 3 41-16 45
2 - Home United 20 14 2 4 50-20 44
3 - SAFFC 20 13 2 5 39-23 41
4 - Albirex Niigata 21 13 1 7 48-22 40
18 - Mislav Karoglan (SAFFC), Aleksander Duric (Tampines Rovers)
14 - Frederic Mendy (Home United)
13 - Shotaro Ihata (Albirex Niigata), Qiu Li (Home United)
11 - Jordan Webb (Hougang United)
10 - Fazrul Nawaz (SAFFC)
Geylang play Etoile this weekend. Can they keep their impressive run of wins and clean shhets going against the Champions?
The Malaysian national team has been just about the only success story in South East Asian football in recent years. The Under 23s won the Sea Games in 2009 and the full team, featuring a good many of the triumphant squad, went on to win the ASEAN Football Federation Cup in 2010.
They are the only ASEAN team still in with a shout of reaching the Olympic Games in London next year, they are drawn againt Japan, Bahrain and Syria in the next round, while later this month they play Singapore in a home and away World Cup qualifier.
A successful team then, astutely coached by Rajagobal.
But when the Arsenal came to Kuala Lumpur the Malayan Tigers success was conveniently forgotten by a press pack from London and their quest for headlines and repeating the banal.
From the opening press conference in KL on the Monday, two games before the game, to Robin Van Persie being the last player to leave the field at the slowly emptying Bukit Jalil Stadium, Malaysia became a sideshow in the eyes of the world.
They were the hosts, they were expected to roll over and submit to the immense juggernaut that is the English Premier League. They became irrelevant.
Take that early press conference for example. The UK media brushed aside their local, provincial, counterparts, hogged the front row and questioned Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger about someone who hadn’t made the journey.
‘What about Cesc?’ they demanded to know. Now, I dunno, I’m no high powered red top journo but if I had travelled thousands of miles to a new footballing country, a place I knew nothing about, then I think I would want to now a bit about the place and the people. Who were the key players in the Malaysian team to watch for example? How would they line up? How does playing Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea in one short week during a World Cup qualifying campaign help their bid?
But nope, nothing like that. “is Cesc leaving?’ was about as far as it went. The Arsenal captain of course hadn’t made the journey. He had stayed back home in London nursing a hamstring injury. Anyway, he’d already been in Asia, visiting Indonesia to help sell biscuits.
When it came to Malaysia, no visiting hack had anything for the Malaysian coach. the Little Englander mentality hit in, football is all about the EPL and that’s it. Anything else is just a distraction. A necessary distraction of course but a distraction all the same.
Even Arsene Wenger, he who is always described as studious, professorial, he had caught the bug. The Arsenal manager, famed for his contacts throughout the world game, famed for his ability to unearth 12 year old French speaking kids in deepest Africa and turn them into legends, he had not seen anything about his hosts.
Which is a shame because of course Malaysia have developed a young, winning team while Wenger hasn’t.
Most of the Malaysian support of course knew different. They knew the difference in their national team over the last few years and they treated their coach to a fantastic reception as he inspected the field a couple of hours before kick off. Mind you, he had been on the field 10 minutes before anyone noticed!
But that welcome was dwarved once a couple of Arsenal players walked out of the tunnel and into the arena. As Walcott, Wilshire et all raised their hands in the briefest of waves the decibel count on the terraes increased 10 fold. A thousand camera flashes lit up the stadium interior like the fireflies at Kuala Selangor as the travelling media pack gathered round to take pictures of a couple of footballers standing around, doing nothing much.
Arsenal won 4-0 and everyone went home happy. The Arsenal fans who had travelled from within Malaysia and from further afield like Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia, were happy because they had finally seen their heroes in the flesh, while the Malaysian fans went home happy because they had seen some EPL players in action and for them, as well as Rajagopal, the result was really secondary.
This wasn’t about football. It was about theatre. Everybody had a role to play, a role scripted in advance by the organizers, the directors.
At the final whistle the Malaysian players collected their medals for losing 4-0 and nobody really cared. Arsenal collected their medals and the place went mental. Then the likes of Robin Van Persie and Theo Walcott were given baseball caps which they then proceeded to throw into the crowd. And the crowd went wilder.
Van Persie was the last to leave the field. He was surrounded by autograph hunters among the local media and to be fair to the guy he stuck around while the rest of the team were back in the dressing room.
After a short night’s sleep the Arsenal circus moves on to China while Liverpool will enter the KL big top this weekend when an expected 86,000 fans will turn up, expecting to clap and cheer on cue.
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SEA Games 2011
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, PALEMBANG - Pengamanan pelaksanaan SEA Games ke-26 di Palembang, 11-22 November 2011, akan menjadi prioritas bagi jajaran Kepolisian Daerah Sumatera Selatan. "Kami akan memprioritaskan pengamanan pesta olahraga se-Asia Tenggara mendatang, dengan kesiapan menurunkan personel ke lokasi pertandingan dan fasilitas SEA Games," kata Kapolda Sumsel, Irjen Pol Dikdik Mulyana Arief Mansur, di Palembang, Rabu (13/7).
Kota Palembang, Sumsel akan menjadi tempat pembukaan dan penutupan SEA Games ke-26 yang berlangsung di Indonesia itu, dengan pelaksanaan pertandingan selain berlangsung di Palembang, dan juga di Jakarta. Menurut Kapolda Sumsel itu, sebagai tuan rumah pesta olahraga akbar bersama DKI Jakarta, pelaksanaannya harus disukseskan bersama termasuk pengamanannya.
Dia menegaskan bahwa pengamanan SEA Games itu menjadi prioritas, mengingat pesertanya dari berbagai negara. "Jadi keamanan peserta dan fasilitas pertandingan serta pelaksanaannya akan menjadi skala prioritas, supaya berlangsung lancar dan sukses, sehingga nama daerah ini termasuk Indonesia akan semakin baik," ujar Kapolda yang baru bertugas di Sumsel ini lagi.
Pesta olahraga akbar yang berlansung di Palembang mendatang akan diikuti ribuan peserta utusan negara tetangga, seperti Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapura, dan beberapa negara di Asia Tenggara lainnya. Apalagi Palembang bukan saja menjadi tempat penyelenggaraan pertandingan, tetapi juga dipercaya sebagai tuan rumah dan pelaksana pembukaan maupun penutupan SEA Games itu, kata dia pula.
Sebelumnya, saat menyambut Kapolda Sumsel yang baru itu, Wakil Gubernur Sumsel H Eddy Yusuf mengharapkan, agar Kapolda yang baru dapat mengamankan pesta olahraga internasional di Palembang mendatang. Pesta olahraga tersebut harus berlangsung sukses, dan salah satunya di bidang keamanan, kata dia lagi.
Oleh karena itu, diharapkan Kapolda baru dapat menyukseskan SEA Games dengan melaksanakan pengamanan secara masksimal, ujar Eddy pula. Hingga kini berbagai arena pertandingan (venues) dan fasilitas pendukung untuk pelaksanaan SEA Games di Palembang terus dikebut penyelesaian pengerjaannya, untuk mengejar target agar benar-benar sesuai standar dan siap digunakan.
STMIK AMIKOM
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