Devils Came To Town

Attended the 1st friendly match between Manchester United & Malaysian national team recently. Went thru massive traffic jam in Kesas highway before reaching the stadium. Reached the stadium bout 1 hour before the match to see crowd in red & only in red all over the places.

Went straight into the stadium in order to get good seat & the Malaysian team was warming up then. Apparently, this is the Malaysian Under 23 team in disguise with addition of 4 senior overaged players. Frankly speaking, everyone thought this is will be a walk in the park for the Devils. Deep inside, I just hope the young Tigers team can play their heart out, giving the Devils a good workout. Starting lineup looked impressive with almost all the Devils first team players in action. From Van der Sar till Rooney, they really looked imposing. By the 30th minute, Devils is 2-0 up with goals from Rooney (I thought it was offside!!!) & Nani. And then the unexpected magical moment came, out of nowhere Amri Yahya nodded down a goal kick from the keeper & send a 35 yarder half volley, crashing the ball into MU goal. Van der Sar, being off position was totally helpless & stunned. Boy, u should look at his face reaction on the screen....truly a world class goal & causing everyone jumping for joy. (that's showed we're still Malaysians anyway)

Second half saw the Malaysian team playing with more vigour. Ben Foster was probably still getting used to the field when he miscued a backpass allowing Amri again to take opportunity to equalise the score. 2-2, something unimaginable in real life. Towards the 84th minute, I seriously thought the score will remains till Michael Owen showed his predatory instinct to slot home the winner to give the Devils a close 3-2 win. Not a bad game for the Malaysians for this match even though they eventually lost the 2nd match to MU again 2 days later.

The players marching into the field

Devils on the corner. Paying more $$ could have got me better photos

One of the counter attack forays into MU's half
Owen & Macheda to the fore. Expect to see more of this pairing in future matches

Crowd in red...

August Round-Up

Been a while since last time updating the blog. One blink & August is no more and September is here now. Browsing thru all the happenings in the month & there's Beijing Olympics running for almost a month, the mother of all by-elections in Permatang Pauh, Penang; Jun Tai In Yokoshi training and Merdeka day.

Opening & closing ceremonies were out of the world, as they said. Sparkling performances from athletes from multiple sports awed the world & seems as if they originated from another planet. If Michael Phelps is a country, his 8-gold performance in swimming would have put him ninth in the medal standing. And our very own Lee Chong Wei left reeling from the one-sided badminton final match loss against Lin Dan, missing out on the gold medal & the RM1 million reward. And we will need to wait another 4 years for another hope & aspiration for the precious one. Kudos for him though for bringing back the silver. Usain Bolt, mark this name now for he shall be the next athletic superstar after the legendary Carl Lewis & Michael Johnson. Astonishing world record 9.69 sec in the century dash & it could be made lower, judging from Bolt's comment "It wasn't my best performance". And sexy pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayaeva's hobby could well be breaking world records. London 2012 organising committee members will now be under pressure to match Beijing's outstanding organisational displays. And I'll be eagerly waiting if Sir Alex Ferguson actually coaches the Great Britain football team in 4 years time in Wembley.

And of cos, there's the Jun Tai In Yokoshi training held successfully over 6 days in KL Dojo with then theme "Know Yourself". Special thanks to June & Hon for their efforts during this training and not to mention, Taicho & Vice Taichos'. Personally, it was a tiring journey, having to travel everyday to KL from my working place in airport. However, upon looking at the participants' bright faces, the tiredness just went off. It has been a pleasure getting to share knowledges & experiences with those peeps. There's 6 of them. Put it this way, it was a learning journey for both leaders & members. From the activities & upon observation, each of them has shown potentials to be of someone who can contribute to society and it makes me more motivated & eager to help them to unearth their potential & eventually, getting to know themselves. Apparently, one of the member popped a question "How can I make a difference to the society when the whole world is currently full of chaos & being materialistic?" As Al Gore said in his groundbreaking presentation "An Inconvenient Truth", it all starts from us, ourselves. Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King & Nelson Mandela started alone & held their beliefs despite of massive challenges & life threatening barriers. They moved & inspired people with their beliefs & actions, even if 2 of them are no longer around. It's about putting into actions what we think is right & no turning back after the first step. The only choice is to move forward.

Not talking about Merdeka (Independence Day) in August could be seen as doing injustice to the country. August 31 was the date & went to Curve the nite before for the countdown party. Honestly, the response of the nationwide celebration of the 51st Merdeka this year is rather lukewarm. No more Merdeka ads on TV, with the exception of Petronas. Hardly seen any cars flying at least the mini-national flag on road. Cant blame the people though, costs of living is increasing and we're seeing never-ending political circus going on in the local scene. And the frustrating part is no one seems to be bothering looking at the needs of the ordinary people, especially the middle class group (which forms the largest income group in the country). Who will have the mood to celebrate then? Anyway, we observed the fireworks & here posted a photo of it, which hopefully signify a spark in the local scene in the next 3 months before end of the year.

Chelsea is Here !!

Top EPL team, Chelsea (or rather Chelski) was here in KL last week as part of their Asian tour. And I was there to witness them played against the Malaysian national team in Shah Alam stadium, Selangor. Let me clarify here that this does not mean being a traitor for watching other team, besides your favourite team plays. People just dun understand & jumped the gun asking questions like "Ei !!! Ur an Arsenal fan, why the heck ur watching Chelsea game!!!??" Let me tell u ppl out there, my heart & soul is always for Arsenal but tell me how many times u can watch world class football stars live in actions here in our own backyard. It's the love of the "beautiful game" that pulled everyone making their presence to the game. Bet that most of the 60,000 fans present were not Chelsea fans though.

It has been a while since the last time stepped into a stadium. There, I went to Shah Alam on Tuesday evening together with my baby sis (just back from Canada) and 2 Tai's sidekicks Hikari & Tony. Ticket costs us RM83.00 each & settled into seats overlooking the entire field. Tip for newbies to a stadium on your first visit: Spend big on the tickets & u will never regret on the views ur bound to have..:) Chelsea came with their first team players, with the exeception of the injured Didier Drogba. Cech, Terry, Lampard, Essien, Ballack, Shevchenko, Anelka & many others...they are all there.

Match Preview:

Nothing to talk about actually. Even a six years old would have correctly predicted the outcome for the match. All the footie fans wanna see are the Chelsea players to show glimpses of their skills, some goals and of course the Malaysian players (who comprises of Under 23 players with mixture of experienced elders) to show them "Malaysia Boleh" spirit with fighting performance. Put it tis way, Chelsea is here for global marketing purposes besides warming up for coming season & Malaysia to accomodate the Blues with a match during their tour. Period

Match Highlights:

Chelsea players took some time to warm up & nearly shocked with a near miss by Malaysian player, Amirul Hadi in the 2nd minute. After that, it was Chelsea all the way, gaining possession for almost entire duration of the match. Deco, particularly was impressive & nearly scored with a subline volley, only to be denied by an acrobatic save by Malaysian keeper, Helmi Eliza. Expect to hear more from him in the coming EPL footie season. Goals from Nicolas "Le Sulk" Anelka & Ashley Cole wrapped up the game for the Blues. The fantastic show by Malaysian keeper, with some superb saves kept the scoreline down & respectable for the national team.

Match Review:
Despite showing some silky skills, Chelsea players clearly were not playing at their best. Probably the horrendous pitch condition caused the Blues to hold back to avoid injuries. Even at half pace, Malaysian players were simply no match to their world class counterparts, exposing the huge gap between the standard of both teams. Nevertheless, the fearless performance shown by the Malaysian players was to be admired. The defenders & goalie could proudly said they had a decent match. At least Scolari said it was a good warm up match, with the locals giving his players a tough time. All the locals need are more match exposures to gain better match temperament & improve on their understanding.

Expect more EPL teams to hop over here in near future. Never mind they're here for the $$$, but what the heck? EPL is now the most popular & commercialised football league in the world, thanks to supports rendered from people at this part of the world. The teams ought to be here in South East Asia at least to show their appreciations to the fans.

Teams before the start

The fans in droves

Now that he got the ball, he's wondering where to go next...

Michael Essien making his run from his own area

Baby sis & me

Ronaldo Leaves United

Stumbled upon these videos in Youtube, referring to the recent speculation of Ronaldo joining Real Madrid. Freaking funny if ur a footie fan, no offence to the Manchester United fans though...enjoy !!!

Futsal Fever

Went to tis futsal tournament, KL World 5's Futsal held in Statium Negara last Sun. As stated in its website http://www.klworld5s.com/ , the total prize money is USD 150,000.00 !!! And that xplain why the top teams such as Brazil, Argentina, Holland etc travelled round to globe to play here.

Ray & I were bracing ourselves for the dream final between defending champion, Argentina & Brazil. Arrived earlier & managed to watch the Bowl Final between Iran & Holland. In the end, Iran edged Holland 2-1. Crowd was fabulous with traditional blue-white attires on one side & green-yellow coloured attires on the other side. My my my...surprised to see that we actually have sizeable South American community residing here in M'sia. Some of them are hot chicks too...We're sat in the middle not knowing where our hearts are...too bad M'sia not playing in the final. Not that the M'sian team suxx. In fact, they managed to thrash England 6-2 (a scoreline u wouldn't see in the 11-a side version) The rest of the teams were simply too experienced & good.

Match finally started with both teams playing cautiously & occasionally showed some sublime skills. End result: Argentina 0 Brazil 4 !!!!! Should this scoreline is stated in the 11-a side version, the Argentine coach would have been sacked & the whole team disbanded. We tried not to cry for the Argentinians while jiggling to the Brazillian Samba tunes. The Brazillians are simply too powerful & outclassed their traditonal rival. God probably created the Brazillians to play football...their nimble feets & silky skills are a delight to watch.

Thanks to the organiser ESPN, these world class actions can be seen live in our own backyard. Hope tis can continue in years to come....

Ole Ole Ole...Brazil