As I have stated a number of times on this blog, I am an avid football fan. Whether it's playing, watching, reading or talking about football, it's something I could literally spend a whole day on. People who know me know how true this is, and that I am not even slightly exaggerating.
Unlike my passion for football, something you may not have picked up on by simply reading this blog is that I am a patriot. I realize that there are people out there who don't quite agree with the concept of patriotism, and I do see where they're coming from. Some people might even say that my sense of patriotism was caused by endless nationalistic brainwashing during my schooling years, but I don't care. I think it's important to love your country and your fellow countrymen, regardless of what people think.
So it was with this combination of love for both my country and football that I went to the cinema with my siblings to watch Ola Bola, a film released exactly a month ago based on the story of the Malaysian national football team that qualified for the 1980 Olympics (which Malaysia and 66 other countries ended up boycotting in protest of Russia's invasion of Afghanistan). The movie had been given rave reviews by pretty much everyone, and was directed by the same guy who directed The Journey (second-highest-grossing Malaysian film of all time), so I had high expectations for the movie.
Even though I found the football sequences to be a bit unrealistic (poor defending and goalkeeping, among others - don't get me started on such technicalities), the movie was admittedly of a quality much higher than what Malaysian moviegoers have come to expect from local films in terms of both production and writing. It tugged on a few heartstrings, and manly tears were nearly shed at multiple points today.
The film's tagline was 'You Will Believe Again', and I suppose it aimed to inspire Malaysians to get behind the national team again, especially when it is now at its lowest ebb - we are currently ranked 171st in the world (our lowest ever ranking in history), recently got spanked by the likes of UAE (10-0) and Palestine (6-0) in World Cup qualifiers, and are generally just plain awful. It doesn't help that our supposedly best players appear to be pampered divas who think they've 'made it' and display no passion whatsoever whenever they take to the pitch.
I actually left the cinema in melancholic reflection, thinking how on Earth Malaysian football had managed to get itself into such a pitiful, pathetic state. In addition to that, some months ago I had read the wonderfully informative 'How Malaysia Never Reached The World Cup' by Lucius Maximus, and the frustrating stories of poor attitudes and administration made for depressing reading. It now seems to me that Malaysian football hasn't really changed much over the years. Maybe we haven't regressed; maybe it's just the rest of the world that's kicked on while we've remained stagnant.
It'll take far more than a movie to fix Malaysian football, as passion isn't the only thing you need to win football matches; the problems we have run much, much deeper than that. Nevertheless, believing in local football again would be a good start. Faiz Subri's ridiculous goal the other day (we've all seen it by now, right?) shows that there is, in fact, talent in this country. The nation's top football club, JDT, thrashed the champions of Myanmar 8-1 in the AFC Cup last week. It seems that once you've hit rock bottom, the only way to go is up.
As a kid, I dreamed of someday donning the national colors and bringing glory to this country. That ship has sailed, of course, but just because I'm not good enough to play for the national team, that doesn't mean I shouldn't support the players who are. If we're not going to get behind our own national team, then who will? If we can support foreign clubs who really only need foreign fans for the revenue they bring in, why can't we do the same for Malaysia?
I'll admit I've never really been the best Malaysian football fan; I've always been more interested in what's going on with Arsenal. I guess it's time I made a change.
No comments:
Post a Comment