Has the Tiger awaken

Malaysia ended their World Cup 2014 Asian Qualification adventure last night when Singapore held them to a 1-1 result. Singapore qualified to the next round by beating the Malaysian Tigers 6-4 on aggregate. Singapore won the 1st leg last week with a 5-3 score.

By now I'm sure the fans have read so many reports from the newspapers. Nothing much for me to talk about how the team fared last night. Overall I'm pleased on how both teams performed.

It has been years since a stadium was fully packed for a football match here in Malaysia. In 1990, we were badly hit with the bribery scandal and the National team was even disbanded. So bad that our football standard went very low and as the result of that we are currently at number 146 in the FIFA world ranking.

Not only that our ranking dropped, we even became a 'tamed' Tiger in the process. Our neighboring country like Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia will have no problem to 'whack' the boys in the yellow and black. We even had problems to beat other minnows like the Philippines, Myanmar and Vietnam. That's how bad our football has become. Long gone the glory days of 'Raja Bola', Abdul Ghani Minhat, the late 'Supermokh' ~ Mokhtar Dahari, the late Arumugam, Datuk Soh Chin Aun and many others. Even most of the Malaysian football fanatics missed the excitement during the "semi-pro" days.

Players like Azizol Abu Hanifah, Zainal Abidin Hassan, Dollah Salleh, Zami Ismail, Subadron Aziz, Shebby Singh plus the imports who made the 'semi-pro' more exciting, Fandi Ahmad, Malik Awab, K Kannan the trio from Singapore, Aung Naing, Kwi Lyin , duo from Myanmar, Jang Jung from Korea, Aussie Alan Davidson, Karel Stromsik the shot stopper who don the Selangor colors and many more.

Gosh I become amazed as how I can still remember their names. This is because the quality of football at that time was 'good'. It may not be Premier League class but it has that 'quality'.  After the 90s, the fans started to not noticed the local players anymore. From having imports in our local league we are relying 100% on our local boys. Still the quality of football that the fans demand was missing.

Not until 2009, 20 years after we won our last gold medal in the sea games, Datuk K Rajagopal and his boys came back as the Sea games champion. Even then the fans were still being sceptical  about the National team. Further more the boys won courtesy of an own goal from the Vietnamese player.

I was watching alone at a 'mamak restaurant' when Malaysia won that gold medal that day. I saw something different with these boys. They might not be technically gifted, but they definitely played with heart. Even the own goal from the Vietnamese players came because our boys didn't stop pressuring them. Anyways, that gold medal somehow made the fans to start noticing them.

Next came the Asian Games. This was a tricky one. Against the host China, we were down to 8 players because the referee sent 3 of our players including team captain Safiq Rahim.Still in this game I can see how the boys really wanted to 'play' football. They are not there just to fill up slots. I'm beginning to take notice on them.

The best moment was during last year AFF Cup which was hosted in Jakarta, Indonesia. The boys got a whipping from the host Nation, Indonesia 1-5 in the opening game. But they went on to become the champions with Safee Sali became the tournaments top scorer. Its not only they won it for the first time, but how they won it.

The boys had to go through so many obstacles. With 8 to 9 key players unavailable due to injuries, 1-5 drubbing in the opening game, hostile treatment from the fans that was not easy. But they just kept their nerves and focus throughout the tournament. It was these qualities that somehow struck in every hearts of other Malaysians.

School children, adults , people in 'kedai kopi', offices, everyone was talking about the National team. Everyone was talking about Harimau Malaya. The 'time' has finally arrived. The boys had made the Nation talking about football again.

It wasn't any different last night. The boys lost the 1st leg in Singapore 3-5. But still, 90,000 fans packed the National Stadium Bukit Jalil to give their support to the boys. We drew and ended our hopes of a World Cup appearance but no one complained. The fans even stayed until the referee blew his whistle the end the game. This showed that the fans are already respecting the players. Yes, definitely we want our boys to win. But in this type of competition someone had to lose. Apparently it was our Harimau Malaya.

With the commitment, the fighting spirit and playing with their heart that was shown by the players, result became secondary. All the people want to see is their commitment to the country. We just want to see that whoever is wearing the shirt with the National flag on their chest performs honestly.

I do hope the national players continue to work hard and continue to play with their hearts. Please show some pride when donning the national colors. Only then, we as fans will continue supporting with our hearts as well.

Go Harimau Malaya !!!