Football or soccer?

Honestly, I am a slightly improved "kaki bangku" after playing a lot of street soccer, futsal, and even beach soccer (not mentioning foosball, hah). One of my life long ambitions would be to see the Malaysian national football team winning the World Cup. Might be too ambitious, but still I'm not kidding. I started to love football since eleven years ago when my father bought me my first CD computer game. That game was RTWC: FIFA '98 which has the national team of Malaysia, as well as the M-League in it. I immediately fell in love with the game where almost half of my teenage life being spent playing it. Since then, my favourite football team is Harimau Malaya (or Harimau Malaysia, whichever you prefer). My football heroes would be Hashim Mustapha, and of course the legend, the late Mokhtar Dahari. Another football icon whom I really admire was a former England B coach, which his team used to have Mokhtar Dahari once played against, none other than the late Sir Bobby Robson. I also have the privilege to get to know a former national coach through a string of email communications. He is surprisingly humble and has very deep knowledge about local football. I feel sorry for Malaysia and not him as at this moment, he is actually the best there is for the national team.

FIFA: Road to World Cup 98 (FIFA '98)

From what I understand, the people of state affiliates is the cancer of Malaysian football. They will shoot down any new constitution that can fix the problem as the main problem is actually themselves. Even the best idea or proposal could not work if the existing constitution is still there. A major operation is needed to save what is left of our country's number one sport. Eventhough I am not the president of governing body of football, I always hope and imagine that every Malaysian will see football as a tool for unity. We give all the support to our respective state teams but can still adore the beautiful game of others in the spirit of sportsmanship. Yet, when the national team plays, each one of us will wear the same colour of yellow with black stripes (or the blue, white, and red away kit).

My dream manager and chief coach is the legendary Singaporean, Fandi Ahmad who once played in the M-League, with the help of few general coaches. The coaches are Mohd Azraai Khor Abdullah, K. Devan, and Dollah Salleh. Meanwhile, Mat Zan Md Aris will play an important role as the youth coach. Abdul Rashid Hassan is the goalkeeping coach. The ideal president is Raja Bola, Abdul Ghani Minhat. The dream line-up is the starting eleven of Khairul Fahmie Che Mat, Mahalli Jasuli, Asraruddin Putra Omar, Muslim Ahmad, Aidil Zafuan Abdul Radzak (as the captain), Amirulhadi Zainal, Khyril Muhymeen Zambri, Safiq Rahim, Amar Rohidan, Zaquan Adha Abdul Radzak, and Norshahrul Idlan Talaha. Other players in the squad are Farizal Marlias, Sharbinee Allawee Ramli, Syed Adney Syed Hussein, Sabre Mat Abu, Azmi Muslim, Nasriq Bahrom, Mohd Fadhli Shas, Faizal Muhammad, Daudsu Jamaluddin, Sumardi Hajalan, Bunyamin Umar, Chun Keng Hong, S. Subramaniam, S. Kunanlan, S. Chanturu, Shahurain Abu Samah, Yong Kuong Yong, Joseph Kallang Tie, Sylvester Sindeh, Azi Shahril Azmi, K. Gurusamy, Baddrol Bakhtiar, Ashaari Samsuddin, Farderin Kadir, Izzaq Faris Ramlan, Ahmad Shakir Ali, and Ahmad Fakri Saarani. The perfect situation would be they lift the World Cup trophy after beating the founder of modern football, England in the final. I suppose only then we can really know how it feels to be 'Merdeka' and understand the true meaning of it, just like Zinedine Zidane did in 1998 France World Cup after beating Brazil, the undisputed champion of association football.

Zinedine Zidane's France versus Brazil in 1998.

I hope we all can help to promote this sincere idea of getting Malaysia back where it belongs. I even tried to contact a high ranking official of football governing body but he seems not what I am hoping for. The voice of people should now be heard. Therefore, the proposal that I will share with you is actually a collection of best combined ideas from people who really care about our football. Firstly, let's we all agree that the main objective of developing our own brand of football is to give hope and happiness to all Malaysians. It does not matter whether we win or not. It is how we fight all the way to protect our nation's pride. Then, our focus would be the national team. Next, is the national league. Last but not least, is of course the national governing body of football in Malaysia.

The national team should also have the manager as the chief coach instead of having a manager who is not really a manager. The name of Liga-M (in English, M-League) should be heavily promoted and trademarked. Only state teams should be playing in the professional level, while club teams could play in the semi professional divisions, in order to develop an acceptable national standard as well as improving our international quality by phases. This initiative or effort is very important since the support for the state teams is almost incomparable. Thus, the teams of Angkatan Tentera Malaysia (ATM) and Polis DiRaja Malaysia (PDRM) should be renamed as Labuan and Putrajaya respectively to make it more appealing. We also need to bring some kind of attraction and exposure by inviting skillful foreigners, but it is limited only to international capped players. Many different national companies should also be more generous in sponsoring at least the local teams' shirts first, before we finally open it up for global corporations to present their huge financial sponsorships. Meanwhile, the schedule of league and cup matches should always be systematically arranged, according to most suitable times, so that we all can make our priorities right.

Lastly, Malaysian supporters and I will continue to do our part to help out, anyway in our capacity in order to see Malaysia one day is among the champions. "Malaysia Boleh..!!!"

~ Remember the time when Persekutuan Tanah Melayu as a country achieved its independence to be a sovereign nation on 31st August 1957 in a football stadium.. what does it mean? ~