Asian Cup 2007

For those who knows me long enough, I am a Manchester United fan since I was in primary school. I was very excited when the Red Devils announced that Malaysia is one of the Asian countries that are included in their Asia Tour for a football friendly match. The last time they were in Malaysia was way back to year 2001, when the likes of Beckham, Veron, Roy Keane, Barthez and Nistelrooy. I was enjoying myself seeing our national team being embarrassed around at the Bukit Jalil National Stadium. The score was Manchester United 6-0 Poor Malaysia.

The Red Devils are scheduled to play the national team on July 27th but the AFC felt that United's presence would divert attention away from the Asian Cup so it was cancelled off. I was quite disappointed and voiced out my frustration to The Star newspaper on 10th May 2007. Guess what? My frustrated comments were chosen and published in the newspaper. Visit this link.

In my comments, I said,"Even if United are not coming to Malaysia, I don’t think I would be interested in watching the Asian Cup. Come on, this is ridiculous."

Well, I going to eat my words now. Yum yum yum yum. I will tell you why I changed my mind later.

The Asian Cup 2007 tournament is finally here and it started few weeks back. This tournament is only participated by Asian countries and these countries have to play qualifying matches in order to play in the finals, it's just like how the World Cup and European tournament works.

This Asian Cup is organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and you can check out the website for more information on the qualifying rounds etc.

Weird enough, this tournament is co-hosted by 4 countries (Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and of course, Malaysia).

Wait a moment, you must know one important fact. The last time Malaysia played in the Asia Cup was donkey years ago. They can't even qualify for the tournament in recent years. The reason why Malaysia is in the tournament this time around is because they are one of the hosts.

When the tournament started, I followed only Australia, Japan, Korea and Malaysia's results. Being the weakest team in the tournament, the national team were branded as the whipping boys. At this moment, they were thrashed by China 5-1 and the coach's reason was wrong tactics etc.

2nd match was against Uzbekistan. They were outplayed by the Uzbekistanians 5-0. Coach said that, their opponents were more physically well built and admitted that Malaysia do not have the quality to compete in the Asian Cup Finals. After the second match, Malaysia is the first team to be eliminated from the tournament and also the first co-hosts to bow out shamefully.

Now, I decided that I will go to Bukit Jalil National Stadium on Wednesday to watch the match between Malaysia vs Iran. You might think that I am wasting money but hell no... I am going there to watch the number of goals being scored by the Iranians and the number of goals being conceded by the Malaysians.

Who likes to watch a football matches with scores like 0-0, 1-0, 2-0 and 1-1? For me, RM 10 being the cheapest ticket can at least entertain me with a satisfying scorelines like 3-0 or 4-0 and above.

Yes, I sound nasty but I am also hoping that the national team can put up a fight since it's their last game in the tournament. Even if they lose 0-1, I will be happy for them but sad because of the number of "live" goals I can watch.

Anyway, anyone up to the challenge and tag along with me to the stadium? Let's make friends with the Iranians. Wear Yellow to support Malaysia, wear white to support Iran and wear red to support MANCHESTER UNITED.

I will wear red.