Saturday 26 June 2010

We are the champions* - Queen

So South Korea made it! Well done!!! Hope they will do well tonight. But do you know there was a point of time when our national team could beat South Korea?

When we talk about our national football team, the word 'champion' is hardly ever used. But there used to be days when we weren't too bad - yes our 'glory days'. It was in the 70s.


It's interesting how Maxis, a local mobile phone service provider, had decided to use players from those days to star in their TV commercials lately. Perhaps they could be targeting people of my age-group - or perhaps more likely, it is because of the World Cup this year. They wanted to use the football theme - and only that team from those days are worth talking about!


I'll never forget the final match to decide who qualifies for the Moscow Olympics - it was us against South Korea (look how far they have progressed today). I still remember it was Bakri Ibni who scored our first goal. But the Koreans equalised.
Time was running out - less than 5 minutes - when the ball suddenly broke free to my all time favourite Malaysia football player, Hassan Sani! He took the ball from around the middle of the park, danced past 2 Korean players - and just when i thought he was going all the back, he pulled back and centered it unselfishly to James Wong - who made no mistake and put the ball into the back of the net.

We were the Champions for that qualifying group. We could have gone on to the Olympics - but the government decided to boycott the games. No one really knew wat could have happened if we played there.


I remembered as a young kid, i cut out all the newspaper reports about Hassan Sani and James Wong, in particular, from that game itself. I drew pictures of Bakri Ibni's goal and Hassan Sani's brilliant run.
Yes, those were the days for M'sian football. I'm so glad that Maxis chose that very James Wong's goal as the basis of one of their commercial. It gives me goosebumps just watching it again.

You can watch it too. Here it is:-



*What can be said of this song? Overplayed but yet still loved! Brilliant stuffs!

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