It seems that this "top 6 list" news genre seems to be the trend for how news is presented and consumed lately. And it makes for good click-bait headlines too.
So I thought I’d give it a try. Here are my top 6 reasons as to why I think the Malaysian football team, Harimau Malaya, won’t make it into the World Cup anytime soon:
6. We’re only good at sports that are dominated by half a dozen countries.
The only two sports that Malaysia is really good at an international level are badminton and squash. Badminton is dominated by Malaysia, Indonesia and China. And even then, we lost to Japan in the finals of the 2014 Thomas Cup! Squash is dominated by slightly more than four countries, so it’s not so bad. But still…
As for sports that are truly international and played very competitively by almost every single country in the world like football, then Malaysia falls way down in the ranking. The same goes for tennis, golf, hockey, etc.
5. We lack decent football skills.
It doesn’t matter if football is considered the most popular sport in the country. Face the reality. Malaysians are just bad at playing football. We are bad as a team and we don’t have any individual skills either. The best individual export we had in the past five years has been to the Indonesian league. Not exactly the best league in the world, is it?
4. Tattoos are haram
How are our players expected to be good footballers without having any tattoos? All the best footballers in the world have prominently visible tattoos. Look at David Beckham, Christiano Ronaldo, Neymar Jr, Sergio Ramos, Fernando Torres, Nigel De Jong, Lukas Podolski, Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, Daniel Agger, Martin Skrtel… well, the list is endless. No Malaysians are on it, though.
3. Wearing a bikini is haram
No, I don’t mean for Malaysian players to wear bikinis! To be able to be good footballers, they actually need to have extremely hot girlfriends in skimpy bikinis with whom they can be pictured with on the beaches of Spain, Greece or France by the paparazzi. The most a Malaysian footballer has been caught with by the local gossip reporters is with very tame WeChat messages asking for a kiss from a girl. *yawn*
2. We don’t sacrifice academic education
If you listen to the stories of most of the world’s top players, you would hear how they wanted to play football from a very young age and they were willing to do anything to become a professional. They would have gone for football training camps and trials just to be admitted into a club’s junior training programme.
They forego schools just for that. And let’s not even mention university. And when they know it is a make it or bust situation, they make sure to make it. In Malaysia, we’re just not dedicated enough. Anyway, if you play football in the Malaysian league, you’ll probably be guaranteed a comfy clerical position with EPF benefits by the company that owns the team once your football career ends.
1. Ridhuan Tee Abdullah
Sorry, but I just had to put him down on the list. With all the racist remarks he makes and the hate speech that he peddles around, he must play a role in causing the lameness of Malaysian football. He alone spews so much negativity that the bad karma attracted can be enough to harm the entire nation. In fact, any Malaysian failure could probably be blamed on him. – June 20, 2014.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.
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