Wednesday, March 26, 2008
A Matter of Perception
Nice....lazy to explain myself, don't have to, won't need to...(p.s. they think i'm malaysia soccer captain, totally not my fault)
Pb 1 vs. Pb 2 Results
Dun feel like elaborating much on the highlights of the so-called SLB "tournament". Every half-time I am the one being subbed out, so the both M'sia scholars tink they r so tzai. I've nvr seen them sub themselves out b4. Even Pb1's Jia Hao subbed himself out to give others a chance. This is wad I call a good captain to take care and command ur team. Sadly, our captain lacked all this qualities. Our captain missed a penalty, screwing up some far-range shots, and shooting waywards for a few times. We are always blazing our shots high and over the crossbar when we are in the penalty area already. Result: 0-3 to Pb 1. I've only got 11 words to sum it all up. "Pb2 (Us) deserved to lose as CSY was not playing as striker." =)
Sidekicks.
Pb 2 v Pb 1.
That's the fixture of the inter-board soccer semi-finals.
Ah, some of you may have known that I had a lack of playing time.
Yea of course I am utterly unhappy (who like to watch on the bench)
I have no grudges against our captain but I'd like to blast out some of my thoughts.
(just like Roy Keane.. lol)
Firstly, captain of Malaysia football team doesn't mean he damn tua.
Wth, I am puzzled by his substitutions la.
While we were playing against CMC 2 days ago,
I started out as striker. When CMC scored a goal, he immediately subbed me out for
no apparent reason. (????)
It's like I am not even at fault for the goal, and it was the keeper's fault.
And it's not like they keep on supplying me with passes and I scuffed all my shots.
Julian George always like to link up with Wei Chen (fellow Malaysian ma)
then I also can't do anything about it.
When we conceded, I was subbed out. I would be fine with it if Julian George's substitution proved that it was correct.
In the end, we shortly conceded a second goal partly due to the person(who subbed me)'s fault.
Kudos! (JG, are you leaving the field @ half-time cross-eyed?)
Second half, due to CMC's mistake by subbing out Yong Yuan (the 3-6 Wushu guy.. who plays 99% like Thai Yong), CMC didn't have the cutting edge in front of goal.
We equalised 2-2, due to some poor defending by CMC.
Maybe Julian George prefer people with tough physical presence on the field.
Or people with better aerial ability.
Maybe I could not provide both options up front but I am sure I am worth the first team place.
I am not even getting enough chance to prove myself.
I'd rather be in the Crystal Palace first team than being in Man U reserves.
Good Friday....in a way
I wanna share my experience of Good Friday. A mixture of joy, and at the end…du lan. No lessons on Good Friday…damn happy, so we decided to make it a horror movie marathon at Charlton’s place. The day before rented a few movies, with us finally choosing the 1973 Exorcist and a few other cds.
At Charlton’s, it was like heaven. Food was abundant, and damn, the entertainment was good. Oh, it rained by the way. It rains every Good Friday, or so I think. Charlton’s mum was a very very very gracious host, and I can’t stress that enough. Let me see…was it 4 pizzas? Or 5? Anyway we ate it all…absolutely devoured the whole thing. While eating, we watched the exorcist. It wasn’t a scary movie, and I didn’t know what the fuss was all about. According to them the whole cast of the movie died, but we later found that to be untrue. Only 2 of them died.
Ok, so the movie. It was slow, not scary, but creepy. Jit Hin as usual was watching the whole movie with his hands in front of his eyes. I couldn’t help but scare him after a few scenes. He would get his revenge. More of that later…. Anyway the creepiest scene was the part where the little girl who was possessed by the demon spider-walked (means walking with all fours on the ground, facing upwards) down the stairs. The other creepy scene was when she turned her head 180 degree to talk to the priest.
Bei Er didn’t seem to be scared at all, while Perret seemed more concerned with the messages he received. Nathan, Bei Er and Perret left just after we finished the exorcist, which was the same time Manfred reached.
By now we didn’t know what to do, so we watched Silent Hill. It’s an ok movie la, and Jit Hin did manage to get his revenge. Watching the small girl in the film turn around, he suddenly screamed into my faced ‘oh my god!!!’. My instant reaction was WTF, so I screamed…yeah, quite loud.
We didn’t finish watching the whole thing, so we went to the attic to play F.E.A.R (a stupid game with a girl ghost in it) and just hang about. Charlton and Jit Hin were damn afraid of walking up the steps alone, and Jit Hin even screamed when I…well I just boo-ed him. They were even afraid of going to the toilet together la….ok la maybe I was too, but that was because I was freaked out…by them.
We then played a few games of winning eleven, had dinner (satay, roti john, pizza again and soup) and watched Simpsons. Before we knew it, it was 11 pm already. 12 hours at Charlton’s place leh…and I was late for my curfew. Me, Manfred and Jit Hin went back together. Manfred started talking about how cracking our necks will lead to us breaking it, don’t know if it’s true. Jit Hin wasn’t pleased about it.
Jit Hin: walao, can don’t talk about neck or not? Now make me think of the movie again
Manfred: its just the neck la, and it’s a fact
Me: its not even scary la…neck turn oni ma……
So this was our conversation during our journey, till Jit Hin managed to convince us to change it into something more pleasant, like school. After leaving Manfred at the bus stop, it was just me and Jit Hin. Luckily the MRT service wasn’t over, and I had Jit Hin to thank for catching probably the last train at that time. I got back to the hostel around 1 am, curfew supposed to be 11 pm. So I walked towards the hostel till I saw the guard. I immediately crept under the blocks placed on the roads for construction purposes and dialed Perret to save me. So down he came, but then I thought the guard had left. I climbed over the gates, sneaked in and walked.
Voice: hey you, wait!
Ok, not good. Guard noticed, guard chasing. So I ran to the lift, it opened, it closed. Whew, safe…..or so I thought. The door of the lift opened and the stoner guard was there.
Guard: you Julian George right?
Me: ah
Guard: you sneaked out and in just now
Me: yeah
Guard: why?
Me: I was hungry, so I went out to buy food
Guard: I’m going to have to tell the boarding master what you did
Me: har? But I just bought food oni wor…
Guard: so? You still sneaked out? You students ar….buy food so late at night
Me: can don’t tell or not?
Guard: no, you go back to your room
Me: har? ok….
It wasn’t good to lie la, but then if I didn’t I would have been in deeper shit. Anyway no confinement, just that I missed the Man U-Liverpool game the next night. Damn it…..luckily Man U won, 3-0. Haha….screw you
Friday, February 29, 2008
Du Lan
Back, finally. Nope, not football this time, but Man United are on hot form at the moment. I just want to vent my anger, frustration or whatever you call it. Was doing recess duty as usual (which also means slacking as usual). We were standing at the side talking about Wei Chen’s fake injury and how he was making such a fuss about it. Just then I saw a sec 3 guy carrying food out of the canteen and was gonna run for it. Bringing a packet of junk food or two is ok la, but this fag was hauling two hands full of junk food and trying to make a run for it at the same time. I mean come on la, a lil too obvious right? At least try hiding it in your pockets or stuff it up your ass, I don’t give a damn. But carrying a load full of junk food out in broad day light is clearly testing our patience. So, I made a dash towards him. I got there just in time to make a grab at his collar and tug him back. He was almost flung towards the floor, his buttons and name tag flew everywhere (I had no choice but to hold him back, cause if not he’d been off) .I helped him pick up some of his buttons and led him back to the canteen. I was already quite pissed with this piece of shit (his name shall remain anonymous), but Brian Cheng was a real fool. He fixed his buttons while I stood there waiting for him to finish his business before taking his name down. A bunch of chimpanzees (presumably the scum’s friends) were laughing and teasing him, mocking him for his failure to get pass the ‘slacking’ prefects. A few of the goons were standing behind B.C, and well, one of em directed a rascist remark towards me. Ok, I’m used to this kind of shit, yet it does hurt, a lot. Through gritted teeth, I just took B.C’s name tag took down his name and held his name tag out to him. I then accidentally (maybe not) dropped his name tag. I left and joked with E Yang about the whole incident. I decided that I would add B.C’s name in the Book. Offences include bringing food out of the canteen, running away from a prefect and insulting a prefect. I was tempted to add in injuring a prefect as I hurt my fingers while getting hold of his collar, then again maybe not. I’m actually a good prefect, in a sense that I can close an eye and pretend nothing happened. Some people might call us slackers la, but screw it la. Anyway my point is if even a slack prefect like me catches somebody for committing an offence, that fella must either be a gone case, or he has shit for brains. In this case, I’ll pick the latter.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
One plus One Not Necessarily Adds Up ToTwo

How cruel can the game of football be?
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Do the names Alan Hutton, Scott Brown or Barry Ferguson ring a bell? These players may not be as famous or well known as their Italian counterparts, but they were by far the better players of the night.
It was all square and it looked like
However, thing do not always work out as it seems. A defensive player, Chiellini was thrown into the fray by the Italians, who took off the more attack minded Camorenasi. It was a clear signal of intent by the Italians to play their so called defensive football. As the
nd without any attempt to play the ball. Amazingly, Manuel Fernandez, the Spanish ref managed to see thing the other way and award the free kick in Italy’s favor.
A teary eyed Alex McLeish came onto the field to congratulate his heroes after their unbelievable and brave performance. It was truly an undeserved result for the Scottish. They now have to bear another missed opportunity, but it was not their fault, it was the officials who obviously left their glasses at home. The game of football does not appear as simple as it is. The better team does not always win, and defeat will not appear in a crueler form than this…By the way, Israel beat Russia, which means England now have a chance to qualify, not that it matters anyway.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Heart Wrenching

The only difference in United’s starting line up from their previous game was Evra and Giggs back in the side for O’Shea and Nani respectively. The inclusion of Giggs, in Steve McMahon’s words was because he’s been there, done it, got the shirt and still wearing it. In my words, he’s more experienced. The game was predicted to be a classic match up between the two, and no wonder. United started the game on the back foot, and Arsenal were…sigh, I hate to say it, very good. Right from the start, I could tell that it was not going to be United’s night, I just had that feeling. Arsenal were more composed, trying to break down the United defense, while United were unable to get a stronghold on the game. In previous years, United-Arsenal games are highlighted by the battles of the snarling Roy Keane and the ferocious Patrick Vieira. With Keane now managing Premiership side Sunderland and Vieira at Inter Milan, most would think that the intensity of the game would drop. Wrong. Although the hatred between the two clubs have turned into mutual respect for one another, the clash of the future stars Anderson
and Fabregas not surprisingly showed glimpses of the old days of Keane and Vieira.Hargreaves had a pretty good match, especially in the first half where United stifled Arsenal’s attacking threat quite steadily with Hargreaves in particular nullifying most of the threat posed by the Arsenal attacking front. United had Hargreaves and Anderson running the engine room in the middle of the park, allowing the front four of Rooney, Ron, Tevez and Giggs to roam upfront, finding cracks in the Arsenal back four. The first half was a cagey affair, and it was pretty boring, seriously. However I was shaking in anticipation, waiting for something to happen. That something finally happened on the stroke of half time when Rooney stole in the front post to put Ron’s cross into the net via a deflection by Gallas. Arsene Wenger was fuming as he protested about the body check given by Brown before laying the ball to Ron who in turn supplied Rooney to give the finishing touch.
United leading at half time, and I couldn’t be happier. BUT as they say, football is a complicating game. Right after the restart Arsenal got back into the game through Fabregas. Van Der Sar made a very good safe from Adebayor, but Sagna kept the ball alive with a last ditch cross which found Fabregas in front of the goal. He took his time, and then stroked the ball past the United defenders. The game had finally opened up, and it was breathtaking. Both teams used up all of their substitutes, but I’ll get to that later. Fergie put O’Shea on for Brown in the middle of the 2nd half (I really believe that Brown is not the right man to be playing at full back, he just doesn’t have the accuracy and pace). This was really edge of the seat stuff, and my heart felt like bursting out of
my chest. Every time Arsenal got the ball, they looked like they might score, and the space now is so much more compared to the first half as both sides were playing attacking football. It was from one end of the field to another, and was impossible to choose a winner.At this moment, I was just happy for a draw. It was the Emirates stadium, and Arsenal are on a roll at the moment, a draw would be a very satisfactory result indeed. Then, Fergie made a master stroke and subbed Tevez by bringing on Saha. Not many would put their money on the French striker after his many injuries, and certainly no one would want to break the promising Rooney-Tevez partnership which has rewarded United with so many goals. However football is unpredictable, and as soon as he came onto the field, Saha held the ball, fed a delightful through ball to the on coming Evra who picked out Ron with a cutback. Ron just had to put the ball into an empty net. Obviously being a Man United fan (in case you haven’t noticed) I jumped up and down in the living room. There was just 8 minutes on the clock plus injury time. I punched the air, knocked my glass over and just went wild.
Arsenal were not going to give up their unbeaten run at home that easily without a fight, and gave their all in clawing back an equalizer. I couldn’t bear to watch the ending, it was nail biting stuff and I couldn’t keep up with the pressure. Waves of attack were aimed at the United goal, and every time Arsenal would have a shot at goal, I would breath a sigh of relief, only to be clutching my pillow later on in wait for the final whistle. The presence of my aunt and mum behind me giv
ing their opinion of the outcome certainly did not help my cause. My heart was in my mouth, and I, like the Arsenal supporters were praying, only for different reasons. Evidently, they prayed harder…sigh. The 90 minutes were already up, and we were in the 2nd minute of added time. I’m finding it hard to put this into words…I just feel so disappointed. Arsenal had 1 final attack, shot after shot. United’s brave defense held their line and blocked every single shot (I gave little yelp every time they shot). Suddenly, the stadium erupted; the ref was waving the players back to the center of the field. Certainly not, he had just awarded Arsenal the goal. Looking at the replays, it was clear that the ball had crossed the line after Gallas hit it, but it was clawed out by Van Der Sar in mid air. Rules are rules, it was goal, but my heart was shattered into pieces.It may not be the best result, but it’s satisfying. We managed to draw Arsenal at the Emirates, and at a time when they are flying. I guess it’s not that bad after all, eh? I caught a glimpse of a poster hung by a few United fans stating the importance of Man United. It read ‘United, Kids, Wife…Importance in that order’. It was a nice and amusing sign of loyalty to United, but then family is definitely more important than anything else in the world, yes, even more important than football…
Just hope that football doesn't do this to me....
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Goals Galore...again

The only word I can think of right now is ‘wow’. United 4 Boro 1, 4 goals per game in 4 consecutive games. Quoting from a reliable source, this feat has equaled the record of the Bill Meredith days a century ago. I and Ah Law went to Suntech to watch the game, and it was not a restaurant or anything, just a TV outside the karaoke bar, so we had to stand and watch the game. As the game ended pretty late, we sat on the floor like small kids watching Barney or some cartoon, some people laughed at the sight of us sitting there and staring at the TV.
Back to the game, it started off very brightly for Man United. Nani got the ball from the half way line and took on the defenders himself. Cutting in from the left flank, he unleashed an unstoppable shot which flew over Schwarzer and into the net. The celebration was fitting with him doing the ‘death leap’. The time on the clock read 3 minutes, and it looked like Uni
ted were going to cruise to another victory when United broke with Tevez. Unfortunately he only managed to find the goalkeeper’s arms with his chip. That miss proved costly when Aliadiere headed the ball from Tuncay’s cross into Van Der Sar’s goal. It has to be said that United were very sloppy in this game, judging by the number of times they gave the ball away. However it’s the result that matters, and at times their one touch play were simply breathtaking; it really was out of this world. Hargreaves was back in the reckoning again and boy was he good. Breaking up the play and feeding his teammates the ball all day, he had an almost perfect game, with the exception of some misjudged passes. Ron had a rather subdued game and was quiet throughout the match, but United were still very dangerous on the attack.With the score at 1-1, Boro threatened to score with Downing narrowly heading the ball wide of Van Der Sar’s goal. Unluckily for Downing, it was his error that led to United taking the lead. Dwelling with the ball in his ow
n penalty area, he allowed Nani to poke the ball to Rooney to smash home the 2nd goal past Schwarzer. Ron managed to miss 2 golden chances to score before halftime to put United further in front. Just 29 seconds after the restart, United nearly scored a 3rd with Rooney and Tevez combining well but the move ended with Rooney firing over the bar. Boro themselves had a chance to equalize when Cattermole let fly a stinging shot which tipped by Van Der Sar for a corner kick. Both United fullbacks weren’t having a good game as they were often distracted and sloppy. However United finally managed to get their goal after some nice work from Anderson, Tevez and Rooney. Anderson’s lifted pass to Tevez was flicked to the path of the incoming Rooney in the penalty area. With a defender by his side, Rooney incredibly back heeled the ball back to Tevez who coolly slid the ball past the diving Schwarzer. I really can’t understand why people would find it hard to believe that these two strikers can actually work well as partners upfront. It’s probably the best partnership of strikers the club has had for years.3-1 up and looking comfortable. There was no stopping United this time. They were n
ow sniffing for a fourth, and were doing everything to get that 4th goal. Keep on banging and the door will open, this proved to be the case when United broke with Ron and the moved ended with Tevez scoring his second of the game albeit a deflection off the arm of a Boro defender. The ball looped over and bounced into the net with Schwarzer dumbfounded. It was disappointing that United didn’t get their 5th, but it was a very good result. From scoring 1-0 wins, they’re now scoring 4 goals in all their games. Let me show you their goal scoring pattern: 4-0 versus Wigan (1st 4 goals); 4-1 versus Villa (2nd 4 goals); 4-2 versus Kiev (3rd 4 goals) and last but not least 4-1 versus Boro (4th 4 goals). Looks like Man United will be winning 4-0 at the Emirates Stadium against Arsenal next week if my prediction is correct, and I certainly hope it is. I also want to congratulate Chelsea over their thumping 6-0 against the uglier half of Manchester (in your face City fans).Obviously the matched ended rather late, after our curfew, and the place was practically empty. It was quite spooky walking in an empty shopping mall with dim lights. By the time we got back to the hostel, it was already 12.20, an hour pass out curfew. I thought I could get away with it by not signing in. Walking back to the boys block, the guard shouted my name out; I guess I’m licked now. Anyway if anything does happen (maybe a confinement perhaps?) it’ll be worth it, Man United did win….
Saturday, October 27, 2007
A Tiring Day
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The last day of school, Mediacorp celebrities (all gals, no guys) in my despo school, report card day…in other words it was a crazy day with picture taking with the celebs and teachers who may not be teaching us next year. We will also be having our O level Chinese this coming wednesday, sad huh? Thinking I’m straying off from football in this post?
Think again. Just wanted to start off by giving you an idea about how life here goes about. The Office Manager (OM) of our hostel had wanted us to take part in this competition with another hostel, Anglo Chinese SchoolInstitution (ACSI) or something like that. We thought we were going to play captain’s ball till the last minute, but were then told that we were going to play street soccer, so we weren’t mentally prepared but we really didn’t care. It was just another game which was supposed to be fun.
We had to walk to the place and got lost instead, but luckily we managed to get there fashionably late as always. For the first time ever, I would rather have been sleeping on my comfortable bed than playing football. We were already exhausted by the time we got there, but we got on with the stupid match. The ref was our OM who wanted to prove he was not bias towards us by favoring the opposition, or in my friend’s words, he just didn’t know how to ref a game, and to think he was ref for street soccer, basketball and captain’s ball. Anyway we got the game underway and I got to say that they dominated, but we were resilient. T
hey even had a coach and tactics, quite amusing considering that our team was playing together for the first time. I expected myself to be rusty after not touching a football since the last term; I was proven wrong, I was worse than first expected. The space available was so little (imagine 14 guys playing street soccer on a basketball court) and the goal was a table not much bigger than the ball.We conceded a penalty and they practically passed the ball into the goal as the ref said that no keeper was needed for the penalty. Losing by a score of 1-0 at half time, the ref decided to make it a 5 v 5 match instead. We swapped places quite often and I started the 2nd half at the back. Defending the goal, I slid a player and twisted my ankle in the process, that’s the fourth time this year on the same ankle, bad luck maybe? They wer
e technically superior, but we played a more attacking game and were a constant threat to them. Then, 1 of their players was shielding the ball from me, so I body checked him and he fell. It was quite peculiar as he was a junior college guy who was much stronger built than me, it was quite impossible for me to exert that much force to hit him down. I tracked back and apologized to him, but he just got up and started pushing me in the chest asking me what that was. I reacted before I could think and shoved him back; luckily we didn’t come to blows as some guys pulled us apart. A guy from ASCI told me to chill, but it wasn’t my fault was it? I know I lost my head there and shouldn’t have reacted as I did, but it was an instinctive reaction, given the fact that I was apologizing to him at that time. The idiot then pretended to make peace with me by walking up and offered his hand for me to shake. I did just that, but the blood in my veins was already boiling. This is not a first, the incident I mean. I previously had 2 bust ups with other players, but nothing serious. I just don’t understand why people would want to pull us apart when we just argue about something. Yes, it was probably for prevention, but most of the time it’s unnecessary.
This may not make my case against the ACSI idiot, and yes it was partly my fault for reacting the way I did, but if you had seen the look on his face when he got up and walked towards me to start a shoving contest and then pretending that he was the good guy who was actually the victim, you would be disgusted. I really sucked during the match, but in the last minute, I had a chance to equalize. I threaded the ball towards the ‘goal’ after some good work by my team mates, and as the ball was nearing the table, I raised my hand, preparing to celebrate. Lady luck was not on my side; the defender managed to get a foot to the ball right at the death and hooked it away. My hand which was raised was place over my face, covering it in disbelief. The game ended with us losing 1-0, but all was not lost as our basketball team and captain’s ball team thrashed ASCI, totally annihilated them.
I treat people the same way they treat me, but reacting in such a way as I did was unacceptable. Keeping a cool head in a heated situation is never easy, but I guess I’ll just have to learn. A perfect example of a person losing his nerve just below, seen it before? Of course you have, it’s the most famous head but
t in the world.Enjoy..... 
Zidane sending a message to Materazzi...what happened to the old fashioned letters?