Pre-season football has always been an overrated bouts. The last time I was so excited about watching pre-season football was when Roman's era was in the brink of European domination. They brought Jose Mourinho to steer The Blues to a new era, and John Terry and Frank Lampard finally made known, at least in Malaysia.

Jose's inclusion also paved way for numbers of world class players that to my likings, should have signed for Liverpool. While money has always been the issue, Roman's ambition and European domination mega project did one hell of an enticing for the likes of Arjen Robben, Mateja Kezman, Tiago, Didier Drogba, Ricardo Carvalho, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Michael Essien to sign for them in 2005.

The next year proved to be another year of explosive summer spending when Jose splurged another rounds of Russian oil money to bring national captains; Andriy Shevchenko and Michael Ballack, together with a Girl Aloud's hubby, Ashley Cole to Stamford Bridge. Petr Cech was unearthed from nowhere to be serious contender to Gianluigi Buffon's golden glove, and with big names in every department, English football once had their Galacticos.

Like fellow Galacticos from Madrid, it has always been a joy to watch their pre-season games, especially when new players are set to make their debuts. There would be huge hype on how Chelsea would screw any teams standing in their way with new lines of armories. But their pre-season games sucked the biggest balls.

At least they do justice to the hype, and won two league titles consecutively. But Champions League? It was that humble Merseysider in red who clinched it in the year their favorite boy Michael Owen left for the Galacticos.

While it may be true that pre-season friendlies and tours is a good way to reach for worldwide fans, I think it is more a commercial exploit, a cheap way to make more money from naive fans who thought that the clubs will field the best players to take on their best local team.

I have been to every top four (Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal, except for Liverpool who spared the hassle of dealing with Malaysian government blinkered policy) pre-season Asian tours, and other than seeing how immature Malaysian fans are, I could see rubbish football to make up for some hundreds of ringgit I spent on a ticket.

And the clubs would argue that it is important to keep players' fitness at high-level, so to make an excuse for playing an unknown or unpopular players in a match where fans have to pay the same amount of price ticket in pound sterling, but in their own currency.

So why commercialize tours and friendlies when the real point of flying across the globe is actually to keep the fitness of your players high?

You got me right, it is again money who was doing all the talking.

And that son of a bitch is now roaring even louder this year, with Real Madrid look pretty to bring to light the new era of Galacticos and the blue Manchester seem confident of winning the league with ambition and money in tandem.

Real Madrid is a disease. It is a club with glorious history, I have to admit. Some of world's greatest players have plied their trade playing for Real Madrid. The fans love the club so much and they essentially deserve all the luxuries they are having right now.

But they buy legends, not breed legends.

That is why I don't really care when Kaka, Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, Xabi Alonso and Alvaro Arbeloa signed for them. Or maybe I am just jealous; upset with my team who could not dig up enough money and contacts to sign decent players.

Money can buy success, but not chemistry that I hope will kill those clubs with money.

Crazy transfers with massive price tags make pre-season hype even more interesting that 90 minutes of pre-season matches. Ibra to Barca with Eto'o going opposite ways, Adebayor and Kolo turned coat to be the Citizens, so as Carlos Tevez and Roque Santa Cruz, Aquilani set to be a replacement for Xabi and so much more, you can tell me. As I am writing, David Villa could be heading somewhere.

Robinho signed for Man City on transfer window's closing day, and I wouldn't be surprised if a switch of that magnitude happened again this year.

So that was this season's transfer madness, and isn't it plain to see that talking about transfer is more interesting than talking about matches? And when the season started, the hype will slowly die down as if it did not happen?

I don't know whether it is just me who thinks yeah, pre-season football is fucking overrated.

That is why I am writing this post, to celebrate the season opener, FA Community Shield, and to celebrate the first day of English football without Cristiano Ronaldo.

Have a nice day, football fans!

Did I just write about football again? Oh, okay.

P.S. I miss them. The best team in International Bacalaureate history. Ha ha. I hope they are doing fine, wherever they are.