Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Lembah Klang Derby
I saw the most beautiful girl I've seen in years. She was eating at Williams near Kelana Jaya LRT station yesterday. I am not going to reveal any of her likeness in my imagination, but what I can tell is, no I am not going to tell you anything.


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Selangor hosted cross-city rival Kuala Lumpur in their second Super League match at Stadium Shah Alam. Last outing in Seremban was a successful yet a nervous one for the Red Giants and looking at how lucky they were, they need to remodel their gameplay against Kuala Lumpur if they wanted to be a serious title contender this season.


A friend tried to pick a bone and questioned my place of birth with the team I support, especially in the run to last night's match.


I was born and raised up in Kuala Lumpur, and if anything has to go by the place you grew up, I might have to root for Kuala Lumpur football team. But I grew up supporting Selangor, and started giving my soul and watching Selangor's matches when I was 8, so the love was a natural thing.


My friend is a Malaysian of course, born in Johor and grew up in Kuala Lumpur. He took a safe way and decided not to support any Malaysian team. But he lost the bet when I figured out that he is an Arsenal fan although I tried to be positive that he might have actually born in London but the family migrated back to Malaysia just before he could learn some English.


I was particularly disappointed with Safiq Rahim after his recent poor performances, primarily in Malaysia-Syria friendly international, and looking at the credential he garnered last year when playing with KL-PLUS, I felt he needed more than a reason not to emulate the fantastic one year stint he had.


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Federal Highway is a bitch on weekday evenings, as citizens commute from agora back to home. I had to pick four friends up and if I've known how bad the traffic could get, I'd go out earlier.


As a result, I missed few minutes of the first half and did not get to witness the goal KL scored. I was still driving when a friend texted the goal - which he described as a tactical, set-piece blunder.


It was like something was chasing me from behind. Something very big and ferocious and for some reason the colour was black with long hair and red eyes. I picked up the speed and made it just before Safee Sali equalised.


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I was shocked to see Amri Yahyah playing as a pairing striker again with Safee Sali, but I guess when you are playing a team like Kuala Lumpur, you can be a little bit flexible. Liew Kit Kong was again upsetting, and substitute Amirul Hadi Zainal made me lose a bet I made with my friend.


Not playing his best game, Amirul Hadi lost it and he needs to bounce back more than he did on the training ground to regain his statue in the first eleven. I don't call him Malaysia's Yossi Benayoun for nothing.


But every Selangor fan was a winner when Safiq Rahim rose to the occasion and produced brilliance from the centre half to create chances after chances, and one of it met Amri Yahyah at one end, and the captain brilliantly chipped the ball to take Selangor on the lead.


Selangor played simple football all the match around, and skeptics from previous match against Negri Sembilan were shove off to the margins. Superior possession is a key for any football match and last night, Selangor stood taller in that area.


Selangor have to benefit from on-fire R. Surendran in the next matches, with the striker again showed his finishing wizardry with two both brilliant goals in the second half. It was certainly a joy to watch how Selangor incorporated the home game advantage with composed possession, and churning opportunities at will and turning most of them into goals.


I guess this season will be yet another season of silverware for Selangor.


But of course, they have to look for that team from the north.


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I have written in a post on how special the year 1996 was for me as a young Selangor fan, and if I had a time machine, I would take myself to that moment I went to see Selangor played Sabah in the final.


But since time traveling has remained an unsolved problems in physics for centuries now, I settled for the DVD of the game someone recorded. Deja vu and I stayed up late watching it and was even trying to look up for myself in the crowd.


It cost me RM10 to get the DVD, and the same feeling Azman Adnan and Mehmet Durakovic gave to me when they had the ball on their feet was priceless.


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And it turned out the girl I eyed was not alone. She was with a guy. A guy who wears Armani and drives a Golf GTi, and most importantly, the guy who never checked his wallet before ordering.


Maybe that's the price I have to pay for being a 'Mat Stadium', gua boleh tengok je! Ha ha.

 
posted by Izham Ismail at 11:34 pm | Permalink |


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