GOL?

The Naked Truth

by Hari Azizan

A no-brainer really – Argentina comes into the 2010 World Cup as the bookie’s favourite, so they should have this in the bag. And they did. This is a team with Lionel Messi, arguably the world’s best player at the moment. And it is coached by one of the world’s best ever players, Diego Maradona. The result should be predictable, yes? And the match, an exciting one, right?  It was only a question of how much of a romp it would be.

But you wouldn’t have guessed it from the ambience at this place we picked to watch the M&M show in Jaya One, purportedly the most happening place in Petaling Jaya.  You know what they say about Malaysians’ lack of semangat at concerts and other sports events? They must have been talking about the crowd here. The place, Brussels Beer Cafe is packed but, my god, I’ve never been anywhere deader during a football match. Is it the place? Brussels “Beer” – that’s like a flare signal for the Jabatan Agama people. There might as well have been a giant neon signboard out front: “We sell beer, come and catch the Malays here. This is a BEER cafe.”

Is the crowd here too scared of a religious raid to let, then? No wonder some were staring at me like they were doing some brain control thing to make me leave – “Go, you Muslim, don’t spoil our party.” (Ok, I am a bit paranoid)

During last month’s Thomas Cup match between Indonesia and Malaysia, RELA and the Immigration enforcement officers apparently went to the mamaks to round up illegal Indonesian migrant workers who were watching the badminton game. Then they had the nerve to say that the operation was a success because they had managed to predict how the Indonesian migrants thought. So god knows what strategic plans the Jabatan Agama might be brewing this World Cup season. After Kartika, you just can’t be too careful.

Maybe the crowd here is worrying about what happens later, when they are chow-ing after the game? You know, next time, just make sure you leave your umbrella home if you are scared that the police might mistake it for a parang and start shooting. My mate reckons it’s a Cina thing – they were all busy sms-ing their bookies to make any noise. Thank god Vincent Tan has not gotten his sports betting licence yet; if not no one would even be out.

Or is it just maybe because we Malaysians really don’t know how to party? We know we don’t know how to party political, but with all the state controls, have we also lost our shindig mojo?  Come on, y’all, Diego Maradona has promised to run naked through the centre of Buenos Aires if Argentina win the World Cup. Look at him doing the funky chicken dance on the sidelines there! No?

Sigh, I wonder the idea of which coach running naked would get this crowd wild. Not Nigeria’s coach, Lars Lagerback, that’s for sure. Crazy Frenchie Raymond Domanech? O non non? Italian supremo Marcello Lippi or his compatriot Fabio Capello; OK, maybe Capello would be too busy keeping his former England captain’s clothes on.

I know, Germany’s Joachim Low. Now, he’s yummy. And the DAP white shirt uniform he and previous Germany coach Jurgen Klinsman have going is kinda kinky. Nein? How about Dunga for some naked samba? Ok, it’s the World Cup, let’s have some token Asians (Sorry Africa, no African coaches other than Algeria’s Rabah Saadane). It’s a toss between Japan’s Takeshi Okada, South Korea’s Huh Jung-moo and North Korea’s Kim Jong Hun.

My god, people, Messi just missed there – still no reactionnnnnn.

The good thing about the naked coach thing is that we never need to worry about it becoming yet another global bandwagon that Malaysia will mindlessly jump on. You see, our football team have 1/1000000000000000000 chance of ever winning anything so we will never get the opportunity to get our national team’s head coach K. Rajagopal to run around in the buff. At the rate our national football team is going, we get a better chance at seeing the Myanmar national coach bolting around Yangon in his birthday suit.
The only sport that we are good at is still badminton.

But really, as the Thomas Cup showed, we only have Lee Chong Wei. That means, our best bet for a naked bottom in a victory parade around KL would be Chong Wei’s coach, Misbun Sidek. And maybe his spiritual coach, the BAM patron. Sapa tu? ….. R. O. S. M. A. H
Excited yet?

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