GOL?

by John Lim

“Fuck the sleep man, it’s once every four years!”

“Dunno. Get sum sleep lerr. Sounds like a better plan. Lol! =P. Think I will pass. Thx dude.”

And so, despite the rarity of the World Cup, despite how we can only pray that we’ll survive to see the next tournament, many of my once-rabid footy buddies pretty much said the same thing: They’d rather sleep in to wake up refreshed for a days’ work.

Pussies.

One of the tragedies of being in my 30s, and having no friends in the so-called creative industry that allows for flexi hours (read: waking up at noon and marching into the Xbox-equipped living room they call their office) is that we couldn’t be bothered anymore with a trifling match like South Africa vs Uruguay. The magic of the World Cup, blah-blah-blah, is a point that evaporates when weighing out the cost of seven hours of sleep. Makan bola, tidur bola is no longer applicable when you’ve got client meetings at 10am.

So where do all the lonely people go? They go to hotel bars – in my case, the only one open for the 2.30am match was Uncle Chilli’s at Hilton PJ. Those familiar with the joint know better than to wander in at such early hours; a point summarised when a friend responded: “Oh, yeah! Go MILF hunting! Sit by the bar and play with a lighter. The answer will come to you.”

MILFs weren’t my cuppa tea, but I did wish for some kind of Bill Murray-Scarlett Johansson happenstance ala Lost in Translation. This, after all, was the Hilton: surely the idea that there would be some attractive, lonely woman looking for introspective conversation while vuvuzelas blare in the background couldn’t be that far-fetched?

It soon dawned on me that swapping personal stories over gin and tonic, re-enacting glamourised “stranger in a bar” movie scenes isn’t very common here. Malaysians are generally a conservative lot – we don’t strike up random conversations while waiting in lines; lunchtime table-sharing in a packed kopitiam is stratified into us-versus-them formations that spells out: “Eat, and go.” In the absence of alcohol and football, apart from the occasional request to light a cigarette, we just keep to ourselves.

Combine the two, and shy local strangers are more than willing to talk their heads off. After a terse first half, a few beers, and passing remarks about how “he should’ve made that shot count” in classic stating-the-obvious punditry, the guy sitting next to me started talking about Roberto Baggio (“That was the moment I fell in love with Italy, man”), the issue of bookies and legalised gambling (“Exactly, it’s sure going to be laku“), and random bits about the clubbing scene in KL.

We were the last two in the bar – I shudder to think what I’d write about without his company – and ended up sharing our match verdicts, agreeing on how South Africa just didn’t have a game plan to unlock the Uruguayans, the justification of the penalty (“He looked for it la… just look… look at his feet falling! Basket!”) and how we both hoped the French would crash out later. Never mind that we didn’t know anyone in the South African team apart from Steven Pienaar and the fancy-named Tsabalala (first name forgotten) – it was surreal just to be talking with a stranger about other strangers, and then leave.

What a pity there wasn’t more of a crowd; I expected at least a few of the late-night clubbers (the club played music up till kick-off) to stay back for the match, but they couldn’t be bothered. Once the music was gone, so were they. No one, it seems, wanted to stay up with a couple of strangers yapping the night away.

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