Bukit Jalil...

...Here we Come!

The title has been reserved for quite a long while for the mad redo1's trip to the National Stadium to watch his beloved Terengganu playing in a cup final. Unfortunately it has been 'so near, yet so far' cases with the Turtles over the last few seasons. The last time was way back in 2004 for the FA Cup final when Terengganu lost to Perak in extra-time.

Since then his hopes to support his local team there has been dashed every season.

This time he is not going to wait anymore and if everything goes according to plan he will be among thousands of fans at Bukit Jalil tomorrow night but this time he would not be supporting his heroes in white and black.

Instead mad redo1 will lend his voice to the cause of the Tigers who are facing the Indonesians in their quest for the 2010 AFF Suzuki Cup trophy. Instead of the usual white and black it will be yellow and black this time around despite Malaysia have opted to play in the blue strip.

It will be a magnificent turnaround if we manage to land our first regional trophy at senior level since the SEA Games triumph in 1989 come 29 December. Having lost 5-1 against the same opposition in the opening match at the intimidating Gelora Bung Karno Stadium we will start as the underdogs for tomorrow clash.

What Malaysians are expecting of the players donning the national colours tomorrow is to give their all to the cause that will definitely lift the spirits of the whole nation and give Malaysian football further boost in their attempt to climb up the FIFA World Ranking.

It is vital to keep a clean sheet again tomorrow as we did against Vietnam in the last four. It is much better that we eliminated the defending champions rather than facing the supposedly minnow Phillippines which the Indonesians could only score once in each of their semi-final encounter.

From his point of view, mad redo1 feels coach Rajagobal will deploy a counter-attacking strategy which worked well against the Indonesians when we managed to take the lead before defensive frailties unraveled all the good work. We definitely will not be seeing buses again in front of the goal as goals are needed to ensure a good chance when the team travel to Jakarta.

Hopefully our forwards will be at their sharpest to make the most of the opportunities that will come their way, which should be rare given the defensive record of the Indonesians during the tournament. At the same time every player must maintain their discipline in order to keep the Indonesians at bay.

It will be the first time mad redo1 taking a bus trip with fellow fans and it is his first time too supporting Malaysia at close quarters as all this while it has been supporting from afar, perhaps more due to distance rather than non-patriotic feeling because mad redo1 is as patriotic as any Malaysian out there.

COME ON TIGERS!


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