When Lady Luck Decided To Take Side
It had been a nerve-wrecking ball game on the other part of the globe over in London, England when the Reds, the Anfield club Liverpool edged over Hull City with 3-1 win. The Reds kept up the pressure on the Devils, the Old Trafford club Manchester United at the top of the Premier League table. While here in Malaysia, almost at the same time last Saturday April 25th, 2009 at the National Stadium, Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur, we were dealing with reds of our own. Our reds, The Red Warriors of Kelantan and The Red Giants of Selangor, red & white and red & yellow respectively were facing one another in the mother of all football matches – in the Malaysian FA Cup final.
Pardon me for not displaying the picture of the football game (as I don't have any), only a ticket in my son Edrin’s hand, taken prior to the time my three kids and I left for the stadium, 50km away from home. My children left their mom behind whilst I left not only wife behind but my camera as well as I didn’t want it to intervene with my sole purpose to enjoy good ball game and to really feel the ambience and dynamics of the place, as much as I didn’t want to intervene with my wife’s sense of fun with my shouts and screams right into her ears during the height of the match.
The stadium was bursting at the seams with its full capacity of 90,000 spectators – perhaps yet another record of full-house for this state-of-the-art stadium. The sights and sounds were just magnificent. You have to be there to feel the gravity of it with spectacular sight of Kelantan supporters decked in red & white while the Selangor came in red & yellow, occupying half of the circle each on the packed 3-tier terraces of the stadium. And the very sounds of thundering roars of fans from both sides have made an excellent atmosphere that even stood up the least excitable geeks and morons.
The match went into extra-time as the score tied at nil-nil after the official 90-minute playtime was over. In the second minute of the extra-time, Kelantan opened scoring that sent the fans into frenzy, and I too shouted my lungs out, and was amazed seeing my girl Fara got excited just as much. Let alone my boys Sam and Edrin, I saw them jumped as high as the stadium. Again, you should have witnessed the way Kelantan fans rocked the stadium and observed the looks in the faces of Selangor fans – the most pathetic look I have ever seen in the so-called “Red and Yellow Giants”. Kelantan fans were celebrating thinking that it will be their day. However, their celebrative moods were short-lived when Selangor came strongly for the equalizer in the late hour to make the score tied at 1-1 and thus sent the match into penalty shoot-out.
Prior to the game, the “psychic” in me was telling that the score would be 4-1 or 4-2. But I refused to believe what rings in my head as I felt it was ridiculous for either team to garner big goal margin since on paper, both teams stands 50-50 chance of winning, with only minimal score. What more, I didn’t want to entertain the idea of Selangor was winning. Goodness, I never thought the score I was toying around with on my mind would actually be the results of the penalty shoot-out, instead.
The final results of the penalty shoot-out: Selangor 4, Kelantan 1
It was a tight game, not too pretty or spectacular, though, I personally think Kelantan played better but Selangor had the better luck.
Lady luck somehow smiled on Selangor side.
Pardon me for not displaying the picture of the football game (as I don't have any), only a ticket in my son Edrin’s hand, taken prior to the time my three kids and I left for the stadium, 50km away from home. My children left their mom behind whilst I left not only wife behind but my camera as well as I didn’t want it to intervene with my sole purpose to enjoy good ball game and to really feel the ambience and dynamics of the place, as much as I didn’t want to intervene with my wife’s sense of fun with my shouts and screams right into her ears during the height of the match.
The stadium was bursting at the seams with its full capacity of 90,000 spectators – perhaps yet another record of full-house for this state-of-the-art stadium. The sights and sounds were just magnificent. You have to be there to feel the gravity of it with spectacular sight of Kelantan supporters decked in red & white while the Selangor came in red & yellow, occupying half of the circle each on the packed 3-tier terraces of the stadium. And the very sounds of thundering roars of fans from both sides have made an excellent atmosphere that even stood up the least excitable geeks and morons.
The match went into extra-time as the score tied at nil-nil after the official 90-minute playtime was over. In the second minute of the extra-time, Kelantan opened scoring that sent the fans into frenzy, and I too shouted my lungs out, and was amazed seeing my girl Fara got excited just as much. Let alone my boys Sam and Edrin, I saw them jumped as high as the stadium. Again, you should have witnessed the way Kelantan fans rocked the stadium and observed the looks in the faces of Selangor fans – the most pathetic look I have ever seen in the so-called “Red and Yellow Giants”. Kelantan fans were celebrating thinking that it will be their day. However, their celebrative moods were short-lived when Selangor came strongly for the equalizer in the late hour to make the score tied at 1-1 and thus sent the match into penalty shoot-out.
Prior to the game, the “psychic” in me was telling that the score would be 4-1 or 4-2. But I refused to believe what rings in my head as I felt it was ridiculous for either team to garner big goal margin since on paper, both teams stands 50-50 chance of winning, with only minimal score. What more, I didn’t want to entertain the idea of Selangor was winning. Goodness, I never thought the score I was toying around with on my mind would actually be the results of the penalty shoot-out, instead.
The final results of the penalty shoot-out: Selangor 4, Kelantan 1
It was a tight game, not too pretty or spectacular, though, I personally think Kelantan played better but Selangor had the better luck.
Lady luck somehow smiled on Selangor side.
2 comments:
i knew the result when i read online newspaper... :P
bro,
selangor deserved to get it... hehehe... jgn mare... !
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