AFTER CHONG WEI, WHERE IS MALAYSIAN BADMINTON HEADING?

It has been a damn long time since I ignored my blog since work is taking up too much of my life.

Anyway, want to talk about badminton, our national team, and if you look at the SEA Games squad, the sad truth is no one is good enough to hold a candle to Lee Chong Wei's reign. I seriously don't know what is going to happen to newly crowned World Junior champion Zulfadli Zulkifli since he is KLRC-bred and those BAM fellas, I hope won't get jealous and say cause you are not in the national set-up, bugger off and train on your own.

Since Zulfadli is a champion, its time BAM discard this attitude of 'if you are with us, we are with you and if you are not with us, then go f... off' cause he is after all a Malaysia and he needs all the help he can get.

You look at out singles players and it looks damn sad. No one after Chong Wei are capable of challenging for honours - Liew Darren, my friend Arif Latif seems to have reached a plateau and the team of coaches has to drastically do some amendments and possibly, an overhaul.

Koo Kien Kiet and Tan Boon Heong, I guess Rexy Mainaky must be laughing since he is possibly having the last laugh after they changed coaches. Why they wanted a change is their choice but results have become worse for them and while they thought they were the man at one time, they forgot, everyone have caught up or overtaken them. It doesn't help we no capable second pair or even second singles like back in the days we had Rashid Sidek and Foo Kok Keong and Razif-Jalani Sidek and Cheah Soon Kit and Soo Beng Kiang.

Oh well, in a way lucky we have KLRC in the mix as BAM now has someone to look over their shoulder

Where Do We Go From Here, Malaysia?

The euphoria and the excitement of the national football team's success at the recent AFF Cup continues unabated. Accolades and bouquets seems to be never ending from fans, media and glory hunters...yes, glory hunters.

Let me admit it, I never was a fan of the national team because of the sub-par performance they always dish out when it matters most. Of course, credit must be always given when it's due and to this, I would like to wish syabas and great perfomance guys (meaning the coaching staff and the players, of course!)

However, is this bunch of glory hunters that sickens my gut and body. Suddenly, you see the local media, other desk sections (the sports desk guys has been through thick and thin with the national team, so they are excluded from this) running stories of the national team. I mean, where were all of you when the chips were down? Many of them were the first to condemn when the team was not doing well but here they are suddenly national team cheerleaders and the number 1 fan.

Of course it is obvious everyone wants to be close to a winner but it just shows how fickle we Malaysians are. When there is a success, everybody wants their photo taken and also be associated. When there is failure, no one wants to own up. Hence when the national team returned from Jakarta, they were many hanger-ons who wanted to be near them, my humble advice to the team's management is to tell them to stay away. Remember, if you fail the next three tournaments at least, people would again condemn you and will stay away from you like a plague.

After the win,what now? It's high time for the players to leave their comfort zone and ply their trade overseas. Despite what Tengku Mahkota of Pahang, our FAM Vice President said recently on our players to only move to leagues such as Korea and Japan, I feel moving to even Indonesia will change their outlook and make them more mature in their game. Even Indonesian teams play in the AFC Champions League while our local team are still playing in the lower ranked AFC Cup and are struggling against teams from the like of Maldives.

We can forget about Korea and Japan as food, language and culture shock would be too much for our players. Maybe they should be looking at Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as possible transfer destinations as the food and religion are similar to here, only they need to learn the Arabic language.