The trip to the capital to watch Arsenal this year has the same theme as the one I made last year. Just like last July, there were uncertainties regarding our players, skipper Cesc Fabregas and playmaker, Samir Nasri.
Both of them eventually left.
While Fabregas departure was tolerable it was the Frenchman's departure that left a bitter taste to the mouth. Though Nasri justified his leaving as to win titles when the cash rich Manchester City won the Premier League, many Gooners felt it was more to fatten his wallet rather than for honours.
This time it was the future of our skipper, Robin van Persie and Theo Walcott. Both of them will be in the final year of their contracts. While the Dutchman already stated that he won't be extending his, the Englishman remains tightlipped over his future.
Together with the announcement of the touring party by manager, Arsene Wenger bereft of many big names such as Lukas Podolski, Per Mertesacker and Oliver Giroud the feeling was quite bland but the chance of seeing The Gunners in action 'live' once again finally pushed me to make the journey on the day of the match itself.
Arriving at 4pm in Kuala Lumpur, I decided to go straight to Bukit Jalil to avoid the rush hour traffic. Upon arrival at the LRT station there were some celebration going on with the Deputy Sports Minister in attendance. He turned out to be an Arsenal fan himself.
The official Arsenal fan club in Malaysia, the AFCSM opened a booth for the duration of the Arsenal visit to Malaysia and I managed to renew my acquantance with a few of the guys. This including a guy who stated he has quit playing football just because he already played on the turf of The Arsenal Stadium in Ashburton.
It made no sense to me, it was like stopping having sex after a night with the woman of your dreams that you will only meet for that one night in your life. But that was his point of view and I will respect that (by not asking him to play football anymore, but then again I never ask him to play football before, so why bother).
The crowd had begun trickling to the stadium compound where quite a number stalls had been opened up selling imitation of Arsenal new jerseys, which cost between RM30-RM70 depending on the quality of the imitation.
Apart from the jerseys there were other merchandises such as muffler, key chains, hats and other stuffs which will cost a bomb if they were to be bought from Arsenal.com themselves. Of course for me it is the sense of satisfaction that I usually buy the oroginal version.
Eventually I made my way to the media entrance to hook up with 'Deto', my cohort in Dunia Sukan Online. With a few other fellow photographers we had iftar at the car-park, a new experience in itself for mad redo1.
We took our time as the match would only start at 9.45pm before making our way to the media tribune. It was at a new section which was built during the renovation to replace the old one which was located on the lower tier.
The general view was the turnout won't be as many as last year with many were thinking there would only be around just 25k at the 90k capacity National Stadium. But as the kick off time approached the seats began to be filled with many donning the red and white strips of the Gunners.
Andre Santos is feeling gay with the 'gays'
My estimation it was around 40-45 thousands spectators who attended the match, the majority would have left feeling very satisfied with the display on the pitch by the two sides.
Unlike last year when the Malaysian XI was completely outplayed, this time the Malayan Tigers showed their stripes and even managed to take a shock lead during stoppage time at the end of the first half when Azmi Muslim's shot flew past Vito Mannone, becoming the first Malaysian to score against The Gunners since Allahyarham Mokhtar Dahari's brace in 1975.
Personally, I would have preferred to see Wos Szczesny or Lukasz Fabianski between the sticks tonight but it was not to be as the Italian played the whole match. The former was clearly seen annoyed at not being able to play.
King Raja's men managed to hold on to the lead and were five minutes away from recording a surprise victory when German teenager, Thomas Einsfeld stole into the box unmarked to slot the ball past the impressive Farizal Marlias in the Malaysian goal.
Farizal whose performance earned the praise from Wenger was clearly frustrated at not being able to keep a clean sheet. He was to be further disappointed a few minutes later when a cruel deflection off his defender saw Chuk Aneke scoring the winner for the visitors.
Chuks Aneke and Arsenal first goalscorer, Thomas Einsfeld
watch the former's deflected shot going into
the net for The Gunners winner
As a Malaysian Gooner, the result was very much welcomed with a win for Arsenal but a strong performance by the Malaysian XI filled me with much pride at the same time.
Now as I made my way back to kT, the feeling was all good. Whether Arsenal will come to Malaysia again next year is remain to be seen but one thing for sure is I will be looking forward to it if they do.
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