9.12.11

Italian Job for Manchester Duo?

As we all know, the City of Manchester Duo: Manchester City and United are out of the Champions League and England are left with Arsenal and Chelsea to carry their pride. We can feel the pain of it especially in England with English press exaggerate the misery of English football in Europe this year and also in Malaysia where most football fans here can't name more than 10 players playing outside England.

However, you may wonder why such miserable feeling exist? I mean they still have 2 teams to carry their pride. Spain, Germany and France, they all have 2 teams in the knockout stage as well (Real and Barca for Spain, Leverkusen and bayern for Germany, Lyon and Marseille for France). Only Italy have more team in the knockout stage than England (3 teams). So it perfectly ok to say England are on par with teams from other prestigious leagues in Europe

Nahhh. For English football fans, they are better than everyone in Europe and should have more representatives than any league in the knockout stage of the highest level European football tournament. Such pride and ego started in the 1970' with clubs such as Liverpool, Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa that dominated European Cup in 7 of 8 seasons from 1976/77 to 1983/84 season. After that, Heysel incident stopped English football momentum and they did not recover until 1998/99 with the amazing win of United over Bayern. During that period, Italian football were king of Europe and world. From 1988/89 to 1997/98 (10 seasons), Italian club only missed 1 European Cup final (1990/91). All the world's biggest football stars were playing at Serie A and it was deemed the "mini world cup"

The success of Italian clubs in Europe and fierce competition of Serie A killed Italian football (in my opinion). Serie A clubs did not take European competition seriously and often sent their second team to play in Europe while their best were reserved for domestic competition. Clubs such as Milan, Inter, Juve, Fiorentina, Roma, Parma and Lazio made Serie A the absolute best of Europe and the world. As a result, after the 1997/98 season ended, their performance sunk. Their ignorance toward European competition coped with their ego to become bigger caused them to financially failed. Domestic competition alone couldn't generate enough revenue to offset their huge wage expenses needed to attract the best football players. By the time they realized this, it was too late.

Similar case may be developed in the case of England. Before this, lets face it, English Premier League were not competitive. ( I am sure most English football fans are either very mad now or straight away leave the page lol but let me explain.) English Premier League had less league winner in the past 15 seasons than any prestigious league in Europe including La Liga, Serie A, League 1 and Bundesliga. Only 3 clubs managed to snatch the EPL trophy in the past 15 seasons.  Even Spain with the dominance of Barca and Real produced 4 league champions during the period.

The relatively less competitive domestic league enabled English clubs to focus all their firepower towards European competition and as a result, they managed to play some of the best football in Europe for the last 10 seasons. However, even with such conditions, they still didn't manage to dominate Europe. (1 more time EPL fans will probably be very angry). Yes, I know, English clubs had good performance in the knockout stage of Champions' League but they did not dominate the UCL finals like Italy did 10 years prior. In the last 10 seasons, they managed to be featured in 6 finals (less than 9 for Italian clubs) and of that 6 finals (although 2007/08 they had 2 clubs in the final: Chelsea and Man United, it is counted as 1 as it was in the same year), they only managed to win it twice. Clubs from Spain (4 wins) and Italy (3 wins) are more successful than English clubs.

So here we are, 2011/12 season, the strong rise of Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur make the English Premier League more competitive than ever (in my opinion still not as competitive as Italian Serie A in the 1990's) and immediately we can see the effect. Top 2 teams are out of European top football competition and had to play in Europa League. It shouldn't surprise us as even with ideal conditions for the last 10 seasons (less competitive domestic league, financially successful, 100% focus in European competition, right mentality, fans support etc.), the English clubs couldn't dominate Europe. It's no surprise why their play so mediocre in Europe this season. Unless Chelsea or Arsenal sacrifice their domestic competition, I don't think Chelsea and Arsenal can go very far. (well Arsenal may do so since they are 12 points behind Man City).

Only 2 clubs in the world can dominate a competitive domestic competition and Europe: Barcelona and Real Madrid. Many football fans claimed that Spanish La Liga isn't competitive. Well when you have Barcelona and Real Madrid in the same league, any league will have similar scenario. Put these 2 teams in English Premier League and you will have Barca and Real dominate EPL as well. Fact is Spain are more competitive than EPL. Look at where are Villareal this season (4th last season, currently at 15). How bout Levante (14th last season, currently at 4th). That's the sign of competitive football: all teams have equal opportunity of finishing in any position (with the exception of Barca and Real of course as they are by far the 2 best clubs in the world).

So will English football follow the footstep of Italian football 10-15 years ago and left behind in European competition caused by fierce competition in domestic league? only time will tell. In the mean time, it's time to wake up for all English fans and media. Put aside your ego and pride. Watch other football leagues and discover their beauty. You are not a true football fans if you know nothing about football club competition except for English Premier League. To prove my point, here's a question for all the English football fans: Manchester City were eliminated by Bayern and Napoli and both of them are big clubs in their country. Can you name 5 players currently from Bayern and Napoli? If you can't? What? Football Fans? LOL

8.12.11

Ministry of Tourism Malaysia (Kementerian Pelancongan Malaysia)

Currently terribly busy with my work and study. Wrote so much articles (all at half way) but do not have time to finish them. Anyway I have a great story to share with all of you as I think it's a joke to our beloved nation, Malaysia.

Was dealing with my eductional matter at Malaysia Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE), Putrajaya and found out that Ministry of Tourism of Malaysia is just beside MOHE so went there for some tourism brochures and materials for my next holiday.

Went to the main entrance of the Ministry of Tourism, asked the security guard for direction, greeted by a surprised looking guard that direct me to the customer services counter directly in front of the main entrance.

So went to the counter and greeted by few Malays that speak very poor English. Asked for tourism maps and brochures. Again these receptionists showed surprised expression and did not answer anything at first. Then after few minutes of clarification in Bahasa Melayu, finally they understood and told me to go to first storey. However before I could go, I had to get a visitor pass by putting my driving license there (what if someone doesn't have one?).

Went to first storey and found out that it was the wrong floor. There was nothing there except for few counters dealing with licensing matters.

Went down again to the main entrence counter and re-asked those receptionists and they told me to go to second story this time.

So went to second storey. Came out of the lift and there were 2 doors: the one on the right (door A, I think) was locked and the one on the left was wide opened. Seriously, take a guess: which door is the correct one?

Wrong! The door on the left was the entrance to the library of Tourism Ministry. Went to the librarian. Again greeted with surprised expression. Asked by the librarian to scan my visitor pass on a scanning machine on the side of the locked door (door A).

Once scanned, the door unlocked and there was another person there, responsible for all the tourism brochures and maps. So took some and went out of this miserable place.

So let's make everything clear: to get tourism brochures and maps at Ministry of Tourism of Malaysia, I need to walk into the building, hand over my driving license (wonder what happen if I don't have 1), deal with few receptionists who don't know much, go to the second floor of the building, scan my visitor pass on a machine next to a locked door with no instruction at all from those receptionists, then finally ask for them at a counter. I wouldn't call it user friendly.

How bout just put those brochures and maps beside the main entrance? Why make it so difficult for tourists to get tourism informations at the Ministry of Tourism? Does it make sense that people will go to Ministry of Tourism of a nation to get some tourism information? Or are they intend to purposely create a fun maze for tourists to enjoy?

Nevertheless, do you all (Malaysian) have similar story? if so, why not share......