Malaysia take on India at midnight tonight at the AHF Champions Trophy in Doha. It is a match that Malaysia has to win to stand any chance of making the final scheduled for Thursday.
The equation is simple, if Pakistan loses to Japan, Malaysia just needs a win to book a spot in the final. Should Pakistan defeat Japan, then it will be a question of goals, depending on the margin of victory for Pakistan, Malaysia needs to do better by two goals.
And if Japan and Pakistan draw, Malaysia will need a win. In the event of a Pakistan and Malaysia defeat, China sneaks through to the final, the same if Malaysia and Pakistan end up drawing their matches.
All of these complications could have been avoided had Malaysia beaten China in their match on Christmas Eve . But a 2-1 defeat has virtually put paid to our hopes of at least being in the top two in Asia.
If there is anything good so far, then it has to be the fact that players in the national team are displaying confidence, able to win matches comfortably, albeit the China match, and are playing as a unit, something long not seen in Malaysian Hockey.
But while this augurs well, lack of long term planning will severely affect the sport and even the national team are unsure of plans in January as no matches have been confirmed for the two months.
Back to the AHF Champions Trophy, they have been detractors claiming that I get news from correspondents, Facebook and other means from Doha. The bottom line is I get the news, fast and accurate, better then the so called official website.
And as for claiming that mega bucks is paid for a six week competition, go try running three websites, not blogs, where the server fee alone is almost RM4,000 a month, not counting the managing and domain yearly costs.
If its about money, then maybe they want to tell me how I run the blogs for free then? It's easy to talk behind the veil of anonymous, sadly not proud to use the name the parents gave them, but try doing half of what others do, then you will realize its not something that money can buy - and that my dear detractors is called passion, something you lack when you even hide your identity.
