AFC U20 Women Football Tournament

After completing the German class, headed back to my office to solve the interrupt problem. I am currently doing the board to board communication via cPCI backplane. After crashing my Linux host for several time, I found out that I forgot to mask out the IRQ generated from the 2nd board. Done!

Next, it’s time for the football match. This time, the venue was KLFA stadium in Cheras. Heavy rain started around 4.30 p.m. It’s hard to find the way towards the stadium. Managed to reach the stadium 5 minutes before the kickoff time. These were actually U20 women football matches. The first match was South Korea against India and the second match was between North Korea and Japan. South Korea is the former champion. At the end, South Korea thrashed India 11 nil. You wouldn’t believe that whenever the Korean player shot outside the penalty box, it was a goal. India is too weak to be in the competition. No pace, no stamina, no skill and …… North Korea put up a much respective performance against the Japan and lost 3 nil. Japan seems to have improved tremendously in the tactical area. At least, they knew how to apply the time wasting technique. The coach made three substitutions at the last 10 minutes. One player came on during the injury time when Japan had comfortably leading 3 nil. I think that the North Koreans are not too behind in terms of physical and stamina. But they lacked the exposure and I just wonder whether the peoples there have the opportunities to watch the football match.

Actually, there is no publicity for this tournament at all. So you can see in the picture that the players play in a almost empty stadium. Same old strory again. Even the World hockey tournament in Bukit Jalil two years ago, the stadium was half empty for the final match. Luckily, the South Korea and Japan participate in this tournament and are able to attract their “hard core” supporters.

Malaysia enters this tournament as the host nation. Our coach said that, “If I said to you that our team can beat China. I am telling lie. Just imagine, our team plays only for one month, like festive season, and eleven months doing nothing”. So, what do you expect from them? Bottom of the table without any goal, same with France in 2002 World Cup…..

Empty stadium just before the kickoff time

South Korea's Cheerleader

South Korea's Decoration

Small group of South Korean supporter

Japanese kids waiting for the kickoff

Japanese kid waving the flag

Japan's Decoration