From George Das

My flight home from Chiang Mai stirred memories of Malaysia’s football glory days in the 1970s.

Seated beside me was a Korean American on his first visit to Malaysia. When I told him to enjoy Penang’s famous street food, he looked pleasantly surprised.

“You seem to know quite a bit,” he said. “Where are you from?”

“Malaysia,” I replied.

His expression shifted from curiosity to recognition.

“Malaysia was formidable in the ’70s” he said. “What happened to your football?”

Pastor Wallace Huan, who migrated to the US in 1979, still follows Korean football closely.

As he rattled out names like M Chandran, Shaharuddin Abdullah, N Thanabalan, Soh Chin Ann, Wong Choon Wah and Mokhtar Dahari, I was transported back to that proud era – when Malaysia could take on Korea and Japan, and earned a place at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.

“That was our golden decade,” I told him. “Today, we’re nowhere near that level.”

Then came his next remark, soft but piercing: “Malaysia was also economically stronger than Korea then.”

Two blows – football and economy – landed one after another. I steered the conversation back to sports, my old beat from those days.

“Your athletes today,” he continued, “are talented, but they lack the mental strength and discipline we instil from childhood. In Korea, Japan and China, mental attitude and discipline are taught from primary school.”

On that score, I couldn’t disagree.

His words echoed long after our conversation faded. As I gazed out of the cabin window, clouds drifting beneath us, memories of overflowing stadiums and roaring crowds returned.

Those were the days when Malaysia shone in football, badminton, bowling, and hockey – when our athletes carried the nation’s pride across the world.

That mid-air conversation revived my memories of Malaysia’s ’70s football glory, which I was a part of. It only reminded me how far we’ve drifted from those golden years.

Today, the arenas are quieter and the glory seems distant.

And my mind was clouded by a dream of Malaysian football scaling those victorious heights again.

Will this moment of glory ever happen or will it be just me “DREAMING”!

In the past 40 years, George Das has been a sportswriter with The Star, New Straits Times, and Sports Mirror, a Fifa media officer, and sports consultant with FAM, and the Asean Football Federation.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.