Olympic Qualifier Football (soccer) Game

Having a sports journalist as a roomie provides the benefit that I am always alerted if there is an interesting game worth attending.  Although I am not an avid sports fan by any means, I do enjoy watching live events every so often, even if I don’t have a personal connection with any of the teams playing.  With the 2012 Olympics in London creeping closer, we were treated to the opportunity to watch an Olympic Qualifier football game between Malaysia and Japan at the Bukit Jalil National Stadium.  This stadium was built to host the 1998 Commonwealth Games along with nearby facilities for aquatics, tennis/badminton, cycling, etc.   The National Stadium can seat 87,411 which makes it the 25^th largest stadium in the world and the 9^th largest football stadium in the world.

I attended the event with my (other) Japanese roommate and her Iraqi boyfriend.  We decided to sit on the Japanese “side” to at least save our hearing.  Although there were not that many Japanese fans, she did say it was the most Japanese people she had ever seen in one place at one time while in Malaysia.  From my understanding, the Japanese population in Malaysia is only about 10,000-15,000.  It is great to have to opportunity to learn not only about the many main ethnic populations of Malaysia (Malay, Chinese, Indian), but also about the Japanese culture from my housemates.

Overall, the scene was much less crazy than I expected.  We took the lightrail to reach the stadium since we were afraid of getting stuck in a traffic jam and when we arrived we were greeted with many options to buy jerseys, noise makers, etc. to support Malaysia.  But since we were actually “cheering” for Japan, I waited until the end of the game to buy a token jersey J  Now I can at least wear it to the gym.  The stadium seemed less than ½ full, but when it seats 87,000 people, even less than half of that is a lot.   

The game was entertaining to watch, even though the end score was 4-0 with Japan for the win.  It was expected as the Japanese team is much stronger, but it was fun to see the Malaysian patriotism.