Confession : I hate World Cup season! The traffic is bad especially during off-work time. The dinner outlets that we frequently go to are suddenly full. And there seemed to be more careless drivers on the road, probably lack of sleep. And everywhere you go, they would ask you the same question – “did you see the match?”. I hate to say No, but I have yet to see even one match.

But my eyes have been wide open throughout this World Cup season in Malaysia!

The world cup scenario in Malaysia is probably not the same as many other countries. Malaysian are unique in their very own ways. We are multi-racial. We speak many languages. We have our own interests. But now I believe that football is a language of its own. And I believe now that football is not just a samba kick – this season, what I saw was a display of colours, unity and family values!

I am not talking about the colourful jerseys on sale everywhere…

Football fans of all skin colours, all religions, all languages and all educational qualifications come together and cheer for the matches. They don’t mind being seated closely to each other at the more-crowded-than-usual mamak places. They may speak different languages but during those magical moment of excitement when a goal was conceded, the ah pek patted Encik Ali’s shoulder and said “Yes!!”. Mr.Siva grabbed Ahmad’s hand and said “you see, i told you he would score!”. And they would all conclude the match by ordering the same drink – teh tarik!

That was just one of the many colours that I saw this season ..

My 17-yr-old brother who always think of himself as “cool’ hardly ever have much in common to chat about with my 60-yr-old dad. I remembered when my dad asked me to tag along for a breakfast with two of them. He told me that sometimes the two of them just had breakfast without saying even a word. Our teenagers nowadays can chat online with their friends for hours, but can’t find any word to say to their parents.

Once again, the cup of life came to the rescue..

This weekend was the first time I saw my teenager brother and my dad have so much to talk about! They stayed up late together to catch the match, and they couldn’t stop just commenting and criticising the players. And the next morning at breakfast they both couldn’t wait to tell the rest of us who missed the match about the excitement and the result of the match. “You won’t believe that Brazil and England are out!”, dad said, and my brother added “yeah, and last night dad was so confident that Brazil will win the World Cup this year”..Dad added, “yeah…what can i say…”…and from there I could see the happiness in my dad’s eyes..he probably didn’t care much about who would go into the finals, but he have finally found his son back to his arms..and I could feel the tear in my eyes too..

Now let’s hope that the Cup of Life will continue to bring life to our society and families. If you have visited countries where their football fans watch the matches only with their own kinds, their own skin colors and religions, you probably will see now how colourful this World Cup season has been.

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Added by localview on 13th July 2006:

This article was published as the RM50 winner in the ‘blog of the day’ section in The Star newspaper on 11th July 2006 (Page N32). Can’t say that I was happy for the RM50, but I am definitely glad to know probably millions of newspaper readers read my post! It’s a good motivation for me to keep writing!
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