Diners at the Original Kayu Nasi Kandar restaurant in SS2 Petaling Jaya watching the first match of Fifa World Cup between Qatar and Ecuador. — IZZRAFIQ ALIAS/The Star
PETALING JAYA: Malaysia is football crazy just like many other countries around the world, and excitement among local fans is at fever pitch with the clock ticking ever closer to the World Cup final.
In celebration of the world's biggest football tournament, the following is an analysis of each of the four semi-finalist's chances at lifting the trophy and an overview of what Malaysians have been following since the World Cup started.
To get things started, do take part in our poll, where you get to pick the two teams you think will be in the final match.
A closer look at the semi-finalists
Argentina, Croatia, France and Morocco have made it to the final four after progressing in the round of 16 and through the quarter-final:
Here’s how each team stacks up:
The matches Malaysians followed most closely
Data from Google Trends, which tracks the popularity of search terms on Google, shows several peaks for Malaysians looking up the term “World Cup”.
Here’s where Malaysia stands globally - in terms of World Cup Google searches, lah:
With the World Cup starting one day after the 15th General Election, Google Trends data also shows how the two compares in terms of search term popularity among Malaysians:
