Harimau Malaya striker Romel Oswaldo Morales Ramirez celebrating his goal against Lebanon in the final of the Merdeka Tournament on Sept 8, 2024. For the columnist, Malaysia's win was overshadowed by a dubious moment during the match that was not redressed. — Bernama
Euphoria was certainly in the air on Sept 8, 2024, when the Malaysian football team won the Merdeka Cup for the first time in 11 years. I, however, wasn’t feeling unalloyed joy. Sadly, the manner of their victory over Lebanon left me feeling deeply disappointed.
To be clear, there was nothing wrong with team Harimau Malaya’s performance on the night. Although the team only scored a single goal, there was plenty of enterprising attacking play, with several missed chances that could have made the win more comfortable.
Unfortunately, the quality of play was overshadowed by what I can only call a moment of questionable sportsmanship.
In the 77th minute, as Malaysia was gallantly defending a 1-0 lead, there was a counter attack. Malaysian striker Darren Lok was fouled, but managed to get his pass off in time. Akhyar Rashid received the ball, but then stopped to signal that Lok was injured, appearing as though he would put the ball out of play so medical attention could be given. Naturally, the Lebanese players paused, expecting the game to be halted. However, just when everyone thought the ball would be kicked out, Akhyar instead carried on playing. A Lebanese defender hurried back but made a clumsy tackle, resulting in a foul and a second yellow card, and was sent off.
Lebanese coach Miodrag Radulovic was visibly incensed, leaving his technical area to protest to both the fourth official and Pau Marti Vicente, Malaysia’s coach, only to be sent back to his bench. But with a man down and being a goal behind, Lebanon had little chance of recovery.
After the game, Lebanon team captain Mohamad Haidar made no bones about how he felt: “We played with fair play from the start, yet when we stopped for an injury, why didn’t the referee stop the game?” he was quoted as saying in a New Straits Times report.
For me, this was a key moment for Vicente, Malaysia’s acting head coach, to show leadership and set the tone for the kind of team he wants Malaysia to be. Unfortunately, he chose to do nothing.
You might argue that the referee’s decision is the final word. But there have been examples in the past where coaches have taken it upon themselves to right such wrongs.
In 2019, Marcelo Bielsa, manager of English football club Leeds United, ordered his team to allow the opposition to score after Leeds had taken advantage of an injury to an opposing player to score. Bielsa’s decision was not popular with some Leeds fans (and even the players), but the general reaction in the footballing community was that it was the right thing to do, with the match ending 1-1. Similarly, in a 1999 game between Arsenal and Sheffield United, Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger offered a replay after his team scored an unsporting goal after an injury to a United player.
Wenger told reporters, “We don’t want to cheat”. David Holdsworth, Sheffield United’s captain that day said, “[The offer] was immediate. He was absolute class.”
What matters is not whether mistakes happen – they inevitably will – but how you respond to them. Through their actions, Bielsa and Wenger demonstrated a deep respect for the spirit of the game, and for that alone, they deserve our admiration and plaudits.
Unfortunately, the Malaysian team missed that opportunity. For me, the victory is now clouded by this act of poor sportsmanship, and it makes me think, maybe next time if we have an invitational tournament, people might not want to come and play against us.
This importance of integrity and how you earn it I think was also reflected in a recent issue involving the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC).
In early August, the Malaysian civic tech group Sinar Project revealed that some Internet service providers (ISPs) were quietly redirecting DNS requests to their own servers (DNS stands for domain name system, ie the phonebook of the Internet). This was probably done to prevent users from bypassing government-imposed content filters.
The MCMC soon after confirmed this practice, saying it was “for the protection of vulnerable groups from harmful online content”.
The announcement sparked an outcry, with critics pointing out that such actions could damage Malaysia’s reputation, particularly since most companies looking to invest would categorise Internet censorship under “red flag”.
However, after considerable public backlash, Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil announced that the MCMC had been directed to cease DNS redirection. It seems all it took for the authorities to see the light and make the U-turn was a lot of bad publicity.
Which, to me, is the absolute problem. The correct thing to do – the “sporting” thing, as it were – would have been to involve stakeholders from the start, making the decision-making process open and transparent. Most people now believe the authorities only stopped because they were caught at it. But who knows? They might quietly try something similar again in the future.
The danger here is that when transparency is lacking, trust erodes. When something wrong is being done and you stay quiet, then nobody really believes you’re doing it for the right reason.
It’s too early to see if that moment of bad sportsmanship in the Merdeka Cup final will have an impact on football’s development in Malaysia as there is actually very little reference to it either in match reports or YouTube highlights. Perhaps that's a good thing, because the last thing I want to see is kids on the padang trying to emulate their heroes in the wrong way.
In both cases, it is a matter of integrity. What’s at stake is the trust of the people, whether it’s the public who rely on the Internet, or us football fans who watch our national team. And while winning is what we always want, it cannot be at the cost of our reputation and our integrity.
In his fortnightly column, Contradictheory, mathematician-turned-scriptwriter Dzof Azmi explores the theory that logic is the antithesis of emotion but people need both to make sense of life’s vagaries and contradictions. Write to Dzof at lifestyle@thestar.com.my. The views expressed here are entirely the writer's own.
