Rijkaard, Lazaroni set up camp in Kuala Lumpur

Fancy meeting Frank Rijkaard in the flesh? The former Barca boss, now coaching Saudi Arabia, will take his team to Kuala Lumpur next week to play Indonesia on Oct 7, the same day Malaysia travel to Canberra for the friendly with Australia. Read here and his squad here

Rijkaard, Euro88 winner and Josep Guardiola's immediate predecessor at Camp Nou

Sebastiao Lazaroni is also due for a training camp in Kuala Lumpur with his boys from Qatar as revealed here

Lazaroni took Brazil to the World Cup in 1990 and guided Fenerbahce to a famous win over Man Utd in the Champions League in October 1996

Congratulations, TonyM

My ex-boss Tony Mariadass must be congratulated for having organised a gathering for footballers of yesteryears recently. Read his blog here and the wide coverage in the mainstream press here, here and here

Live radio broadcast! Vincent Fernandez and S. Radhakrishnan...wow. Cikgu Vincent, my former PE teacher. Read 1975 revisited. Radhakrishnan remains a great entertainer with a booming voice

He came up to me uttering "I love your show...Dengan Izin", "are you John Engkatesu..."Yes"...aha we spoke over the phone a few years back, I asked you about your daughter, Juliana..."Ah, you remember"...I remember a poster of you and the Selangor team in Dunia Sukan...tapi dulu rambut you kerinting...hahaha

Legends in their own right, from left Bill Tegjeu, Datuk Fauzi Omar, George Das, Lazarus Rokk and Png Hong Kwang. To enter the pre-editorial training scheme at NSTP, applicants were required to write an essay...I wrote mine in English, mentioning two names - Adibah Amin and Fauzi Omar - as the most influential figures in my life. Really. Bill, always the quiet one, at the NST sports desk. Rokk, ah you either love him or hate him. Fauzi and George share the limelight in Old Songs Still Play while Rokk rolled back the years in a farewell piece in his Counterpoint column Thanks for the good times, guys. Png, who was the brains behind news portal Malaysian Insider, covered the Malaysian football team at the heights of their power

Datuk M. Kuppan, coach of the 1976 squad, said Supermokh trained, trained and trained, while legend has it Datuk Soh Chin Aun used to sleep wearing the full gear so that he would go straight to the padang and not be late for training the next morning...

In a football match in Seremban, Datuk Peter Velappan was a player. The referee was my father. Bahwandi Hiralal, right back of the 1972 squad, was in the thick of the action at the Memali tragedy in 1985

Isam (extreme left), Ramlan (third from right) and Zulfikar (second from right) know me well, because very few bother to ask for microfiche, a film-negative like sheet that contains archived stories, from the NSTP resource centre! I asked Datuk Soh, eh Datuk are you sober ah? "No lah, I'm Soh Chin Aun" ahahaha

Langkawi's star attraction

One of my earliest assignments outside Kuala Lumpur was Jelajah Pantai Timur, a road race covering the east coast and organised by the Kuala Lumpur Cycling Association (KLCA). Cycling was a big sport and still is in Berita Harian. Covering M. Kumaresan, Nor Effandy Rosli, Suhaimi Keton, Harris Fadzillah Osman, Mutalib Mydin and his brother Abdul Malik Mydin (later to become Wira Samudera) was fun.

I can imagine the thrill of covering the World Championship in Copenhagen. The road race was won by Great Britain's Mark Cavendish, who gave due credit to his team mates here

The Brits are today leaders in the sport of cycling. Why? Read here. One of the biggest stumbling blocks for Azizulhasni Awang's dream of landing the Olympic gold is of course a Brit, Chris Hoy. In the meantime though, Cavendish's domestique and the man who was 13 seconds short of becoming the first ever Brit to land a victory in a Grand Tour will be in Langkawi next month.

Chris Froome (picture) will be taking part in the Langkawi International Mountainbike Challenge 2011. He will be the star attraction. Read here

My apologies to Datuk Raja

Out of my own free will and accord, I wish to offer a humble apology to Datuk K. Rajagobal, the national football team coach and his family, for an entry titled "A Raja's ransom" which has since been removed from this blog.

My mistake was to reproduce a comment from the comment's section of Haresh Deol's blog without batting an eyelid and then relate it to an interview I had with Rajagobal last month pertaining to his salary. The comment from Tukang Kebun FAM, I must admit, was very personal in nature and should not have been reproduced in this blog. The comment from Tukang Kebun FAM has also been removed from Haresh's blog.

Again I offer my deepest apologies to Datuk Rajagobal and family if the posting had caused significant distress and emotional anguish to them.


Yours sincerely,

Rizal Hashim.

Pentingnya ejen atau wakil pemain

Pada 1999, aku menulis dalam the Malay Mail agar Akmal Rizal Ahmad Rakhli dan Juzaili Samion diwakili ejen agar segala urusan berkaitan kerjaya mereka di Strasbourg berjalan lancar tanpa membebankan Persatuan Bola Sepak Malaysia (FAM). Tapi pembesar-pembesar FAM tak ambil pusing pun.

Sekarang Safee Sali sudah ada Zack Rahim, senior aku kat sekolah dulu (tapi dia tak kenal, hehe), manakala Safiq Rahim pun khabarnya selalu ditemani pengurus ke mana-mana. Sekarang sudah sampai masa pemain yang ada wawasan lantik seorang wakil, ejen atau syarikat mengurus kerjaya mereka, bukan saja dari segi prospek perpindahan, bahkan merencanakan masa depan mereka. Tapi berapa kerat sanggup melabur sedikit agar masa depan lebih terjamin? Baca kolum terbaru ku di di sini

No title sponsor

It is a pity that the ATP Malaysian Open gets underway tomorrow, without a title sponsor. Is it because two individuals who initiated the idea are no longer in the good books of the powers-that-be? Read the Star report
Anyway Ahmad Deedat Abdul Razak, Si Yew Meng, Ariez Elyaas Deen Heshaam dan Wan Muiz Wan Abdul Aziz will be flying the Jalur Gemilang.

ORDER OF PLAY - SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
CENTER COURT start 10:00 am
Qualifying - [WC] A Abdul Razak (MAS) vs J Wang (TPE)
Qualifying - [WC] Y Si (MAS) vs S Poplavskyy (UKR)
Qualifying - Z Zhang (CHN) vs A Deen Heshaam (MAS)
Qualifying - S Lipsky (USA) vs T Chen (TPE)
COURT 1 start 10:00 am
Qualifying - [WC] W Wan Abdul Aziz (MAS) vs A Lazov (BUL)
Qualifying - M Ledovskikh (RUS) vs M Gong (CHN)
Qualifying - K Matsunaga (JPN) vs J Lisnard (MON)
Qualifying - M Elgin (RUS) vs J Rojer (AHO)

Safee v Ramli

Di saat Safee Sali berdepan kekangan birokrasi dan undang-undang imigresen United Kingdom, baca di sini, Ramli mudah menyarung jersi Manchester United dan bergesel bahu dengan Nani, Wayne Rooney dan Bobby Charlton. Hebat!

Ini sekadar satu ilusi...ditampal pada kumpulan peminat Rembat Kosmo dalam facebook.

Kalau Ramli main, tentu team Malaysia boleh beat Jepun. Asalkan umur dia bawah 23 tahun. Hehe. Kalau jiran dia dapat 9A pada 1998, 13 tahun kemudian Ramli score sebiji di Old Trafford.

Teori konspirasi di sebalik Ramli, Ramli bintang Man U, siapa Ramli, Ramli gempak dan fan page Ramli

Dalam hal Safee, cukup penting media arus perdana memberi gambaran yang betul sebelum menulis berita-berita yang terlalu positif. Safee jaring seribu gol dalam latihan dan ujian pemilihan pun, sukar nak tembus UK. Baca interviu dengan pengerusi Cardiff.