Thoughts on Sultan of Selangor's Challenge Cup 2011

Thanks to Liga Singapura, I've got my article published on his blog. It's basically my thoughts on the recent Sultan of Selangor's Challenge Cup.

The annual Sultan of Selangor’s Cup is into its 10^th edition this year. I haven’t been able to watch a single edition before and this year will still be the same. From my perspective, being a rather passive fan of Singapore football, there isn’t much news or publicity for the SOS Cup. In fact, I only knew about it when I was browsing through the local soccer blogs only recently.

The challenge is definitely one of the better ways of promoting sports between the 2 nations. Couple with the fact that Singapore once participated in the Malaysia Cup and was fierce rivals with Selangor, the match definitely brings back some rivalry atmosphere. However, this being a friendly challenge, I believe that the intensity and competitiveness will not be the same as compared to watching an S-League match. The things that are in contention, is probably just the bragging rights and the Cup.

The event definitely sounds interesting together with the Veterans match. It will allow the fans who are present at the stadium to probably enjoy and experience the rivalry of yesteryears, which had not been seen in Singapore, except for the Singapore-Malaysia World Cup qualifier.

Also with Singaporeans being well fed on a staple diet of top nation’s leagues on TV and the Lions’ constant matches against quality countries, it is also not hard to understand why there response of the local fans going up north for the match is lukewarm.

Any local soccer fan may just think who cares about the National team playing against a Malaysian state team. He has not experience the Malaysia Cup fever before!

The article was written before the match, as I got to know about the outcome of the match through various newspaper articles and blogs, I realised that the match atmosphere is definitely more interesting compared to what I've written. Hopefully the gloss of this challenge series will still be the same next year, and I will sure to be there when it happens.