This game was scheduled last minute. They announced the details of this 2nd match in the papers on Sunday, the day after the 1st game. This game was to replace the one which they canceled in Jakarta due to the terrorist bombings the week before.
Tickets were only 2 tiers, RM58 and Rm308. Except for Rm308, every seat in the stadium was for the RM58 tickets. After I woke up late on the Sunday morning, well, almost Sunday afternoon, i headed straight to Bukit Jalil Stadium to get my tickets. It seemed that it was the only place to buy tickets for the match. Oh, did i mention that the game was on Monday? Yes, it was indeed a vey very short notice.
By the time I got to the stadium, the queue to buy the tickets was quite long. And there were only 2 counters open. Took me about 40 minutes of lining up in the afternoon sun to get my tickets. For RM58, i think its really worth it :-)
The next day, I got to the stadium at about 5.30pm, more than 3 hours before the match was scheduled to begin. This time, I drove myself to the stadium and parked near the National Squash Centre, nearer to the exit ;-p
My sister was already there earlier, so she queued up outside the gate since 4-ish pm. We both lined up and waited till about 6.10pm, that was when they opened the gates. Every1 rushed to get a good seat including me. I amanged to get a seat right at the first row. But then i realised that being in the 1st row, i'm a bit too low to see the action on the other side of the pitch. So i decided to go a couple of rows back and parked myself right in the middle of the field. I was higher, which gave me a better view of the entire pitch :-)
We killed time by reading some mags which i bought and taking pictures while waiting for my colleague VY and his sister CY to arrive. Once they arrived, me and my sis went off to wander around the stadium to take pictures.
By about 8pm, players from both teams came out for a short warm up. We eagerly anticipated for the game to begin. And at about 8.50pm, the matched kicked off!! The stadium wasn't full, thats for sure, but for such a last minute organised game, there were about 30,000 people that night.
Sure the game was a bit boring as Manchester United scored 2 early goals and killed the game off. Goals from Owen and Macheda did the job as Malaysia lost steam. I guess they didnt recover from Saturday's game. Man Utd fielded a toally different line-up from the 1 that started Saturday's game. Hence the player were much fresher and were able to control the game with ther better fitness. The Malaysian players looked tired throughout the whole game and never really troubled Ben Foster and Tomas Kuszack.
Although the mtch was a bit disappointing, the atmosphere in the stadium that night was not. Inf act, i felt that the match atmosphere was better than that of Saturdays, despite having less people attending this game. I thoroughly enjoyed both games tremendously. Its not often I get to see my favourtie team play in front of me for less than what it would cost me to buy an airticket to Manchester alone. Too see my idol, Ryan Giggs, and to chant and cheer for the players, its a feeling that I will cherish. We left after all the players lef tthe pitch and went home feeling very very satisfied.
Till, the next time I do a mexican wave,
Boodyboy, out!!
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