This is the article for those of you who have stayed up till the wee hours of the morning to watch your favourite team in action, only to be left upset by such a disappointing result. This is also for those of you who have sat on the edge of your seat, only to find yourself screaming with ecstasy moments later because someone popped up with the winner in the dying seconds. And if you are the ones who found it in yourself to have a witty spat at your friends because they’re team is completely rubbish, read on, my dear reader, read on. And if you have gone to work or school the following morning feeling completely “not in it” because your team had lost last night, don’t despair, just read on. And most of all, if you have missed having gone through the ups and downs, the thrills and spills that comes along with the football season, have no fear. Football season is back!

Only a week into the new campaign, who’s to say that we Cempakans aren’t complete fanatics of the sport. We live in a football mad nation. From television sets at home, to A/V projectors at ‘mamak’ stalls, many of us here are guilty of living and breathing football. It is now conventional for many food joints to broadcast football matches during the weekend. After all, which football fanatic would want to eat at a restaurant and miss their favourite team in action!

Just the other day, I had a friend come up to me and said, “Hey buddy. I know, Manchester is a great team, but I just don’t see how they’re going to cope without Cristiano Ronaldo. Liverpool’s gonna win the title this time around.” Of course, this is just one of the more subtle jibes football fans poke at one another. There are however, the more blatant and rude comments. Fans of different clubs like to fuel the rivalry. What is fanaticism after all, if there is no tenacious rivalry. Football is more than a sport – it is an impetuous passion.

The truth is, Malaysians are crazy about football. The global appeal of football is at its peak in Asia. For the 09/10 premier league season, it is estimated that the matches will be beamed into 575 million homes. That alone is a small amount, considering that in each home, there is more than one viewer. That figure above, is largely due to the support from China and Southeast Asia, with Malaysia having one of the largest fan base.

For those of you who can’t be bothered with this sport, or those of you who have put this game under the context of “22 people running around the field chasing a ball”, we cannot understand you. For me, the thought of people not enjoying football is a completely ridiculous notion. Football is a game of emotion, love, discipline, and most of all, passion.

To keep it simple, football is not for the faint-hearted. It is not a gentleman’s sport. It is a man’s sport, the sport of a man who’s not afraid to play hard. As Bill Shankly once said, “Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that.”