All around the city, banners are up, announcing the coming of Asian Cup. I am how unsure how successful this event would be because with four hosts, from Vietnam to Indonesia, the crowd will be distributed far and wide. I doubt that party feeling that was last felt in Kuala Lumpur during the Commonwealth Games in 1998 would be in the air.

Only two stadiums will host Asian Cup matches. Two of them are the National Stadium at Bukit Jalil and the Shah Alam Stadium at, well, Shah Alam. According to the Asian Cup website, both are located in Kuala Lumpur ^[1]. In actual fact, only Bukit Jalil is part of Kuala Lumpur. Shah Alam is definitely not part of Kuala Lumpur.

The first Asian Cup 2007 match in Kuala Lumpur will see Malaysia up against China on July 10. I don’t really expect Malaysia to win but at least, it would be nice not to get beaten to death. Anyway, it is easy to get to the stadium. Get on the Sri Petaling LRT line and you’ll be there in no time.

Coming back to the spectators, already spread thinly across the region, having the match on a weekday is a good way to have an empty stadium. July 10 is a Tuesday. I wonder, why can’t they hold it on a Friday, or a Saturday evening?