EWAN MACKENNA: Enjoy keeping it real at Croker

Just a couple of weeks back, a trip through the Far East happened to briefly coincide with a trip by Barcelona through the same part of the world.

As you’d expect, there was no avoiding their presence. In Kuala Lumpur airport, parents pushed forcefully and desperately past their children to pose for pictures with cardboard cut outs of players, along the streets in the city centre there was a haze of red and blue far off into the distance, in many of the bars there were DVDs of Lionel Messi’s goals on a loop hour after hour. And this wasn’t even match day when the Spanish side took on a Malaysian selection in what amounted to a kick about.

Before we go on, this isn’t another start-of-season rant telling people they can’t support teams in other countries and that it should be about the local and that they must go and watch Drogheda United and Cork City in person instead of Manchester United and Stoke City on television. To think that world still exists is naïve because people want to witness and dissect the best and they now have easy and endless access to it. If sitting in your local pub cheering on some team you keep an eye out for in the Premier League is your thing, then sit back, relax and enjoy the next nine months. But in Malaysia, this wasn’t about cheering on a team you support. It wasn’t even about sport.