::maldivesoccer.com:- Maldives' first soccer website::

A year has gone with lots of events held in the field of football. It is evident that most of us would like to remember the year 2008 more than 2009 and there are obvious reasons for that. The new football season started with a shock from Valencia that is beating a full strength VB in the charity shield game. Many turned their eyes on the young Valencia side for the rest of the season but they finally ended up as a big flop.

If we look into last season, there is no doubt that we will see more negatives than positives. Indeed there isn’t any positive at all.

For the first time broadcasting rights of the season was sold and unexpectedly the move itself became another big flop, with inappropriate work of marketing the games and so much electricity was wasted to lighten up a stadium for only a handful of supporters.

A shocking decrease in crowd numbers was the major talking point of the season. And no one was able to dig up the exact reason of the trend. In fact, no one even tried enough to attract the audience and kept the players out of pressure from the fans to perform better.

Another notable trend of the season was the minnows’ big challenge. Clubs such as Maziya and AYL gave one hell of a time to giants like New Radiant, VB and Valencia. Kalhaidhoo can be tagged as the culprit of last season winning just one game out of 18 and conceding 94 goals gave enough reasons for FAM to think about Dhivehi League qualification process. They even conceded 20 goals in just ninety minutes, a record in the top division of Maldivian football. Well, the advantage fell on Ali Ashfaaq as he scored 12 goals in one game and took his goal tally to 39 goals, which became the highest ever number of goals scored in one season by a single player.

Some were shocked to see Valencia ended up in the play off situation after failing to finish the league in the top four. But with their continuous decreasing performance, many have seen the dark days encircling one of the most successful clubs of the country. Even with few signings in the mid season transfer window; they couldn’t find a way out of the haunted season.

Valencia keeper Hassan Rameez (Timo)’s bribery case was another hot and embarrassing topic of the season. Timo was found guilty of accepting bribery to fix Valencia’s game against Home United in the AFC cup. Valencia finally terminated the contract of the player and FAM came into the picture for further investigation.

The year also saw Maldives appointing a new coach for the national team. Many fans were delighted to hear the positive words and kind of transformation Mr. Urbanyi was trying to bring to the Maldives football but what’s most important did not come, the results.

Maldives got their first opportunity to play in the AFC challenge cup and even before the qualification many dreamt of playing Asian cup by winning the challenge cup. However, things didn’t go as planned and embarrassingly enough regional champions could not even make it to the Challenge cup 2010. Even when the qualification played in front of the electrifying home crowd, it was a shame rather than a blow for Maldives that they couldn’t get the ultimate outcome.

The year came to end with SAFF championship and even though many tried to digest the penalty shootout disaster against India in the final was a success but it was another big flop. In fact, I believe the penalty shootout loss is worse than 5-1 defeat against India in the final of 1997. Why? Because this time, we were beaten by India under 23 team. Most notably we saw a nervous and unsettled team ended up as a victim of India’s long ball tactics. There were banners across the capital stating we are the strongest team in the region, but the truth is we are still few yards behind India.

Valencia and national team striker Ahmed Thoriq (Tom) faced so much criticisms in the domestic league but turned the season upside down when he scored four goals for Maldives in the SAFF championship and returned home as a ‘superstar’.

The political rivalry between FAM and the government is something I purposely omitted this time and I let the fans to decide on that. I believe it didn’t do any good as well.

Let’s just hope a better season of football is approaching in 2010 and hopefully FAM will learn from the negatives of last season and will do a better work to make the new season a memorable one, not only for the clubs but also for the fans.

Happy New Year!!!