Monday, October 10, 2011

Can Laos recover?

Two more matches in the MRYUIFTBIDC Cup this afternoon, with Laos needing a good win over Myanmar at 3.30pm to have a chance of progressing from Group B. They lost the opening match to Cambodia on Saturday 2-0 and the Laos coach was worried that his team would find it hard to recover in time, especially as the wet conditions would've drained his young team, which he said were mostly 16 and 17 year olds. Both the participating national teams from Laos and Myanmar competed in the very recent AFF U-19 tournament held in Myanmar, where the hosts finished 4th and Laos failed to qualify from their group. Cambodia will meet Myanmar in the remaining group B match on Wednesday at the Olympic Stadium, with a 5.30pm start. The later game today will see the Chinese club team, Wuhan Hongxiang meet Thailand in their Group A encounter. Thailand won that AFF U-19 championship a couple of weeks ago and bring the same squad to this competition. The Chinese team will be without two of their team, who were red carded on Saturday.
Update: I didn't go to the matches this afternoon but at half-time in the opening game there was another thunderstorm that would've deluged the pitch once more, after someone watching it live on MYTV said it already resembled a bog. Doesn't look good for the remaining six games to be played on the Olympic Stadium pitch during the rest of this week. As for the results, the Myanmar team proved far too strong for the Laos youngsters in the opening game, winning 4-0 and booking their place in the semis. In the second game, the Chinese club side Wuhan Hongxiang came badly unstuck against a rampant Thailand team who ran out 7-2 winners and meet Vietnam on Wednesday to decide who'll win Group A. I did manage to watch the 2nd game on television and am really scratching my head to understand the advertising slogan of the competition's main sponsors, BIDC, whose advert implores, BIDC - Be Your Side, By Your Hand. What the heck does that mean?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The ad is probably a direct translation from Vietnamese. Ask a Vietnamese speaker to help you out.

Andy Brouwer said...

Sure it may be a direct translation, but in English it makes no sense whatsoever and simply makes BIDC look like many companies in Asia, who convert slogans, etc to English but never check it with an English-speaker before they go and splash their advertising over the tv, in the press, etc. It always amazes me how often this happens and to English-speakers, it reflects poorly on the company image.