For the Malaysian blind football team, Eye On The Ball is more than just a film - it’s a platform to highlight the struggles and abilities of blind athletes.
It’s been quite a journey for the Malaysian blind football players. From underdog team to 2015 Asean Para Games champions; from part-time team to a full-time team under the Youth and Sports Ministry, and back again to part-timers.
And now, they will be the stars of the feature film Eye On The Ball, in cinemas nationwide on March 19.
“The first time an Eye On The Ball video was published online, I was so embarrassed!” said player Rollen Marakim with a sheepish laugh.
“But my friends all watched it and said they were proud of me, so I really hope this film can help our football club achieve what we need.”
Rollen’s newfound fame is a stark contrast to his previous life, and the same can be said for most of his teammates in the national blind football team.
Most of the players come from underprivileged backgrounds. Not only do they struggle economically, many working as part-time masseurs to make ends meet, they also struggle constantly with being underestimated by society due to their visual impairment.
Take Rollen, for example. Today, he is one of Malaysian blind football’s heroes - part of the team that led the country to glory during the 2015 Asean Para Games. But he almost didn’t make it.
Hailing from a small village in Kudat, Sabah, he dreamed of moving to Kuala Lumpur to study, and hopefully find a job that could accommodate his blindness. But his father, worried by the villagers’ concerns that Rollen wouldn’t be able to make it on his own, almost stopped him from leaving.
Thankfully, he changed his mind.
It is a common refrain, said Rollen. His teammate Mohd Azwan Azhar, nicknamed ‘Kenchot’, faced a similar scenario in his home state of Johor.
When his father died, he was meant to assume the role of main breadwinner for his family. Sadly, he started losing his sight after injuring his eyes while playing with his friends. He didn’t think the injury was serious, but before he knew it, the damage had become irreversible.
Immediately, neighbours told his mother not to send him anywhere, not even to find work. Yet he persevered, working hard and leaving his home state to become one of the national blind football team’s star players.
These are some of the misconceptions that Rollen hopes the movie will change.
“Sometimes, people assume we need help with everything. Even if we eat, we need to be hand-fed,” Rollen said.
“I hope the film will show them how their support and encouragement can help us find strength within ourselves (to succeed).”
All the players have had to overcome seemingly impossible odds in order to pursue their dreams of playing football, supported by their coach, Sunny Shalesh, who runs the Pan-Disability Football Club with support from CIMB Foundation.
“The biggest challenge of being a blind athlete is mobility, of course. You will see us running like nobody’s business in the documentary, but that sense of spatial awareness takes a very, very long time to develop,” said fellow teammate and co-star Asri Arshad.
“The mobility and confidence to move around at such a high speed, the trust in yourself - that needs a lot of training,” he said.
Despite intensive training, accidents are common in the world of blind football. Crashes on-pitch are common, and players are often carried off the field on stretchers.
Asri himself has suffered multiple injuries, and has been battling a serious knee injury.
But that is all part and parcel of football to these players, and they have never let anything stop them, not even the inability to see, said Asri, adding that they improvised novel ways to train and learn.
“We can’t see a demonstration (of the techniques), so when Coach teaches us something unfamiliar, we have to touch him all over to feel his legs, his arms, his torso, in order to ‘see’ what he’s doing. We basically grope him!” Asri said with a laugh.
Under Sunny’s dedicated tutelage, the team quickly rose from a rag-tag underdog team to Asean champions, despite often struggling to make ends meet. The team relies on private donations and funding from the CIMB Foundation to survive, often having to offer reflexology services in order to pay for things like bottled water and transportation.
But it was all worth it when their Asean Para Games victory earned them national athlete status, with funding from the National Sports Council (MSN), and a shot at qualifying for the World Cup of blind football - the IBSA World Blind Football Championship.
And that shot at the World Cup became the focus of the Eye On The Ball film.
Rollen still recalls the day R.AGE senior producer and award-winning filmmaker Yihwen Chen approached him and his teammates to start filming them, documentary-style.
“I’m not one to stand out from a crowd. I like to relax,” he said with a laugh.
“I didn’t like that people knew what I was doing at all times, taking up my time and space. But at the same time, I was proud that our journey and how we got here would be documented.”
Despite his initial misgivings, Rollen soon got used to the filming situation, but admitted that it was still challenging at times.
"To be honest, at one point I did feel sick of being followed everywhere. They followed me even when I balik kampung, basically filming my every move from when I woke up until I fell asleep,” he recalled.
"Sometimes I dodged the film crew by not answering their calls! But I really applaud them for being so patient with all of us,” he said with a laugh.
Asri, too, initially found the experience strange.
“It was uncomfortable at first,” he said. “But after a few months, it became a normal thing to have people with cameras and mics following me everywhere.
“A few people have approached me and asked if this film is an act, or if it’s real. What you see onscreen is the real thing! It’s a real thing that happened with real people. It’s a documentary on our team, documenting our journey from nothing to representing Malaysia in blind football.”
Eye On The Ball will be premiering in cinemas nationwide on March 19, which the players hope will be the day Malaysians finally appreciate what paralympic sports are all about.
“This movie isn’t just for blind people - I hope it inspires the parents of blind children out there too,” said Rollen.
“When you watch it, I hope you’ll see that your child is very valuable. We don’t want sympathy - we want support. We want to find our strength and see where it lies. All it takes is a little confidence, and it lies in our parents first. They’re the ones who give us strength.”
To help the team continue representing Malaysia on the world stage, members of the public only need to watch Eye On The Ball in cinemas this March, as a portion of the film’s proceeds will go to the Pan-Disability Football Club.
* Eye On The Ball is a campaign by R.AGE and CIMB Foundation. For more info on the film, and to make a donation to the Pan-Disability Football Club, go to www.eyeontheballfilm.com.
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