Can the ‘Blessed One’ Rajagobal kick off a new tradition?

INVITED to speak at the launch of Datuk K. Rajagobal’s memoirs “Inilah Saya Rajagobal” on Saturday, co-adviser of the publishing house Karangkraf Group, Datuk Nasir Hamzah quoted a famous African dictum.

“When a learned person dies, a library burns down,” said Nasir, quoting the proverb widely attributed to Amadou Hampate Ba, one of the major intellectual and literary figures of twentieth-century Africa.

Before an audience which included Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) deputy president Datuk S. Sivasundaram and former international Datuk Zainal Abidin Hassan, Nasir impressed upon the football fraternity on the need to document their life in a book, realising few purveyors of the game do so.

“We need our footballers, coaches and administrators and other sporting icons to pen their thoughts in a book as a way of sharing their knowledge, experience and recipes for success as a point of reference for the younger generation,” said Nasir.

Rajagobal is certainly the first national coach to do so. Whether his book kicks off a new tradition or not remains to be seen but the 69-year old former Selangor, PKNS, Sarawak and Kelantan coach has done his part.

Mooted by his eldest son Kanason, almost 10 years ago, Rajagobal’s autobiography chronicled his life journey beginning with his childhood days at Air Panas, Setapak, where his love for sports was sown, right up to his short stint as the chief coach of Brunei.

Rajagobal’s personal accounts – from growing up in the heart of the city along with the likes of Datuk Santokh Singh, N. Nallathamby, Avtar Singh Gill and the late R. Subramaniam to his role as the architect behind Malaysia’s win in the AFF Cup in 2010 – were candidly captured, divided into 16 chapters.

Rajagobal’s memoirs was launched at the Kuala Lumpur International Book Fair (KLIBF) at the World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur.

A few booths away, former Chief Justice, Tun Zaki Tun Azmi was entertaining questions from an audience upon the launch of his book Tanpa Prejudis (Without Prejudice). And yesterday, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, dropped by at the booth, much to Rajagobal’s surprise.

Lending support to Rajagobal were his wife, Datin M. Chantra, former teammate Reduan Abdullah and his former disciples such as Khairul Fahmi Che Mat, K. Gurusamy and Razman Roslan.

Also present was former Selangor striker, Adam Abdullah, who served as Rajagobal’s assistant at PKNS.

“I wanted the book to be a source of inspiration for the younger generation,” said Rajagobal, whose back-to-back victories in the 2009 SEA Games in Laos and the AFF Cup a year later created a phenomenon back then.

The AFF Cup victory, especially, raised the commercial value of Malaysian football.

As Rajagobal’s stock rose, so did the domestic game’s profile, which helped create a thriving industry for almost a decade.

Above all, Malaysians were once again proud to be wearing the Malaysian jersey.

That victory was also best remembered for the all-local talent utilised by Rajagobal that spearheaded the victory.

It came two years after the FAM had issued a ban on foreign players to curb excessive spending among the teams in the M-League then.

“It was a matter of timing, much like the timing of the launch of the book,” said Rajagobal, recapping the experience of guiding the national team to the 2009 and 2010 victories.

“I was lucky enough to be in charge of the players earlier, having been the national youth coach since the early 2000s.”

Rajagobal also beamed with pride for having been given the privilege to share centrestage with the likes of Kenny Dalglish, Arsene Wenger, Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho in the course of charting Harimau Malaya’s fortune.

“It was during the press conference with Mourinho that I responded to a question by the Press that if the Portuguese manager was the Special One, I was the Blessed One,” said Rajagobal.

In the book, Rajagobal took the opportunity to thank everyone connected to his success, especially the family, his late parents and of course the late FAM president, Sultan Ahmad Shah and his son Al-Sultan Abdullah for placing their trust in him.

Inilah Saya  is available online at  Karangkraf Mall.