IT was yet another familiar sight when football finally returned last Friday with Johor Darul Ta'zim FC (JDT) picking up another trophy ─ their 17th ─ since 2013.
It is the fourth straight year the Southern Tigers have picked up the Charity Cup on opening day, and their sixth in seven years. JDT also won their second match, defeating Penang 2-0 to build momentum after their win over Kedah.
‘Dominant’, ‘Matured’, ‘Another Level Altogether’ and ‘A Message To The Competitors’, read the headlines after Matchday 1, and quite rightly so, as the seven-time consecutive Malaysia Super League (MSL) champions also picked up three points when the match doubled up as a league tie between last year's two best sides.
The Southern Tigers have never looked back since their first MSL title in 2014 and the return of club legend ‘looking-like-he-never-left’, Safiq Rahim, made the moment that much sweeter.
The winning mentality instilled in the club since HRH Major General Tunku Ismail Ibni Sultan Ibrahim, Crown Prince of Johor, took the helm in 2013 has turned the one-time struggling Johor football team into a Southeast Asian giant as the club continues to break the norm.
There simply has never been a more dominant team in Malaysian football. No other team has come close to the number of trophies JDT has picked up in a similar duration since the dawn of Malaysian football.
Away from the pitch, JDT has also shown in recent weeks just how big a brand the club has become.
The 2021 Nike Home & Away kit sold like hotcakes with a whopping sales figure of RM1.6 million in jerseys, which were sold out in a matter of hours; a little under 8,000 kits were cleared in no time at all. Even the JDT website proved inaccessible for some due to heavy traffic.
The James Bond-inspired kit reveal hit over one million video views in under 48 hours. To put that into perspective, some of our competitors ‘rich-in-history’ montage have struggled to hit even six digits after weeks on end.
To add further acclaim to the JDT brand, the much-anticipated premiere of 'Fearless: Rise of the Johor Southern Tigers’ offered fans crucial insight into how Malaysia's No.1 football club was managed.
The show featured never-before-seen behind-the-scenes footage, the Johor football revolution, how decisions were made at the club and in-depth interviews with owner, HRH Tunku Ismail, and other members of the JDT Family.
To top it all off, JDT arguably became the most-followed Asian club in Spain following the HRH Tunku Ismail-Valencia speculation, which has been a hot topic in the Spanish city since the news first broke last week. ─ The Vibes, 11 March, 2021
Former journalist Vijhay is Head of Content at Johor Darul Ta'zim FC following stints with Malay Mail, Sports247.my, FourFourTwo Malaysia and FOX Malaysia. You may have also heard him on BFM Football or watched him on Media Prima's football programmes. Vijhay can be reached at @vijhayvick on Twitter.
