On paper, I’d like to say I should have better things to do than spend the better part of a week chasing a bunch of guys who kick balls and wear shorts for a living all over town.

Having just realised how wrong that last line sounded, let me set the record straight (pun truly intended) – I was assigned to cover Chelsea Football Club’s recent tour stop in Kuala Lumpur – their arrival, the press conferences, meet and greets, community projects, training, the friendly game against Malaysia and most importantly, the interviews.

So yeah, since those guys in shorts included Premier League living legends like Frank Lampard, Fernando Torres and Didier Drogba, I didn’t mind so much.

Nothing truly prepares you for the mania that surrounds an English Premier League team coming to Asia. You’d find grown men waiting desperately outside the team hotel just to catch a glimpse of their favourite footballers. I assume these are the same people who complain about K-Pop fans being silly.

Come to think of it, I’ve interviewed Lady Gaga, rock heroes Incubus and MTV World Stage hit Neon Trees in the past two weeks as well, and none of them got anything close to the kind of reception Chelsea got.

Okay, so Gaga had a handful of teenage fans waiting downstairs at the lobby of the Marina Bay Sands. Chelsea turned the lobby of the One World Hotel into a sea of blue.

Well Gaga’s just one person right? Maybe Chelsea got a bigger crowd because they themselves are a bigger crowd? Wrong.

Manchester United sent just ONE player – an ex-player, actually – to KL three weeks ago when Edwin van der Sar came with the Champions Trophy Tour, and I had to literally claw my way through the crowd to get into that interview room; and even there, I was made to sweat for it. Three other colleagues of mine were there, and none of them managed to get an interview.

As for Incubus, after our interview the guys went lounging by the hotel pool, and it seemed nobody recognised them at all! Now tell me Torres or Drogba could have enjoyed that same anonymity.

At all the Chelsea events, there would be a throng of reporters, photographers, videographers and sportscasters from not just around the region, but also from Britain, desperate to get some face time with any of the players. It was mayhem. Everyone was restless.

No offense to the Neon Trees, who were really cool, but there was no such clamouring at their press event.

Arrival

The mayhem began when the team arrived at the One World Hotel in Petaling Jaya, Selangor. A crowd had built up even though it was the middle of a working day (I’d like to think it was because we tweeted it out on twitter.com/thestar_rage – shameless plug), and you could see quite a lot of them, in office wear, clutching Chelsea jerseys.

I was there because there was going to be a press conference with new Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas and two players, who turned out to be Frank Lampard and Branislav Ivanovic.

And no, I didn’t get the chance to see if Frank remembers me from our London interview =(
Villas-Boas, now often referred to as AVB, seems like a pretty serious guy. We had another chance to talk to him after the 1-0 victory over Malaysia (it was NOT a goal, by the way. I was sitting right along the goal line), and his tone was more or less the same – very business-like.

One thing I noticed about him is that he never gives a straight answer. It’s never yes or no. It’s always a convoluted answer with lots of disclaimers and many layers of logic which prevent him from being caught out by the media.

When asked about Torres’ form, he answered by questioning the media’s “obsession” with Torres not scoring, and then moved on to talk about the importance of the “collective”, the competitiveness within his squad, and the objectives of pre-season training. It would’ve been easier to just say “no, I’m not worried about it”; but that’s not AVB’s style, I guess.

But he did show a “soft side”, so to speak, when talking about pre-season training camps.

“You can do in Asia, in Europe, in America or in other countries, but it’s always important to touch the people who loves us, but are far away from us,” he said.

Player interviews

I think the most fun I had that week was asking Ashley Cole about, y’know, his “personal life”.

The England left-back has had a hat-trick of secret lovers reveal themselves after news broke that he was getting back together with ex-wife Cheryl Cole, the ex-X-Factor judge, who also almost became Ashley’s ex-ex-wife, and c’mon – you can’t possibly expect me not to ask about that, right?

So when the time came for the interview, I got all the questions I wanted to ask out of the way – what do you do on tour in your spare time, does the new young manager relate better with you personally, and then bam! I hit him with the big one – how do you handle the speculation surrounding your personal life?

“I don’t talk about that,” he muttered, immediately looking away, while the Chelsea press secretary stepped in to remind us that it was a “Chelsea event” and we should only talk about football.

Well I thought I phrased that question pretty innocuously, but I guess from his point of view, there’s really nothing he could say that wouldn’t be construed negatively. It was a no-win situation.

So instead, I’m left with quotes like these:

“A lot of (the players) just sleep to be honest (during pre-season tours). There are a few people who’re of course on the X-Box, but most people go sleep and relax and chill out.

“We train in the morning, we have lunch, we have a few hours’ sleep, and we train again. So there’s not really much we can do,” he said.

Really, Ashley? Do you really JUST sleep? – see? No win situation.

But to be fair, he seemed a nice enough guy. He was polite, he answered all our other questions patiently, and he took as many photos and signed as many autographs as he could. Luckily I got mine BEFORE the interview.

I had to get my picture with Ashley BEFORE the interview, of course... =P

The other interview I got to be part of was with former Arsenal, Real Madrid and France striker Nicolas Anelka. He was pretty cool too.

I asked if he felt he’s changed from his earlier days as the infamous “Le Sulk”, and he candidly replied: “I’m still the same. Nobody really knows me because I don’t speak a lot in the newspapers.

“But you know, it’s my way. I like to be simple outside of football, and on the pitch. The most important for me is to play football, enjoy on the pitch and I’ve tried to do this since I started and now, like you said, I’m at the end, and I’m pleased with everything I did in my career.”

In the end, I didn’t get the interviews I was hoping for with the big four – Lampard, Drogba, Terry and Torres – but it was a good way to end a crazy fortnight. Up next for me, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers in Hong Kong. Fingers crossed, I get an interview with one of those four. Wish me luck!