What Asean and buoyant Manchester United have in common

Years of underachievement, now a moment in the sun. For both, the hard part comes next.

- Bhavan Jaipragas

Yes, football does not explain the world, we know that. But this week, two groups of people - Manchester United fans and the full-throated backers of Asean - find themselves in roughly the same emotional state.

Both have, for long, been haunted, taunted, defined by underachievement. Both have had to endure watching the institutions they are loyal to wear the labels: empty, toothless, limp, irrelevant.

Now there is a sense that they may be turning a corner. A flicker of dynamism - swagger, even - creeping back in: Look at me now, what were you saying?

Manchester United, riding a rich vein of form, including a famous felling of archrival Liverpool, offer hope that the onetime giants of English football are finally exiting their decade of staggering mediocrity.

Asean, under Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim's chairmanship, has just basked in three days of unexpected sunshine US President Donald Trump graced its summit, his ego sufficiently stroked to put the grouping on his radar.

There is new verve, too, with Timor-Leste added at long last, which "completes" Asean, to use Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong's words.

Diplomatic wins came thick and fast: the upgraded Asean Trade in Goods Agreement (Atiga) was signed; a "peace agreement" between feuding Thailand and Cambodia was inked; ties with China were kept on an even keel with Premier Li Qiang present as the Asean-China Free Trade Agreement was upgraded.

Datuk Seri Anwar proclaimed at the close that Asean's "centrality" - the grouping now Il-strong - was alive and well. That "things are not falling apart".

It is easy to tone down the celebrations if one is a realist who knows the extent of the grouping's dysfunctions, which have not vanished overnight in the afterglow of Mr Trump's attendance. Ditto with the Red Devils. What are you celebrating?