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Singaporean football fans who tuned in to watch the FA Cup match between Liverpool and Cardiff City on Feb. 6 may have noticed an energetic young player in blue, causing problems for the team in red.

Although Cardiff lost 3-1, the 25-year-old Perry Ng gave a good account of himself.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CZpTJn1rrLA/

Singapore connection

However, fans may not be aware that Ng has a familial connection to Singapore.

His paternal grandfather James was born in Singapore and later settled in the city of Liverpool in the UK, according to TNP.

This means that if he chooses, Ng could play for Singapore, although he would need to apply for citizenship.

Ng himself was born in Liverpool. He joined the youth academy of lower-league team Crewe Alexandria, and recently secured a move to Cardiff.

Cardiff itself has another connection to Southeast Asia. Notice the "Malaysia Berjaya" words on their shirts?

Translating to "Malaysia succeeds", this might be due to Cardiff's owner, the wealthy Malaysian businessman Vincent Tan, who is a non-executive chairman of Berjaya Corp.

What's in a name?

Despite these Asian connections, Ng's surname stumped at least one British football commentator.

Fans tuning into the Feb. 6 match noticed that Sam Matterface, who works for ITV Sport, was mispronouncing Ng's name.

@ITVSport Shocking pronunciation of Perry Ng there. Representation matters. 😭

— Hieu Chi Tuong 蔣志孝 (@HieuChiTuong) February 6, 2022

Can someone check the pronunciation on Perry Ng’s surname? I’m absolutely not having that MATTERFACE pronunciation, ‘enGEE’. Surely it’s ‘Uhng’

— tom (@tjrin21) February 6, 2022

Instead, he was saying "Perry En-Gee", presumably assuming that Ng's surname were initials.

My commentators clearly haven’t lived around many East Asian people… absolutely destroying Perry Ng’s surname 🤣

“En-Gee!” Ffs

— Couch Nish (@CouchNish) February 6, 2022

This apparently isn't a new thing. A Wales Online article published when Ng was signed claimed that his name has "always" been pronounced like "En Gee", since he was a kid.

Despite the mix-up, Ng had a day to remember.

When Perry Ng was captain of #CreweAlex he used to get the same train down for games from South Liverpool to Crewe as us and we’d always see him at the station. I’m made up he’s got the chance to play at #LFC today for #Bluebirds pic.twitter.com/dLtizX9r0g

— Tim Robinson (@SmokeyTimRobbo) February 6, 2022

And if he ever does decide to play for Singapore, he can be assured that fans here will know how to pronounce his name.

Top image from Perry Ng's Instagram page and Trequartbeasta Twitter.

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