Saturday, June 26, 2010

Surprise, Surprise

So, the third and final stage of group matches in the 2010 Jabulani infused FIFA World Cup comes to an end with surprising results. Teams like South Korea, Uruguay, Ghana, USA, Paraguay that have qualified for the knockout stage are teams that, in my novice opinion, considered not much of a threat for bigger teams. Two former world champions and finalists the last time, Italy and France have disastrously been booted out of the world cup and that too with drama! And it was a decent scoring second & third round with at least some goals to watch. Overall, after matches like Argentina-Greece, Portugal-North Korea, Slovakia-Italy, it’s been a good turn around for a slow starting world cup.

Have teams like France and Italy seen an early exit because their players have more loyalty or seriousness towards their clubs than their countries. I doubt it. France literally shot themselves in the foot by washing their dirty linen in public. As if the off-field coach-players-support staff spat wasn’t bad enough, their on-field performance was de-motivated, dejected and depressing! Surely they’ll have a lot to answer back home.

I feel more sympathy for the Italian setup because while watching their final game versus the Slovaks I really felt that the Italians did make a desperate attempt to overcome their opposing force. Both scored goals were fantastic and a third disallowed as an offside, on their lucky day, could have seen them through to the last sixteen. But maybe that’s how Karma strikes, considering the basis on which they went through to the quarter- finals in the 2006 FIFA World Cup after beating Australia on flimsy grounds for a penalty. Let’s hope they can regroup and come back stronger as a unit.

Which brings me to the talk of countries like Japan, South-Korea, Ghana, Paraguay, Chile, Ghana and the United States. Did they wonderfully make it through to the round of 16 because they take world cup football more passionately than the bigger, already established teams? I think so. The players from these countries usually play in domestic leagues being deprived of international recognition and not many from these countries have gone on to play in the more lucrative Spanish and English leagues. It’s the thirst for national pride, for recognition, for achievement which I think makes them go the extra mile on an international stage. And all of this without the burden of expectations!

This tournament has gotten fresh! Let’s hope the end result is also worth the wait!

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

The Super Summer Begins...

The heat is up and on. The world cup is underway and 32 teams have their sight on the World Cup trophy. As exciting as the prospect of this drooling world cup might have sounded in the past months the start of the world cup has been somewhat of a whimper. Why? Well, it’s been a low scoring affair (barring the Germany-Australia clash), the quality of football in terms of skill and flamboyance has been a bit lacklustre, and there have been too many draw results.

Teams like USA, North Korea and Switzerland, which were considered to be a bit inferior coming into the world cup have shown their metal against class oppositions. Biggies like England, Italy and Spain have massively failed to impress. However, I would hate to get ahead of myself as only the first round of matches have been played so far and who knows, the players and teams might just gel together and find their rhythm. Add to that the constant pestering of players and officials with issues such as the Vuvuzela and the Jabulani match ball have taken the focus away from the main attraction. The game itself. So lets wait and watch. Former world cups have never failed to impress and this one might turn around too!

But the FIFA world cup now is not the only thing on my mind these days. The Canadian Grand Prix just got over and it’s a Mclaren one-two again! If somebody had told me before the Turkish Grand Prix that such would be the scenario, I would have dismissed the idea. But the brilliant work of the Mclaren engineers combined with the aggressive driving of Hamilton and the smart driving of Button is proving to be a match winner. Not to mention that both these drivers are now at the top of the championship table.

One can expect the Red-Bull team to come back with a bang in Valencia, but something tells me that their unwanted collision mishap in Turkey is still playing somewhere around team Red-Bulls minds. But that’s just me. Far worse things have happened in F1 and teams have looked ahead to the future. The one thing that Red-Bull cannot ignore though is the fact that Mclaren have discovered the secret potion of winning in this season and Redbull have to pull up their socks.

Works wonderfully well though for a F1 lover like me who would love to see the championship go down to the wire!


Making it count!