Italy - Scotland 2 - 1

Gah. This is why I love watching football matches! The kancheongness of it. The unpredictability of it. The fans who go wild with support for their own team and jeers for the opposing team. The atmosphere of any high profile match as it's watched live on the tv. The sheer skill and yengness of each maneuver being performed on the field by such players of top quality yengness. The freaking good team play, the freaking good chemistry between team members as they carry out their game plan strategy flawlessly evading any incoming tackle from the opposing team. Phwoar, can die happy.

Football matches are inspirational. They make me want to play futsal. Ditto last year World Cup and abandoned futsal playing plans. They make me wanna strive to be skilled enough to manipulate a round ball (As Siok Ling says, the balls are around) with my foot and be able to dribble it across the field, passing to my team mates or kicking in a goal and score!!

Shit. Too cool. Too cool. Cannot.

Anyway, that being said, four of us went into Todd's Bar and stood for maybe an hour plus with our head aimed up at the tv high up on the wall of the bar, rowdy Scotsmen around us precariously balancing golden liquids in hand, free half-time mince pie apparently but we didn't get our hands on any. Oh, also free pint of Carlings if Scotland won. Lol.

So, Siok Ling tells me Scotland is good and I watched them, and I wouldn't say any different. They are good. They're very very aggressive. Their main play is attack and Italy has very good defense but the Scots team still managed to score a goal in there and nearly frightened the Italians with shots on target many many times. There was even one corner kick the Scots were taking, the ball was inches away from flying across the white line of the goal when this Italian player out of nowhere enters the picture and headers the ball away. Freaking good defense there wey, crazy! You just gotta laugh at football matches sometimes.

As for unpredictability... a goal by Italy barely 2 minutes into the game? Crazy. We were just walking back from the Union when Siok Ling got an sms on her phone with the score. Wtf. We haven't even set eyes on the match yet and they've scored a goal! Then the Scots worked hard to equalize and equalize they did maybe 20min into the second half. Then the game got boring with both sides struggling to score another goal while both of them couldn't help but waste time pushing each other down, diving, whateveryoumightwannacallit-s and Khai Yong left to 'cook dinner' even though his housemates not home. Lol. The referee kept having to blow the whistle, interrupting the play so it was not until extra time that the Italians managed to score a goal from a free kick the first minute of extra time.

And wow. The response from the crowd was a first for me. Silence. Absolute silence. I looked around. I stared at the screen. Did that just happen? The goal? Did Italy just score a goal or what? Why everyone so quiet? They were shocked, stunned, stoned, dunno what to say, extremely the very disappointed? I dunno. But it took me a little while more of staring at the screen and at the replay and the delighted screams and runnings of joy of the Italian players for me to actually register that another goal had been scored. And then it hit home that the people around me, their team wasn't gonna make it to Euro 2008 despite hosting the qualifying rounds. D=

I damn kesian the Scottish goalkeeper. His face was prolly the saddest one in Hampden Park stadium after Italy's second goal. I felt his pain, his anguish that his team wasn't going to make it to the EuroCup. Oh the hurt, the agony. It's not your fault pretty little Craig Gordon.

Hot, no?

Anyway, remember we wanted to be football pundits? Lol. So inspiring this game.

The Italians won

And Zidane headbutted one of them. Haha. Funny.

Trivia: Did you know Zinedine Zidane is Muslim?

Righto.

Portugal vs France

Maybe Khai Yong was right. I think Cristiano likes to dive. And a lot of the other Portugese team players. And Aditya Sem1 reckons Scolari is a cheat. Opinions opinions.

Does not change the fact that Deco is very very good-looking.

4 girls sat at the best seat at the lounge for the match early this morning. They slept through the second half. What a waste of good lounge seats. If you're gonna sleep on the good couch during football, might as well not come at all. Sheesh.

Just one more match to go. Tis the finals : Italy vs France.

Ning must be jumping off her seats. Like every second of everyday.

During the 3rd-place playoffs and the finals of World Cup 2004, my brother was not as excited as I thought he should be (him being the football fan and all). He said the World Cup was only exciting during the earlier stages where everyone was struggling to stay in the tournament and not get kicked out (knockout stages) and now that it's already the semis and finals, it's less exciting cuz you already know who's gonna stay (all FOUR teams).

I didn't really get what he meant at the time. Prolly cuz I didn't really watch much football at the time. But it damn well makes a lotta sense right now. Four teams in the tourney right now. None can get kicked out. Noone's going home till after Sunday. A lil less excitement. You KNOW either Italy or France will win so no suspense. Hehe. Brother brother.

What more exciting things to do on this windy Thursday afternoon than to whip out your Biopharmacy book and start revising. Yee haa!

Never go Carrefour on a Sunday.

Yea yea. M'sure you've all heard the great kickout of favourites England and more importantly to me, Brazil in one dreadful night. Just when the bookies and gamblers alike thought it couldn't get any worse than this, that they couldn't possibly lose any money betting on Brazil in the Brazil-France match, BOOMP! they get one more shocker to end the night. Bwahahaha!! Never bet on footie, men.

My condolences to Ee Lynn who's an undying supporter of the Samba Boys. Guess it's not their year.

Wonder in France will meet Germany in the finals. Haha. You never know.

My predictions came out wrong of course. I have to eat corn for 5 days. Sponsors, anyone?

New Predictions:
Semi-finals:
Germany vs Italy: Germany
France vs Portugal: Oh man, I really don't know now. I thought I had it but I don't. Sorry no predictions for this one. France seems freaking lucky tho. Oh what the heck. France

Finals:
Germany vs France: Germany Just because they've got home ground advantage. Kekekeke.

Oh yah. I almost forgot. My Kodak moment.

The England fans after Cristiano Ronaldo scored the winning penalty against England. =P Look at the disappointment, the shock, the awe on their faces as they can't believe what just happened! Did England just lose to Portugal they ask the person beside them. Did that just happen? Yea it did actually. Oh. *blank pause *blank face I dunno what to say. It hasn't registered in their still faces in their minds. In their minds, England can't lose to Portugal so when that happens you get a Kodak moment. I just happened to be there to catch it.

Oh and by the door, they had a wall of England fans all hyped up for the penalty shoot outs, shouting and screaming. After it was over, the lounge still had the same people. Just that they were all speechless and really really silent. Bwahahahhaa!!

I love football matches that never turn out the way other people want them to.

Okay. I'm bored just staring at this page.

Gene Hackman or Scolari? Ahah....

Now you all must believe me.

Cherie agrees that Deco is good-looking. Even more than Kaka. Haha. I don't care what she tells you!

Since you guys have been begging me for it, I shall put up my predictions for the quarter and semifinals.

Quarterfinals:
Germany vs Argentina : Germany
Italy vs Ukraine: Italy
England vs Portugal: England
Brazil vs France: Brazil

Semifinals:
Germany vs Italy: Germany
England vs Brazil: Brazil

For 3rd and 4th placing: Italy vs England: England

Finals: Germany vs Brazil: ????

Will this be a rerun of the finals of 2002??? Stay tuned for more!!!

Or you could just start watching the matches from now on. There aren't much left. Only 8 matches. Shit... I don't know what I'll do once the World Cup is over. How will I spend my late nights? Oh no!

Anyhoo, now that we're in the quarterfinals, the World Cup is no more a bag of fun and games which you can reach into and pull out whoever wins and laugh and smile about it then put it back in the bag just like how the group stages were. No man. This is real now. The World Cup is no more fun and games. We all gotta get serious. Not scoring a goal? That's it. You're out! Scary stuff. Look at what happened to Spain. And with England. That's proof that while football skills may be fun to look at, they're nothing without a whole truckload of luck and some pizazz to spike things up a lils.

Enough with the slangs.

Other things that annoy me to no end:
1) Bimbotic people in the student lounge who wear makeup at 3am, go to the lounge and pretend they're watching Spain cuz of their good gameplay and not because of Fernando Torres. Right.

2) When said bimbotic people hog the controller and watch MTV and Channel V and Channel 16 and The O.C. during half-time so other people don't have the privilege of watching the highlights of the first half but instead have to suffer insufferable music from MTV and Channel V. Wtf. If you came for football, stick to bloody Channel 83 and don't change unless someone's bombing the White House on CNN. And even so, we still want you to change back at least 5mins before second half (and at least 15mins before the first half so we get to see the lineups and upclose shots in the dressing rooms).

My my. I hope I won't encounter them again in the upcoming matches which are really important. It would really really spoil the mood to have people mess with your almost daily football match routine. Guess even the small things in life isn't all fine and dandy, chocolates and candy.

It's only a two day break till the quarterfinals and already I find myself lost and out of things to do to while away the hours before I start to get sleepy.

O football, football! Wherefore art thou, football?

Portugal v.s. Holland.

Oey. Don't get me started on the match wey. For you guys who missed it, think you just missed the most controversial match in this World Cup thus far.

It all started just super fine and dandy. Portugal were attacking really good and the Dutch just didn't have a chance. The former had a more systematic gameplay as compared to the latter. Then then then silly Dutchman Boulahrouz had to go give a flying kick on Christiano Ronaldo's upper right thigh causing him grave injury. Ronaldo tried playing for say another 10mins before he accepted that he could not go on playing in this match with an injured thigh. He was taken off the field in tears. Sat in the benches with his teammates trying to console him. It was touching the few seconds of tv airtime it got.

Then it gets really depressing.

Sure Maniche scored. If that didn't happen, the match prolly would've taken a turn for the worst. This silly Costinha Portugese player got yellow carded twice getting him a red card so he got sent off the field leaving Portugal with only 10 men. WTF. Nvm. Portugal persevered. The Dutch didn't know how to penetrate this defence and one man down wasn't gonna affect Portugal's game very much.

Tensions rose when the Portugese captain Luis Figo headbutted another Dutch player. Like wtf. He got yellow carded. Bloody lucky his ass is. Later, Figo's face got elbowed by one Dutch player. Tensions skyrocketed. The Dutchman was seen to have slapped Simao's face. Another Dutchman was found roughly pushing off a Portugese player who was caught pinching the arm of a fallen Dutchman. The dude got yellow carded.

The Dutch now had the ball. It's tradition that in cases like this, the Dutch players should give the ball back to the Portugese since the Portugese had an injured man (Figo) but no, they did not. Prolly cuz they were too desperate that they were losing. So the Portugese didn't like it eh. When the same thing happened again, this time with the Portugese having to give the ball back, they didn't. Haha. Deco even stopped, picked up the ball and tried to push Cocu away, lost the ball and got pushed down by Cocu himself. Funny thing was that Deco was yellow carded again and sent off but Cocu went scott-free.

Haih. 12 yellow cards and 4 red ones later, the match was over and Portugal walked away safely with 1-0 goal in the bad. The Dutch packed their bags for home and Maniche who scored was made Man of the Match, woohoo, big surprise. Terrible sportsmanship. Portugal suffered bad the last 15mins cuz they had so little midfielders to control the ball. They were defending like mad from that point on and I have to say they played far better than the Dutch. The Dutch had 20 shots (11 off-target) and Portugal had only 10 (only 4 off-target).

Terrible sportmanship. The players from both teams were getting hot-headed and physical. This isn't what good football is about guys. C'mon. It's the World Cup. Play like the professionals you were meant to be. Don't play as you would in your school backyard on a hot, temperamental Monday afternoon. C'mon!

So... Costinha and more importantly DECO will be missing the next match against England. England sure win this one. If they don't, I'll eat corn for the next 5 days or so. We can't be sure whether Ronaldo's injury will cause him to miss this next match too. I really really kesian him wey. I wanted to watch this match specifically to see Deco's and Ronaldo's gameplay but nooooo, things had to turn out this way.

Football is super super unpredictable I don't care if you tell me otherwise.

Oh and Boulahrouz, the Dutch player who cause Ronaldo's injury got sent off with two yellow cards during the 2nd half. Hah. Good. But still. Ronaldo might not be fit to play for the next match.

I'll emphasise again that I really don't like the way this game went. That's not soccer! That's a bunch of hooligans on a grassy field!!! WTF!

Argentina almost gave me a heart attack!

When Mexico threatened to kick them out of the World Cup just now by blocking the Argentine team where they mainly attacked from - the middle.

That's what people all around you are gonna say when they give you their analysis of the Argentina - Mexico match. =P

If only Argentina was flexible and could change their strategy during the game, they could've stopped trying to break through the middle and go for the sides or something. Saw the goal Rodriguez shot in during the extra time of stoppage time? Perfect. Superb crossing by Sorin from the left side all the way to the right side of the field to Rodriguez who bounced it off his chest and immediately kicked one which flew right past the keeper's hands. Wonderful goal. It's things like these that make football so worth the 2hrs you spend watching it.

But back to Argentine's attacking... Mexico knew Argentina's strength was in their middle penetrations and they stopped it. With that spot-on defence, Argentina couldn't even get a shot at the goal!! There's like some Great Wall of Holmes in the middle there. Everytime the Argentines reached the middle of the Mexican field, they were stopped like some GREAT WALL. Boomph!

They played well, the Mexicans. Had a bloody good chance to kick Argentina out of the World Cup. They did. I was so worried all through the second half till the last minute of the second 15minute half of extra time of stoppage time. Lucky didn't go into penalty kicks. Sure panic like mad.

Adrenaline still pumping thru me veins. Will be awhile before I feel remotely sleepy.

I'm sorry I blog so much about the World Cup.

You guys are boring.

I shall be the only one who blogs regularly from now on.

Oh no! But all I blog about is the World Cup and that's prolly considered by you guys as boring (with the exception of Ee Lynn) so now I'm a hypocrite AND a boring person like YOU GUYS!!! *gasp*

But I shall stand strong by my desired choice of blog topics no matter how boring they are just like how Cherie stands strong by her posts of personality quiz results. That's what blogs are for.

Buthenagain.... If my blog topics bore you guys not un-mercilessly (ha! get thru THAT triple negative!!) then you prolly wouldn't come here to read my blog posts anymore!!! *double gaspses*

Think.... Nah... You guys will still come here anyway. Even if all I blogged about was how I get up every morning, wash up, dress up, comb hair, walk to class, sit down, listen to lecture, etc all by the minute.

K, nah, that'll prolly put you guys off. Haha.

This quote makes sense to me now: "The beauty of a blog is to have people reading it." If noone reads my blog, why the eff would I continue??

Actually I would. Just to spite that quote. Anyway, there's always a glitter of hope that someone might still wanna read it. Just like there's a glitter of hope that Ghana might beat Brazil in the knockouts. Hahahaha!!

Julian is off to his undang lecture tomoro. The 5hr crap they made us sit through. I got a funny Malay man lecturer tho. That kinda helped. Hope he does too. Then maybe he'll pass really soon and get a driver's license really soon and take me out really soon like he's promised to do a looonnggg time ago. Hehehehhehehe.

I have decided to support Argentina if they do meet Germany in the quarterfinals. This is because I think Germany might win that match. They have home advantage. And it'll be damn malu if the hosts got kicked out that early in the tournament. So by the Laws of the Prevention of Extreme International Humiliation, Germany should win that match should it get to that.

The Today paper says a Master Chin (a renowned fortuneteller) predicts that Germany will meet Brazil in the finals. And is it just me or did Brazil end up in the easier side of the knockouts? They'll only have to meet Ghana, Spain or France up till the semifinals in which I predict they will meet England (England being one of the most annoying teams). Haha. Have a look for yourself!

Click for a larger version. Or go here for an updated bracket. But you see my point. Silly lil English people. =P

K. I've bored myself to no end writing this post. Haha. Isn't that funny. Most people blog to get rid of their boredom but when I blog, I get bored. Haha. Funniness. Omg, I must be on television right now. Maybe when me and Lynn get our book published, then we'll get some media coverage, we'll appear on tv. Don't worry. I won't forget the people who inspired me thus far (that means YOU!) and will prolly give you guys a shoutout or two. No losing my head over a minor success such as a MILLION DOLLAR BOOK PUBLISHING CONTRACTTT!!! Ownage.

No I just felt like saying that.

Leah will be around in 10mins. Going over to watch Argentina pwn Mexico's ass.

No, that was mean of me. Go for the win, Mexico. But I still support Argentina, holmes!

Is holmes a Mexican slangword?

Togo v.s. France

A few things I find extremely annoying:

1) Leaky trash bags.
2) Trying to watch the 3am match on my very very blur television. Surely this is not fair. It looks as if there are 44 people on the field and the grass is an ugly pale shade of green. How to enjoy the match eh, you tell me? Risk going lounge alone? I think not. Risk going Jessy's or Leah's or even Ning's place (tho she's in Klang now) alone (not even sure whether the former two are watching the match or not)? Too much trouble.

I shall rant and grunt and complain to myself in every possible way of how I deserve better tv reception than this while I strain my eyes to find the ball on the field for the next 75mins.

At times like these, a very fitting quote comes to mind. Remember Marvin on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "Life... Don't talk to me about life."

Quote

From the Trinidad and Tobago coach, Leo Beenhakker:

"Did we get here by a miracle? No, by aeroplane."

England played well...

Against Sweden. Too bad their defence failed them twice. Boo.

Germany for the WIN!!

There are new computers in the library E-Labs. The next time you guys are here, you better check them out. And if we wanted to make some extra money, we could bribe the librarians to let us make this into a cybercafe. All the comps are new. So cool. My hands feel loved typing on this flat high-tech looking keyboard right here. The screens are flat! C'mon! Bribe the security guards too so our customers can come in in the wee hours of the night. Point Xtreme will go broke*. And everyone in Vista will have after-hours activities.

*figure of speech

As for food, we can set up stalls outside the E-Lab or smth. Hmmmm, screw the smells tho. Haha.

Oh yah. Eh. Nvm.

Argentina FTW!!

Christiano Ronaldo is so sexy. =P

Football Sighness

It's bad enough that Czech Republic lost 2-0 to Ghana, now Italy has to go and draw with USA 1-1. Bloody hell. What's more depressing is that USA's goal was an own goal by Zaccardo. This is a bad night for football. Perhaps the only consolation is that Portugal beat Iran 2-0. Christiano Ronaldo is so good-looking. Haha.

Anything can happen in football man. It's so unpredictable. Next time I root for a team, I'm making sure I don't automatically assume they'll win flat or own the game or that it'll be a one-sided game.

Sighness.