This report is kinda late , the net connection was down for a couple of days.
Italy -Spain : It was a rather boring match. I don’t agree with all this talk of ‘the deserving team won’ though. Spain did have lion’s share of possession , but most of it was in their own half and in midfield. They didn’t really create any chances . All their ‘chances’ were long range shots which never came close to troubling Buffon. Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad that Spain won , but that’s because they play a better , more entertaining game . Italy screwed their chances of winning by getting on Del Piero so late into the match. The idea of giving Di Natale the crucial fourth penalty was also a huge a mistake.
Germany – Turkey : It’s really sad that Germany won. Turkey totally dominated the game. They ahd a better game plan , better passing , better movement and overall very good teamwork. HItting the post twice and getting 11 shots on target even when playing a grossly understrength team losing is really sad.
Spain- Russia: I expected this one to be great match , but i was very disappointed . It was Spain all the way. The Russia that had terrorised Holland were nowhere to be seen . They just couldn’t make their way forward and Spain completely controlled the game. It turned out to be one way traffic which was very boring considering it was the semi of Euro.
My 46 day trip has finally come to an end. Though this was probably a bad time for me to come on such a long holiday with placements , gre around the corner and the CAT drawing nearer by the day , I have no regrets with coming here.
By freak chance all the family members I met here , I had already met in the last year. My two aunts had come just last June , my cousins had come for another cousins wedding and a few cousins had just randomly showed up in India with the odd one staying back for six months. So for me , it wasn’t really a big deal to meet my family . What was big deal was to spend time with them in their comfort zone. It felt nice to undergo the role reversal of me being the person adjusting to the roads , food , water , people etc etc and them being the ones totally at ease.
Other than the huge disapointment of the cancelled RUSH concert , I don’t think I have any complaints about my trip . While I’m quite sure I’d never want to settle down in the US , I’d love to come back for a visit to see more places and have some more fun.
So now Ronaldo has practically stated he would like to leave Man Utd. A few thoughts:
1. Man Utd has made Ronaldo what he is , NOT the other way around. Man Utd stood by him and kicked out their best striker in years to keep Ronaldo. Man Utd stood by him when the rest of England booed his every touch on the ball. Man Utd gave him his superstardom and honed his talent. And now he wants to leave.
2. Another point I’d like to bring out . Quoting from Ronaldo’s recent interview: ”For me it is a great opportunity and, as Scolari says, that train passes by only once and we have to take advantage of it”. In case people haven’t noticed , Scolari is now the coach of Chelsea. It’s sad Ronaldo is so stupid that he can’t see the obvious motives of Scolari to drive him out of Man Utd .
3. In case Ronaldo refuses to play for United , I feel we should either make him rot ( I wouldn’t feel bad about loosing the talent of Ronaldo forever) or make a great deal with Madrid. However big an asshole he might be for wanting to leave United , the fact remains that he is great player and Madrid will definately be a tough team to beat with him in their current squad. Man Utd beibng the richest club in the world does not really need the 75mil pounds , we need players worth 75 mil pounds. I would say ask for Madrid’s best players who could replace the United old guard. My offer to Madrid would be Casillas , Sneijder/Robben and Ramos for Ronaldo.
4. One last slightly unrelated point. What Real are doing right now is tapping up a player in the middle of his contract. What Man Utd did with Hargreaves was make bids , which were repeatedly rejected. It is not the same thing. So all you people out there saying “What goes around , comes around” should just stuff it!
Going into this match my pre match prediction was Holland to win , not comfortably , but just nick it. But looking at the dutch team : no Robben , no Huntelaar , no Heitinga and Engelaar , De Jong and Kuyt in the starting lineup , i changed that to ‘could go either way , extra time for sure’
As I have stated before , I like Hiddink sides. They dominated right from the beginning. They played brilliant football. It was a treat to watch . The quick passing , the pace of attack , the long range shots , the number of players going forward was right out of a textbook of good football. The dutch totally lacked creativity in midfield. Engelaar and De Jong did absolutely nothing. Kuyt had no idea what position he was playing at. Sneijder was practically invisible. The dutch had trouble just keeping the ball , let alone moving it forward.
The only time the dutch threatened was on the set pieces for this was the only time the Russians let down their guard. While Hiddink made judicious use of his substitutions , van Basten rushed into them. Van Persie for Kuyt was a good move as was the removal of Engelaar but not using a player of the talent of Arjen Robben was alost a crime. Also Mathisen should not have even started. Boulharouz was playing well in the right back position. He should have started with Heitinga. When you are being totally outplayed is not the time to bring on a defender. The fact is van Basten made no use of his enviable bench of Robben , Huntelaar and Venegoor and lost a tactical battle in addition to that. The dutch people know exactly who to blame for this defeat.
The entire Russian team played well. Pavlyuchenko and Arshavin especially made their mark. I hope some big club signs them. This is a team with real talent . Maybe I’m going overboard. The actual credit should go to Guss Hiddink , whose legend grows with every tournament. His ability to bring the best out of his players is unbelievable . With every tournament he shows that teams win games , not stars.
..that it’s the third quarter final of Euro and this is my first post about the tournament. I have to admit part of it was lazyness but mostly the blame lies with the horrible coverage football gets here in America. Watching today’s awesome match was a pain . Two idiotic commentators who don’t know shit about the game , insist on mispronouncing names , and jabber on about forthcoming TV shows on the channel (abc for todays match. I mean … van Nistelrooy almost scored and these guys were giving deatils about ”I survived a Japanese game show”) while the match is going on. Also there was no halftime show. There was just 20 minutes of commercials. The commercials flashing on screen while the match was going on thus blocking my view of the action on the field was extremely irritating.
These network people are so used to the excessive commercialism that small, insignificant sports like baseball , basketball and American football need to stay afloat that they thrust the same crap onto football not realising that the beautiful game is far bigger than anything else in the world of sports.
On the bright side , I’ll be in India for the semis and the Final . Back to John Dykes and co. Back to some real coverage.
My one day in Atlanta before we left for Orlando was spent in telling everyone about my awesome California trip and packing for the Orlando trip.
I’ll cut through all the boring bits and get straight to my time in Orlando. We were there for three days.
On the first day , we went to the Epcot centre. There we went on quite a few simulation rides . Most of them them were quite good. I particularly enjoyed the Automobile testing ride and the Space launch simulation. They have these World pavilions at the Epcot , and we went through most of the countries. It was very realistic and very well designed. My favourite part of the epcot centre was the Fireworks at the end . They were simply mindblowing. I have never seen such an amazing fireworks display.
Since we were all dead tired , we decided to do something light-weight the next day. We went to the Kennedy Space Centre (which is about 1/50th the size of Epcot and involves less walking) and took the bus tour. Sadly we missed the Discovery landing. The day was spent indulging in primarily geeky pursuits and eating salted pretzels.
We aad saved the best for the last day and went to see Universal Studious and Islands of Adventure on our last day. we first went to Islands of adventure. I went on a rollercoaster ride called The Hulk . It wasn’t scary at all. I felt looking at the ride was more scary than actually going on it. Also I was really pissed with having to wait 40 minutes for the ride when the actual ride lasted just about 3 minutes. We also went on a simulated ride about Spiderman , a water ride about Popeye . Then we had lunch and went to Universal studios. There I missed two concerts due to the rain . D’oh! But then we went for a ‘disaster movie’ themed ride . It was really funny. The highlight of the day was the newly opened Simpsons Ride . It was awesome. It was very well done and funny at the same time.
There are a lot of ‘for the first time’ s in this post .
The next day I had greek food for the first time. It was really good. That night i tried my first martini. The next day we left for denver to see Rush in concert at Red Rocks. But it apparently rained very heavily the night before due to which the gig was canceled. I spent most of the day sulking. What sucked the most was the fact that it was a beautiful night …ideal for a concert. We had a flight going back to san Francisco the next afternoon , so the morning was spent in driving through the rockies. It was very beautiful . I also saw snow for the first time. That was kinda cool (Pun not intended).
We spent friday in San Francisco and had dinner in an Italian restaturant. The next morning we went to Fisherman’s wharf (IIRC) and had a great breakfast. Then we drove back to LA. Spent the night in LA and left the enxt day for San Diego. Spent Sunday in San Diego and left from there on Monday morning to come back to Atlanta.
So in the past 20 days I saw San Diego , Escondido , LA , Malibu , Sacramento , Oakland , Berkeley , San Francisco , Sunnyvale , Marin , Sausalito , Denver and the Rockies. I saw in 20 days what most americans living here their entire lives haven’t seen. It was , to say the least , a memorable trip.
I feel so lucky to have such awesome sisters , aunt and uncle who made this trip possible. I don’t think anyone else could have shown me a better time in California.
On monday we went ..(people who know me well should probably brace themselves at this point )…hiking . We went to the Redwood Forests to mainly see the Sequioa trees which are the tallest living creatures in the world. They had all these trails to offer. We chose the ‘Ocean View’ trail. It took us all the way upto the highway. The view of the ocean as well of the entire forest was breathtaking. We then came down and went on another hillside trail . It was quite interesting.
Then we had lunch …uh.. actually breakfast at 4pm on a roadside diner literally next to the water. Then we went up the hills in Marin to get a good view of the Golden Gate bridge. It is really awesome. We could see Alcatraz in the background which was kinda cool. Two world famous monuments in the same frame.
Since we exerted so much on monday , we just slept in today. I got up at quarter to one o’clock in the afternoon. We then saw ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ which I thought was a good , funny film. There were only 8 people in the theater (including us)! How the hell do these films make money ?
We had some really good mexican food for dinner and now we’re at home. So for now : That’s all , folks!
