Archive for Sport

Rugby World Cup 2011: All Blacks and the Kiwis

September 8, 2011 at 3:45 PM · Filed under Sport ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

All Blacks at the official welcome ceremony for the Rugby World Cup in Auckland.

Being in New Zealand for the Rugby World Cup wasn’t particularly my plan last year, but boy am I glad I stayed. Tomorrow, in less than 19 hours, the first game of the 2011 Rugby World Cup will kick-off at Eden Park in Auckland.

Right now, it’s just after midnight and Queen Street, Auckland’s main street, is buzzing with activity. Flags of all nations adorn every shop, car, lamp-post and person.

The World Cup celebrations start at 3pm tomorrow with free concerts, performances and fireworks to mark the start of this historic event.

After the Opening Ceremony, chances are you’ll see thousands of people with silver ferns painted across their cheeks watching the live telecast of New Zealand v Tonga with bated breath.

It has often been mentioned by the various media that the Rugby World Cup is the third largest sporting event in the world, but for rugby novice like me the trivia sounds trivial till I saw the emotion for the sport on the street.

I have been lucky to be in the country long enough to make friends and watch their beloved sport with them. Over the weekend I saw a Rugby League match between NZ Warriors and the New South Wales Cowboys from the comfort of a welcoming Kiwi home where proudly displayed on the piano was a picture of the All Blacks with the man of house cheekily Photoshopped in to be a part of the team.

People of this house got behind their team.

So imagine my surprise when every one of the 6 people in the room shouted out in disgust when one of the Warriors’ players body-checked a player from the other team.

I can’t really tell the difference between an overly physical rugby tackle and a normal rugby tackle. The entire sport seems overly physical to my football-tuned brain.  But my savvy rugby friends were appalled at the harsh treatment meted out to the player and more so because it turned out he used to be an ex-Warriors player. What made them livid was the way their player had treated a former teammate.

I am still trying to understand the game and am often left puzzled by it. But this reaction left my football- fuelled brain which has been numbed by ‘fan-thinking’ more puzzled than ever before.

Not give Wayne Rooney the stick when he goes to play at Everton or even Anfield?

How incredible.

This is when I got a rare insight into Kiwis’ relationship to Rugby and the All Blacks. The All Blacks are the country’s oldest franchise and probably their most recognisable brand the world over.  Every Kiwi loves one or the other form of Rugby and I’d put money on the fact that even those who claim to not care one bit about the game will say a little prayer if they think it’d help the All Blacks win.

But unlike the British obsession with football, Kiwis’ love of Rugby isn’t toxic. They see their team, as an extension of themselves and their country’s character and that is why it is unacceptable to them when one of their Rugby players is unfairly harsh to a fellow player.

Their love for the game is well- known but that doesn’t make them lose sight of it being just a game – important but not more important than being the good guys and being human

They realise that rugby in the end is just a game and they don’t let their love for the game taint their love for their ideals. And because of this, the All Blacks are so much more than just a team and Rugby so much more than just a game.

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Andy Murray says no to pigging out

June 29, 2011 at 8:40 AM · Filed under Sport ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Andy Murray really is motivated to win the Wimbledon this year. He has reportedly resisted the urge to tuck into the massive delivery of tempting goodies that arrived at his door last week.

The Scot was surprised to get a delivery of 30 Percy Pigs from Marks & Spencer after his mum mentioned she often bought the sweets for her son.

Murray has in the past few years really become a lean, mean, tennis machine. He has been relying on his highly improved physical fitness to win matches from almost impossible positions.

At the 2008 Wimbledon and at last year’s French Open he came back from being two sets down to win in a dramatic fashion.

Murray says he is on a strict diet for the next 2 weeks and that the candy will just have to wait, reports the Sun.

“They’re just sitting in the house. I really like them but I’m being strict on my diet in the next couple of weeks, so I’ll wait until the tournament’s done.

“My girlfriend opened them last night and I had a bite out of one of them and that was it. But I have to try and resist the temptation for more.

The British No.1 who beat Richard Gasquet 7-6, 6-3, 6-2 plays Feliciano Lopez in the quarter-finals at SW19, today.

Surely, anyone who resists Percy Pigs (and looks like that) deserves a trophy.

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Tim Howard speak no Mexicana!

June 28, 2011 at 10:27 AM · Filed under Football, Sport ·Tagged , , , , , ,

Tim Howard is mad and you’d be forgiven for thinking it is because of USA’s incredible ability to snatch loss from the jaws of victory!

The USA were 2-0 up before they lost 4-2 but that is besides the point… for Tim Howard at least.

The US goalkeeper, who did a great impression of a fish out of water during the match, is absolutely livid about the Gold Cup post-match ceremony at the Rose Bowl being conducted in Spanish.

The final was played in front of a crowd of over 93,000 people, the vast majority of whom were Mexico supporters.

Howard felt his teammates were disrespected by the way the post-match formalities were conducted by arguably one of the most controversial football governing bodies (and we have a lot to choose from) – CONCACAF.

“CONCACAF should be ashamed of itself,” Howard said. “I think it was a f***ing disgrace that the entire post-match ceremony was in Spanish. You can bet your ass if we were in Mexico City it wouldn’t be all in English.”

Howard was seen gesturing angrily as the U.S. team left the field after receiving its runner-up medals, while team officials attempted to calm him down.

There are many things you may disagree with but Howard’s observation about CONCACAF not conducting the ceremony in English if the final was played in Mexico is spot on.

Because, just like in the predominantly Mexico supporting crowd in the Rose Bowl on Saturday night, people in Mexico speak in Spanish.

The faulty reasoning however, cannot be held against Howard. After all, the man isn’t even capable of coming up with an original rant and had to borrow Drogba’s ‘infamous’ lines to express himself.

PS: Watch the video and you’ll see that although most of the ceremony was in Spanish, the emcee, Fernando Fiore, did use English throughout, particularly when presenting the U.S. with the runners-up medals.

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Being Rafael Nadal

November 20, 2010 at 7:12 PM · Filed under Sport ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Rafael Nadal suffered an early pre-quarterfinals defeat at the Shanghai Open. Many top players would have been tempted to take a few days off from their hectic schedule before playing in the showcase Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London in November. Rafael Nadal however, decided to fly to India to inaugurate a tennis school set up by his foundation for underprivileged children in Andhra Pradesh.

But then Rafael Nadal has always been unlike anyone else. He wears capris and plays with his left-hand while being naturally right-handed. Even at the age of 15 when he won his first ATP title, ‘Rafa’ had bigger muscles and brighter clothes than anyone else. Charming and handsome, he stands out in any company. It is impossible not to notice him. But what really sets Rafael Nadal apart is his heart.

To succeed in the world of competitive sport is becoming more and more difficult. Never in the past has there been so much opportunity and help available to talented sportsmen. The sheer number of new entrants makes the competition tougher than it has ever been. The percentage difference in skills in the top 10 is so small, that it is impossible to guarantee continued success while the gazillions of dollars in sports makes losing painful in more ways than one. All this makes the job of being a successful athlete extremely stressful. What truly differentiates the ‘greats’ from the good of the game today is how they deal with adversity and with success. Who do they blame when they lose, how do they act when they win and what do they learn from it.

Till 2009, Rafael Nadal never really faced a major crisis is his career. Many will say winning makes being gracious very easy. However, if you win as much as Nadal does, you could easily become arrogant, bratty and obnoxious, everything he was taught, very early in life by his coach and uncle Tony, not to be. Uncle Tony taught little Rafa to take responsibility for his success as well as his failure. The story goes that once Rafael as a kid broke his racket after he lost a game. Uncle Tony talked to him and told him never to blame his failing on someone else and never ever to break a racket in anger again. And to this day, he never has.

From day one, ‘Uncle Tony’ was grooming his nephew to be one of the ‘greats’ of the game. And true to his training Rafa was quick to help Roger Federer cope with his remorse after he beat him in Melbourne in the Australian open. An inconsolable Roger could not stop crying and gasped, “God, it’s killing me”. Nadal was quick to remind him how good a player he is. He walked up to him, put his arm around him and said with compassion, “Remember you are a great champion and one of the best in history – and you will beat Pete Sampras’s 14 titles for sure.” Roger went on to do that and more. Here was an opportunity when a lesser person would have chosen to completely demolish an adversary but Rafael Nadal chose to edify him and build him up. It is this compassion that makes him so much more than just a good tennis player. That is the importance of being Rafael Nadal. A true role model.

When crisis struck, like it always does, Nadal had it worst than most. For a sports person the only thing worse than getting injured is getting injured when you are at the top of your game. That is exactly what happened to Rafa. In mid 2009, when he got hit by tendonitis in both his knees a lot of people believed that this was the end of the Spaniard. Not many knew that while he was recovering after his knee surgery, he was also coming to terms with his parents’ divorce. The final blow came when it became clear that he wasn’t fit enough to defend his Wimbledon title in 2009. It all seemed to be falling apart for the Majorcan.

Nadal could have become one of those players whose dazzling short careers are forever admired accompanied by a sigh and a rueful shake of the head. However, Rafael Nadal’s response was the stuff legends are made of. He got back in even better shape with a new, faster serve and is playing some of the best tennis of his career. But more importantly, he hasn’t let the challenges of last year, make him bitter or cynical. If anything, he has come back more grateful, more humble; something that shines through in his increased efforts in charity. The new 2010 version of Nadal is an even better human being than his last version. Dare I say, that someday, someone will probably catch up with him on his title count, but to match him as a person is where the real challenge lies.

It looks quite likely that he top off an extraordinary year with a win in the Barclays World Tour ATP Finals in London, where only the best 8 singles players and the best 8 doubles teams qualify to play. Vamos Rafa!

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Indian Media – The Sleeping Beauty at the Commonwealth Games

October 8, 2010 at 11:05 PM · Filed under Commonwealth Games 2010, Sport ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The opening ceremony of the Commonwealth games on October 3, seems to have been the game changer. From finding nothing right with the preparation for the Games the media now can find nothing wrong. The front pages of Indian newspapers and all the reporters and anchors of all the news channels are awash with happy, positive news about the Games. The broadcast media is ecstatic as each Indian win is reported by beaming  TV anchors grinning from ear to ear. They just can’t resist asking anyone who is willing to comment just how many medals they think India will win and whether they will end up hitting a new record in Gold medals.

The chaos, scandals and panic which formed the theme of the Commonwealth Games coverage till before the opening ceremony has been long forgotten. The opening ceremony which in my opinion was just about ordinary, has been built up as something of a super spectacular success.  So focused were they on the dazzling lights of the opening ceremony, that they forgot to report (thank God for the BBC!) on the damage to the field that was caused by the performers. True to form, the  Indian media has once again decided to go back to sleep after a 10-day burst of activity in the run-up to the Games.

It once again was left to the world media, to show the Indian media that there were problems that needed to addressed and reported.  The Telegraph and then the BBC and the Guardian let the world know how  a very high percentage of the English squad had been suffering from Delhi belly. That the Australian swimming team was also under the weather and that probably the practice swimming pool was contaminated. It probably needed to be checked. Mike Fennel finally intervened and that is around the time the Indian TV channels decided to run a  sorry little ticker story. It was only after everyone read somewhere else that the Indian print media actually ran a story.

Another news story that was doing the rounds all over the world and was mentioned in India only after it became impossible to ignore was about an accident involving Ugandan officials and how they were treated in the most inhuman manner. No Indian official offered to help them. They just stood there and looked at the poor Ugandans  disdainfully. It needed intervention and some arm twisting from the External Affairs Minister Krishna Kumar to get the Sports minister Gill to regret the ‘inconvenience’ caused to the Officials from Uganda. The Indian media chose to ignore the issue as they had better things like the India Medal’s Tally to report.

Yet another story that was deemed unimportant since our athletes were winning Gold medals was about the athletics fiasco about false starts and uneven running tracks at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium and the officials threatening to go on strike.

Judging from the coverage of the Indian media you would never relate empty stands, blocked lavatories, collapsing scoreboards, vomiting swimmers and striking officials to these Games.

The sad affair about a Welsh woman athlete being harassed in the Games Village was covered a little bit but then it is the kind of sensationalist story that the Indian media tends to enjoy covering. They have been very proactive in telling us exactly how many condoms are being used in the Athletes village on a day to day basis and how the numbers don’t match up to the the record set in Beijing!

The Indian media needs to realise that by not covering these stories, these terrible lapses in organization, they are in no way helping the country. They need to keep reminding people of how chaotic and miserable the games have been. Irrespective of how many medals India wins the Games have been a failure on many counts. Their responsible reporting will help bring the culprits to book. It is still possible to learn precious  lessons  from this fiasco if nothing else.

Empty stands, blocked lavatories, collapsing scoreboards, vomiting swimmers and striking officials

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Could the Indian media have averted the Commonwealth Games crisis?

October 8, 2010 at 10:55 AM · Filed under Commonwealth Games 2010, Sport ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

It didn’t seem like a big deal when Delhi came under severe flak a couple of weeks before the start of the 2010 commonwealth games as every nation, lucky enough to get an opportunity to host a big sporting event, usually draws some criticism in the run-up to the event. One thought it would blow off soon enough. But as the media found new holes in the preparations and its frenzy turned to fury it was realised that the story became murkier by the day. The media seemed to have suddenly dug up a scam that had been conducted undetected for more than half a decade and there in hangs the tale. The sordid tale that is trumpeted as a triumph but is actually a story of miserable failure and callous relegation of duty on the part of the media.

As the Indian media went ballistic in highlighting all that  was wrong with the preparation of Commonwealth games, the smug officials claimed to have everything under control. Every hour new stories about the squalid conditions began to be broadcast and printed in papers. We learnt that the Athlete’s Village was unsuitable for human habitation. Media was ecstatic in flashing pictures of dogs and snakes straying into the village to highlight the state of unpreparedness as the Indians began to panic. The outbreak of dengue and other diseases in the Indian capital city seemed to be the favourite topic for the journos.

The officials characteristically brushed aside the concerns of  the tribe with mikes and TV cameras (journalists is what they usually refer to themselves as) who with furrowed heads shot the same questions at them ad-nauseam . My point is why did the media wake up to the problem so late?  What were they doing for the seven years that India got for the preparation of the games? Was there no journalist- investigative or straight- who was tracking the development story for all these years?

To their credit the hype and hysteria (so typical of Indian media) created by the journos shook the PMO from its slumber. As the world media chipped in, some athletes and countries threatened to pull-out of the event. It was a national crisis.  The organisers were bailed out by the Indian government who called in the Indian Army to  build a bridge that had collapsed in just three days. The government also requisitioned help from other  government  departments to get the venues and the village  ready to receive the athletes.

The TV guys with their cameras and mikes and the newspapers reporters collectively felt triumphant and all smug in their success of  revealing just what a pack of clowns the organisers were. They felt they had done their job by India. And you can’t deny they did. Only it was five years too late.  Certainly a case of too much too late, which is perhaps worse than too little too late.

What the organisers did (or didn’t do) was bad but what was worst and most unusual was the fact that the Indian media was quite unaware of the Commonwealth Games till about 10 days before their commencement.  Why didn’t they  highlight the lapses in organisation and planning;  reveal the massive underlying corruption and get the Indian people involved 7,6 or even 5 years ago?  From the way they felt about India’s image being tarnished and had debates and discussions a couple of days before the opening of the games, it sure felt like it was an important issue worthy of their attention and coverage every single day from the day India was awarded the Games.

India prides itself on being the biggest democracy and the media definitely has a vital role to play in any democratic country. The Commonwealth Games might end up being called a great success depending on something as arbitrary as the number of gold medals India win but what has come across as one of India’s biggest failures is not just the corruption in our political system (we can fight that), but also the failure of Indian media. Indian media needs to get its priorities right and learn to be more professional in its approach if it wants to play a constructive role in helping India become the world power it dreams of becoming.

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Rafael Nadal: Yet Another Ace!

September 16, 2010 at 6:09 PM · Filed under Sport ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

The World Cup fever  it seems got me early this year. I didn’t quite realise how bad it had hit me, till I discovered a video by Shakira.  My fat head,( made fatter by lofty dreams of England returning home with the trophy) assumed that all Shakira was working on till World Cup was also football related. She however, made the video for her song ‘Gypsy’ and cast the newly crowned US Open Champion and World No. 1 Rafael Nadal in it as her lover. The song is a part of Shakira’s ‘She Wolf’ album and topped Billboard.com‘s weekly list of Top 10 videos.

“Shooting this video with Rafa was a great experience, he is very sweet and made it easy and fun,” said Shakira. “He and I have so much in common — starting out so young in our respective careers and traveling the world — I felt this would translate the spirit of the lyrics in the song and I was thrilled he wanted to be a part of it.”

“It has been a great experience and I had a lot of fun doing it. I had some time in between tournaments and preparation and could not miss this opportunity.”, said Nadal of his role in the video. “Shakira, as always, was spectacular. Working with a woman as charming as her, well, it makes it a lot easier to tell the truth. It was great, very easy, she’s really sweet and that always makes the hours go by faster.”

So if you are like me and love Rafael Nadal, music and Shakira and haven’t seen the video, blame it on Waka Waka, Vuvuzelas and the World Cup.

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5 Reasons Why England Crashed Out of the World Cup

June 28, 2010 at 6:56 PM · Filed under Sport, World Cup ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

England had everything going for them this World Cup. They had players available from the so-called  ’golden generation’ and a brand new manager who had a great resume and enough time to get England’s team ready to lift the 2010 World Cup. However, England crashed out of the World Cup last night after  losing 4-1 to a relatively inexperienced German side. This  4-1 defeat is England’s heaviest defeat at a World Cup after having outdone a 4-2 loss to Uruguay in 1954. So, I am going to try and figure out what went wrong for England and Fabio Capello?

1. Qualification

England’s qualification run saw them win 9 out of 10 matches with 34 goals scored and only 6 conceded. It filled everyone with great hope and when England beat Croatia who had ended our Euro dreams 9-2 over two games, we just couldn’t contain our optimism.I mean, after all we played Ukraine, Croatia, Andorra, Belarus and Kazakhstan and none of them are really major footballing powers.  If England couldn’t even win against them, how were we ever planning to win the World Cup?  I think our success in qualification matches deluded us and made us believe we were better than we actually were. The great defensive record against those nations was misguiding and made us put more faith in our defense than we should have. So, our problems began when we started glorifying a team for winning matches that we should have won anyway.

2. Fabio Capello’s Team Selection

Fabio Capello got the final 23 team selection completely wrong on three counts. Firstly, in true Italian fashion Capello went around constructing a squad made of very experienced players. Unfortunately, he confused age with experience which explains why Fabio picked 28-year-old Shaun Wright Phillips over the 21-year-old Theo Walcott, although Walcott already had the experience of being at a World Cup.

Secondly, Capello despite having announced very early on, that he would only select those players who had been playing and in good form for their clubs to South Africa, ended up selecting out of form star-players. He chose to take Emile Heskey who scored only 6 goals for his club in the last season over Sunderland’s Darren Bent who scored 24.  Similarly, he chose Matthe Upson who has had an indifferent season for West Ham over Michael Dawson who has been good for Tottenham Hotspur.

Thirdly, Capello took a massive risk in taking already injured players/player not a 100% fit with him. He named Gareth Barry who was struggling to get fit from an injury ahead of fit and in-form Tom Huddlestone and Scott Parker. Ledley King is another one of those players who is injury-prone and well, he got injured again. Capello’s decision to take Heskey was made even worst when he fell on Rio Ferdinand and injured the skipper. Rio Ferdinand himself was hardly available to Manchester United this season because of his injury troubles. So, Capello basically chose old, injured,out of form albeit experienced players for the World Cup in South Africa. Sometimes the only things experience is good for against pace, talent and freshness is tell you, you aren’t going to win this!  Unfortunately Capello like England managers of the past couldn’t put together an England team and ended up naming a collection of star players.

Fabio’s Idiosyncrasies

Fabio Capello came with the reputation of being a hard taskmaster and we all thought that was exactly what the spoilt English footballers needed. However, being a strict and opinionated doesn’t necessarily have to mean being dictatorial. Sometimes it seemed like Capello wanted to do what he wanted to do simply because he wanted to do it, without caring how it helped/hindered or affected his team.  He treated the footballers like children where his duty was to control and discipline them. Sometimes, even parents think a certain thing is good for their child but after a discussion with the child, realise they were wrong. The key word here being ‘discussion’, Fabio should have discussed with a his team a lot more, I think. For example, he felt that it was best if the goalkeepers didn’t know who was going to be playing more than 2 hours before a game but may be Robert Green, David James and Hart would have felt a lot more comfortable knowing. They probably would have liked to have more time to prepare mentally. Similarly, may be some of the players would have liked their families to be with them in South Africa, that probably was what how some of them needed to relaxed, especially when things hadn’t gone as well as they had hoped in the first 2 games.

Also, when John Terry and some other senior members of the team decided to talk to Fabio Capello about what they felt would be good for the team, Fabio, instead of getting his big ego in the way should have listened to the players suggestions. He may not have implemented them but he should have allowed them a fair hearing. John Terry was wrong in telling the media about it, however his intentions were good. Capello should not have reacted the way he did and should have been the bigger person and not made John Terry apologise for it. If Capello just stepped off his high pedestal and really worked with the team as a team player and not as unbearable boss, England would have had a better chance of qualifying.

Also, I think after Capello could have done to learn English wwhen he took up the job as England coach to communicate better with the team.

4) Team Selection and Tactics on the day

Despite all the above problems,England quite amazingly, still made it to the last 16. We would have beaten Germany and gone on to the quarter-finals too. However, once again, Capello got his team selection and tactics completely wrong. Serbia had already shown us how to beat Germany but we stuck to a 4-4-2 formation with Frank Lampard and Gareth Barry in the middle. Both of whom did not know whether they were supposed to attack or defend and Barry lacked the fitness and pace to get back from an attacking position to defend, leaving England with a hole in the middle.

The Germans on the other hand moved the ball ever so well and no one in the England squad really knew whether it was Milner or the full backs or Gerrard who were supposed to get back to defend. So time and again, we attacked the German goal unsuccessfully, didn’t know who was staying back to protect our goal and got caught on the counter by pacy Germans. What is even more ridiculous is that the Germany’s strategy to score against us was very obvious  in the first half but Fabio simply refused to learn from his mistakes and change.

In second half, Fabio could have packed the mid-field with 5 men, let Wayne Rooney to play where he plays best for Manchester United, up front and have other players support him. As the game went on, I felt Fabio Capello just gave up, he took off Jermaine Defoe and brought on Emile Heskey, as if, we needed yet another slow player on the pitch. I don’t know why Capello even bothered to take Peter Crouch with him to South Africa, when clearly, he had no intention of playing him. A lot has been said about England’s bad defending in the game against Germany and I have to agree we were rubbish but in defense of John Terry, he wasn’t playing where he plays best and the defense got absolutely no help from the midfield and were left badly exposed too often.

5) FIFA’s Silly Technology Phobia

The incredible thing about our match against Germany is, that despite getting everything wrong from the selection of players to our tactics and being 2 goals down, England still found the net through Matthew Upson and then Frank Lampard hit the goal post and the ball crossed the line but the referee didn’t see it. Had the referee not gotten that decision wrong, England would have equalised in the first half itself and gone into the half-time break with momentum on their side. Then probably, Fabio would have strengthened the defence and we might just have won this game. Unfortunately, Sepp Blatter and FIFA are strangely more scared of technology than they are of ridicule and this bad decision by the referee is sadly what proved to be the last punch that knocked us out of the World Cup 2010.

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World Cup Preview: Brazil vs. North Korea

June 15, 2010 at 5:25 PM · Filed under Football, Sport, World Cup ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

North Korea have to be the unluckiest team in this year’s world cup. They have qualified for the first time since 1966 only to draw favourites Brazil, Portugal and Ivory Coast in their Group G. No one expects North Korea to make it past the group stages and repeat  history they had created in 1966 when they had  beaten Italy to progress to the quarter-finals.  Unfortunately it seems this time North Korea might have to live up to  Karl Marx’s famous quote about History repeating itself the second time as farce. This match is the biggest possible mismatch in terms of the most recent FIFA rankings at the 2010 World Cup.

Brazil

Ranking: 1

Brazil, like they always are, are among the favourites to lift the World Cup 2010. They are the most successful nation in the history of the tournament having won it a record 5 times and the only one team to have played in every tournament. Brazil is managed by Carlos Dunga who has often been criticized for not playing ‘attractive’ football and had left many people stunned with his decision to leave Ronaldinho out of the Brazil World Cup squad. The pressure is on for Brazil who are expected not only to win the match against North Korea but also to win it in samba style with plenty of goals. This is Carlos Dunga’s first job as a manager but that shouldn’t bother the Brazilian as he has an enviable squad  made up of world-class players like Kaka, Luis Fabiano, Dani Alves, Maicon and the young skillful speedy Ramirez . Their goal keeper Julio Caesar who returns to goal after missing a friendly against Tanzania due to a back injury and is absolutely crucial to Brazil’s win. The only thing not in Brazil’s favor is that their mid-fielders Gilberto Silva and Felipe Melo aren’t in form and the uncreative ways of the  experienced Elano, who in all probability will be selected to start ahead of Ramirez.

North Korea

Ranking: 105

North Korea are managed by Kim Jong-hun, who has at his disposal Jong Tae-se who is dubbed as the Asian Wayne Rooney and AFC Young Player of the Year for 2007 Kim Kum-il, who is the only North Korean to ever win an Asian Football award. The manager did a great job with his team in qualifiers and will need to apply all his defenses to keep out the creative Brazilians. North Korea had named striker Myong-Won as a third choice goalkeeper, thus taking an additional striker but that tactic has backfired after  FIFA declared that the striker can only be used between the sticks. So that leaves North Korea with a lone-striker up front with five defenders and four across the midfield. They can trust their captain Hong Kong Jo to play a very physical tough tackling game.

The fact that the Brazilian realise that this would be their only somewhat easy match in the Group, doesn’t make things easier for North Korea either. Brazil will want to score as many goals as possible against the North Koreans and the same can be expected by all the other two teams in the group who will target North Korea to improve their chances should goal-difference come into play to decide this group’s first and second place. To say that it will be tough for North Korea would be an understatement but if they can put up any sort of battle against Brazil, it would do wonders for their reputation the world over. If nothing else the freezing cold weather in Johannesburg should work in North Korea’s favour a[part from the fact that they are an unknown quantity for the fancied Brazilians.

Manager Speak

“We have to congratulate the Asian teams, they have evolved tremendously over the years. They are no longer the weaker team. Sometimes we believe that a certain team is the best, but football does not lie. We have to respect our opponents and do everything in our grasp to win.” – Carlos Dunga, Brazilian manager.

“I am going to play to win. I know Brazil are one of the favourites for the title but the Korean mentality is very strong.” – Kin Jong Hun, North Korea manager.

Stars to Watch Out For

Brazil: Kaka, Júlio César, Luís Fabiano, Dani Alvez,

North Korea: Jong Tae-se, Kim Kum-il

Go Figure!

Min Jong-chol was North Korea’s joint-top scorer during qualifying, finding the net four times despite playing only two games.

This is North Korea’s first appearance in the World Cup for 44 years – the fourth-longest interval between World Cup participations

Brazil have won all 15 meetings with sides not from Europe or South America, keeping 13 clean sheets

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Tiger Woods to Make Historic Return at Augusta

March 17, 2010 at 7:26 PM · Filed under Sport ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Tiger Woods has many records to his name and now he is taking on Barack Obama. No, Tiger isn’t running for President but it is speculated that his return will be one of if not the biggest media spectacle since Obama’s inauguration. The world no.1 who hasn’t played competitively since November 15, when he won the Australian Masters in Melbournesaid, “The major championships have always been a special focus in my career and, as a professional, I think Augusta is where I need to be, even though it’s been a while since I last played.”

“I have undergone almost two months of in-patient therapy and I am continuing my treatment. Although I’m returning to competition, I still have a lot of work to do in my personal life.”

The 34-year old golfer crashed his car outside his Florida home only a fortnight after winning in Melbourne. The seemingly innocuous incident lead to unexpected revelations about his personal life and a break from golf. Tiger Woods emerged only in February to apologise for his actions after he had been forced underground by the media frenzy. It had been hinted that he could make a comeback in March in Florida at the Travistock Cup tournament or at the Arnold Palmer Invitational which starts on the 25th of March.

So it comes as a pleasant surprise for his fans that he will be at the year’s first major at Augusta. However, many feel that his decision to make a comeback at the Masters is because traditionally the Masters’ galleries are more polite than anywhere else and because the media and public access is restricted.  Tiger Woods is third in the all-time PGA Tour rankings in terms of career victories with 71 successes, only Sam Snead (83) and Jack Nicklaus (73) having done better than him.

Tiger Woods is not new to come-backs, he came back after his father’s death in 2002 and in 2008 he won the US Open at Torrey Pines while playing with a double stress fracture in his left shinbone.

The world’s fascination with this phenomenal golfer has always been very high and it has probably only increased after the revelations of his flaws.  So it’s inevitable that the run-up to the first major championship of the year will be dominated by questions about Tiger Woods. His competitors might find this  a tad annoying but his supporters couldn’t be happier.

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