lala's RED world

Chasing LFC in Singapore - 2 years on Part 2

2011-08-13T15:51:00.009+08:00

...'continued from previous post

We took quite a while to get a cab outside Bishan Stadium. We eventually got onto a cab which I had used my new iPhone app to book (stupid app required us to put in the address in a particular format, much to my irritation) about 5 minutes after we saw the team bus left.

The moment I got into the cab with Kenneth and the other two girls, I blurted out, breathlessly:

"Why are we doing this?"

Honami and Eileen laughed, apparently they had been asking themselves the same question.

I couldn't believe I was really doing this. I briefly recalled my SMS conversation with Honami the other day. She talked about how 2 years ago, she was 15 and very young and crazy. I told her how 2 years ago I was 23 but felt like 15, now 2 years later, I was 25 and felt like, well, 25.

But there I was, in a cab chasing some stars to their hotel, not what your typical 25-year-old teacher would do, right?

While we were in the cab, I looked through my iPhone Twitter feed. Insua and Charlie Adam were apparently tweeting while in the bus. I still don't really tweet, but I couldn't resist sending them a few tweets this time. Especially when Charlie Adam mentioned about how he had just finished the "training session in Malaysia". Dear me, he was either too tired or he really has no geographical sense at all. He must have been flooded with tweets on his mistake though, because shortly after he tweeted to apologise for his mistake.

When we reached MBS, the other three clearly knew their way around and we dashed through the building and headed straight for the bus bay. There was no one in sight for a while, and when I saw the bus approaching, I immediately waved them over. But all of a sudden, about 10 other fans appeared out of nowhere. While the first bus containing the staff stopped right in front of us, the second bus containing the players didn't. Honami waved her board at Dan Agger again (he did see us from the bus) but the bus parked at one corner which was cordoned off.

So despite us managing to reach the hotel before them, we didn't quite get to them after all. However, that wasn't the end. A few people came and talked to us, one of whom Kenneth said was the team's tour guide or something. Some dude who would bring them wherever they wanted to go I think. He recognised the others as having been there since morning so he gave us some LFC badges. Lol. Nice chap, really. Then we were told that they would be heading to the convention centre for their dinner at 8.30pm and would board the bus for the airport at 10pm.

We walked around MBS for a while, and at one point Christian Poulsen was seen walking out of a watch shop. By the time I tried to look though, he was already gone. While roaming around, we also ran into Farrah Nair, this really famous LFC fan. Haha, she's a more famous female fan than me! But here's ego-boosting moment number 2. Kenneth also knew her, and when I realised that she was Farrah, I was like, "You're my Facebook friend!" and of course, I told her how famous she was. To my surprise, she replied that she knew who I was too. So I guess that made me famous as well. Haha.

We went to the food court to buy our dinner, chicken rice takeaway. Bloody chicken rice was expensive - $6.80!!! And mind you, I thought my regular $2.50 chicken rice from downstairs tasted better.

We didn't quite know what to do/where to go, so we sat outside the convention hall area to have our dinner. After that, we continued lingering outside the expensive-watch-shops-area again. There, I thought of a few things, and I suppose I have this habit of spacing out and thinking of some funny things and I'll then start smiling/laughing to myself. Haha, I think they found it a little creepy, 'cause I'd be staring into space and then suddenly start smiling to myself. So anyway, I shared with Honami what I had been thinking of:

"I was telling myself, I will fall in love with the first LFC player I run into."

Yeah, so much was my desperation for to "run into" an LFC player. I didn't want to go all the way to MBS for nothing, man! But when Honami asked me what if it was a really awful fella, I pointed out that there weren't many awful fellas left in LFC anymore, probably except for Poulsen? And in any case, my favourite players usually left LFC, so... yeah.

Later, we found ourselves roaming near the bus bay area again. We saw a few LFC fans and when we went nearer, these MBS staff suddenly told us to "hurry and go over" if we wanted to see the LFC players before they left. We were ushered to the area where the team bus had previously parked (and was cordoned off). The staff had established a makeshift barrier instead to separate us from the players when they came out to board the bus. We couldn't quite believe this new turn of events, and I must really thank the MBS staff for this.

We were all hoping that the players would come out soon before more fans started to appear. If there weren't many fans around, there should be a high chance of us getting autographs/photographs. My digital camera's battery was flat, but Kenneth agreed to take the photos with me.

Upon seeing our Dan Agger boards, this female fan asked if she could stand with us because she wanted to hand Agger a letter. To be honest, I found her a little weird, but I let her stand on my left, while to my right were Kenneth and Honami and Eileen. Yup, we were sure that if Dan Agger saw the boards (again), he would definitely come over to us (actually Honami in particular). He would really have to be completely heartless not to give her an autograph/photograph after seeing how she had been chasing him the whole day!

Which reminds me, prior to that, Honami gave this memorable speech. She was saying how after 2 years of chasing Agger, she still had no memento to remind him by. She did not have his autograph, or a photograph with him. Her reason was:

"I don't expect anything from him. I just want to give him things and make him happy. He doesn't have to give me anything. As long as he's happy, I'm happy."

I simply couldn't believe it when she said that. I almost wanted to throttle her as I reminded her about how he was paid tens of thousands of pounds a week, and it wouldn't really hurt him to just sign an autograph for her. Silly girl, although yeah, if that speech was applied to a spouse or some other lucky bloke, it would have seemed been romantic.

So anyway, we really seemed to have waited for the players to come out for forever. The longer we waited, the more nervous I got. In the meantime, more fans joined us, but I think the crowd size probably only hit twenty or so.

The first two players who came out were Charlie Adam and Jonjo Shelvey. They immediately headed towards the fans and started signing every single thing thrusted at them. I managed to get them to sign my shirt (same shirt Garfield got signed 2 years ago) and when Kenneth asked them for photos, I just positioned myself in between them and smiled for the camera too. Later I realised the photos looked really weird, haha. I looked like the "extra" fella in all these photos, and yeah, sometimes I really was, because I don't think the players were even aware I was supposed to be in the photo as well... lol.

The marker that Kenneth lent me had a tip which was too fine, though. After seeing Brad Jones really struggle to sign on my shirt with that marker (it kept getting stuck in the small holes in the shirt, but bless him, he was really patient and tried his best to sign), I gave up asking the players for autographs. In any case I realised I had a few autographed jerseys at home which I had just stuffed in a paper bag and hardly took out (the prized one was the Kewell 7 jersey).

I just concentrated on getting the photos with Kenneth and there were two other interesting moments with Insua and Dan Agger. After Insua had taken photos with us, I suddenly called out after him, "I follow you on Twitter!" I think he was taken aback for a while and Kenneth continued, "Nice dinner you had!" Haha, you see, Insua had tweeted a picture of their dinner earlier. I think Insua was quite amused by that. Honami had her moment too. She asked Insua if he remembered her present (an eyebrow stud) from two years ago, and he said he did (from his expression, he looked like he remembered as well).

The encounter with Dan Agger was probably the one Honami would cherish the most though. After Agger took his pic with us, I pointed over to Honami on my right, and told him to go over "there" as she was "his biggest fan". As Agger was signing on her book (note to self, autographs look better on books than on shirts), she asked him if he remembered the cookies she gave him two years ago. She was speaking quite softly and rapidly, and I knew he didn't quite hear her. I thought he would still just nod and walk away, but instead he looked up apologetically, "Sorry?" When she repeated her question and he still didn't catch it, he leaned closer. Eventually, he smiled and said that he did remember her.

Haha, the entire conversation was caught on video and later they kept re-enacting the whole "'Sorry?' and lean closer" moment. Honami was totally on a high after that. I felt genuinely happy and excited for her, as I knew she would never forget that day.

Well, I don't think I'll forget my few hours of madness either. Kenneth, Honami and Eileen may not be my best friends and we may have met only after two years (and haven't met again since that day), but I think we'd shared an amazing experience together here. Sometimes I'm also surprised as to why I could get along so easily with them, especially yeah, considering our age gap and personality differences. But I guess our common love for LFC, or at least, our "craziness" when it comes to chasing LFC was the main factor.

I'm not sure when/if I'll do anything crazy like that again, but I know that if LFC do come down to Singapore soon again, I'll definitely find this bunch of friends again! Haha

kenneth, me, honami and eileen - 2 years ago

kenneth, me, honami and eileen - 2 years later

On a sidenote, the season starts today... let's hope it'll be a good one this time

ps. A picture of Honami (screaming her head off) and Eileen with the Dan Agger boards appeared in ST the next day.

pps. For the record, I realised the first player I saw at MBS (after declaring I'd fall in love with the first player I ran into) was... Alberto Aquilani. He left in a private car with his Chanel bags and all way before the other players even came out.

Chasing LFC in Singapore - 2 years on.

2011-08-10T11:14:00.004+08:00

So, it's more than a year since my last post on this blog.

I intended to post this much earlier, while memories were still fresh in my mind, but I just never quite got around to doing it. Laziness, as usual, took over any great plans I had.

I was reading some of my posts on chasing LFC in Singapore 2 years ago though (see July 2009 archive), and I thought that I must finally post this while I still remember most of the events. While reading the posts, I realised that I'll most probably not forget memories like this, but having it written down somewhere serves the purpose of refreshing my mind later.

While reading the posts, I also realised that what I've experienced since then could never compare to the experiences I had 2 years ago. 2 years ago, I was younger, crazier... and Torres and Xabi were still at LFC.

When I first read that LFC were coming to Singapore again for a day in July, I didn't quite know what to react. I wasn't that excited, and truth to be told, I still didn't quite feel anything up till a week before their arrival. Over the past year, despite still watching their matches, I've somewhat felt distanced from the LFC team, and I've also distanced myself from the LFC "community" in Sg. So I was a little confused about this whole Asia tour thing.

In my MSN chat with Kenneth (whom I haven't quite talked to for almost 2 years), I realised he was feeling pretty much the same as me. He was having a break from his studies over in Aus, and we decided to see if we could get passes to the LFC training session in SG.

All the means to get the passes proved to be quite difficult. From my "analysis" I realised that the contest with the highest probability to win the passes was the Adidas one, where one had to spend $100+ to stand a chance of winning the passes. One week before the training session, one day before the deadline of the contest, just on the spur of the moment, I decided to go down to the Adidas outlet at The Cathay with my mum and got myself a $99 LFC away jersey and a $46 pair of shorts for my brother.

A few days later, Jingxian, a LFC fan "FB friend" (whom I've never met before) contacted me and told me that he could get me a pass to the training session. I was pleasantly surprised, but there you go, I knew I was going to the session after all. The next day, I received an email from Adidas saying I'd won the passes, and to my pleasant surprise, it was a PAIR of passes, so I told Jingxian I didn't need the tix anymore but thank you, and told Kenneth we were going to the session.

And so, it was then I started getting excited about this whole thing.

Day before the session, Jingxian smsed me again and asked if I knew of any female fans who wanted to go to the session (ya, I know it makes him sound like a perv, but there's a reason behind that which I'm lazy to explain now). Initially I said no, I didn't have any girl friends who wanted to go, but I suddenly thought of Honami, the Dan Agger fan/ Katong Convent girl whom Kenneth and I met 2 years ago. I asked Kenneth, asked Honami, and then it was agreed that Jingxian would give the tix to Honami. I had thought that I had distanced myself from the LFC community, but I should have known that there wouldn't be any shortage of LFC fans around me.

In my brief SMS conversation with Honami, she asked me if I was planning to make any banners and stuff. My answer was no, I was feeling quite old now. 2 years ago, I wasn't a teacher yet. 2 years ago, I was crazier. 2 years ago, I felt more "in love" with LFC. Now, my only plans were just to go to the training session, watch it, and that was it. I initially wanted to pass Pepe some stuff, i.e. the photos from the boat cruise Alan took 2 years back (which I sent to LFC but got returned), but I later realised Pepe wasn't coming either. Pepe wasn't coming, Stevie wasn't coming, Suarez wasn't, Glen Johnson wasn't, even King Kenny wasn't coming. My lack of excitement was really attributed to many factors.

Honami is a really lovely girl though. She actually told me that she remembered how I told her 2 years ago that where there's a will, there's a way, and that she still held those words very closely to her heart. Ok, that was mushy and I think she probably over-exaggerated it a bit. I remembered encouraging her about getting the present to Dan when she was looking all disappointed and forlorn on that 1st night, but truly, I don't think I was that inspirational! And when I boasted to my friend later about how I said those inspiring words to a young girl 2 years ago, my friend was like, really, I inspired a young girl to not give up... chasing a football star... yes yes, I know I should be inspiring our young to do more constructive things with their lives, but heck, sometimes we just have to be young eh? In 20 years' time, do you think she's gonna remember what she learnt in Physics class or how she felt when Daniel Agger was 1 metre away from her?

Anyway, on the day of the training session....

At 4+pm, I left home for Bishan Stadium. Apparently, Honami and Kenneth decided to relive 2 years ago and were out at MBS chasing the team so I headed to the stadium alone. I was also to chope seats for Jingxian and friend so when I arrived at the stadium, I sat on the outside of a long empty row. When I was about to sit, the fella behind me suddenly asked, "Chun Lian?"

Ok, I can never get used to feeling famous. 2 years ago, it was random people coming up to me and recognising me as Lady Lala. Now again, this random dude whom I couldn't recognise actually knew me. Haha. I looked at him, blinked, asked him who he was, he said a name I didn't recognise, I blinked again, felt very bad that I really didn't know him at all, and then he suddenly said his maple ign. Apparently he was one of my maple buddies whom I had added on FB. Ok, even though that makes him less random, fact is, he must have stared at my photos quite a few times to recognise me. I didn't recognise him, after all! So yah, that was the first ego-boosting moment of the day.

It was difficult to reserve so many seats and I really felt very bad everytime I had to tell people that the seats were taken. I really felt kinda relieved when Jingxian and friend finally turned up.

The players arrived way earlier than the stated 6pm, and Kenneth/Honami arrived soon after the players did (they had followed them from the hotel). I went out of the stadium to pass them the tix, but we had no extra tix for Eileen (Honami's friend who was also with her chasing LFC 2 years ago despite not being really a LFC fan). While we were outside the stadium discussing how to sneak her in, this random guy suddenly asked us if we needed an extra tix and passed us one tix! The girls were visibly stunned but excited and started saying how it was exactly like how it was 2 years ago, when they had no training passes then too but got them from random strangers outside the stadium. It's the LFC spirit man - although I suppose being good-looking girls helped too. Haha.

The girls had brought along two big red boards with the words "Agger you may be no. #5, but to me you are number 1" and the boards got a lot of attention everywhere they went. They had been chasing the team since morning, and Agger must have seen them countless times. Even though we hadn't seen one another for 2 years, we picked up where we had left off very quickly. Immediately they started talking about how they were in the car alongside the team bus and Agger had waved at them, etc. Haha. No, I didn't feel the least bit jealous at all.

Ok, fast forward through the training session. It wasn't THAT exciting really. Earlier on I had met my students at the stadium, one of them a Man Utd fan who always talks shit about LFC but was wearing a Gerrard LFC shirt at the stadium. (Go figure.) It was great seeing Claire again, and again, like 2 years ago, she was a crowd favourite with calls of "Claire, will you marry me?" coming from different corners of the stadium again. For the record, she has just recently gotten married. Aww.

The pitch looked shitty and hideous, much to my embarrassment. A few of the guys behind were joking about how it was the pitch's fault everytime a wayward pass or shot was made by the players. Without Torres, the girls' favourite was obviously Agger, and there were other boards/banners for Agger seen around at the stadium, much to the irritation of Honami. We saw one board being held up, where the back was "Xabi, please stay!" Not sure what was written on the front, but it's amusing how people actually recycled their boards from 2 years ago. My boards are still somewhere in the house too.

A few people also called out to Rushie to join the training session as well, and to play for "one more season", much to his and our amusement. It was good to hear a few laughs and witty remarks being thrown around, but other than that, I don't think the training session was that fantastic. Honami kept snapping her camera away at Agger though, think she must have had taken more than a hundred shots of Agger in various poses. Lol.

Once the training session was over, Kenneth and the girls looked over to me and signalled for me to get out of the stadium quick. Yes, they were going to get a cab and head down to MBS again, and this was when the fun started...

Insua at Infinity Pool on top of Marina Bay Sands hotel -- taken off Twitter

- to be continued

Ryan's Tweet-rific Stories

2010-08-02T19:49:00.004+08:00

I'm not really big on Twitter. I'm definitely more of a Facebook than Twitter person. But I did sign up for Twitter to "follow" some of the celebs and so-called celebs, just purely for my entertainment gossip. I don't tweet though, so please don't bother to "follow" me, I'm really just there to "follow" others only.

Who's on my "following" list? Well, there's Justin Bieber, the Backstreet Boys, Kris Allen, Sean Kingston, LFCTV, kickette, Iain Macintosh... footballers themselves are a boring lot, but I still have got Forlan, Sergio Aguero, Kaka... they hardly tweet and when they do, it's usually in a foreign language, but I'm still following them for the fun of it...

The most active celeb on Twitter has to be Justin Bieber... initially I was really impressed how he does this whole Twitter-PR thing, he begins the day with a "morning girls..." and ends the night with a "nite girls..." and in between he just keeps tweeting about how he loves his fans, and re-tweeting all the "@justinbieber RT this if you love your fans" tweets from his fans... I'm still not totally familiar with the whole Twitter-language, but I've just about realised that getting RT/re-tweeted by a celeb must be a big deal.

So anyway, after a while I got kinda sick of Bieber. I'm still following him, but I'm starting to lean towards the idea that he doesn't do all his tweets/retweets himself, that some PR-agent is doing it for him. How can he stand singing the same tune over and over again?

But it's true, I think Twitter is an amazing tool for these celebs to get close to their fans. Now if Torres ever RT me, through PR-dude or not, I'd probably start sounding like one of those silly Beliebers...

Ok, let's move away from Bieber. Cos I've just found one guy who's wayyyyyyy more interesting than him on Twitter. This dude I'm talking about - HH wonders if it's really him, or just a crazy dude pretending to be him (but it's a verified account) - he tells some real amazing stories. His language is a little hard to understand, as his English is more broken than the average Singaporean and full of slang (Dutch + hip-hop language?) but I think if you read some of his stories, you'll still get the joke.

http://community.livejournal.com/ontd_football/2531526.html#cutid1
http://community.livejournal.com/ontd_football/2565269.html#cutid1
http://community.livejournal.com/ontd_football/2571556.html

So go follow him if you haven't already done so!!

Oh yeah, and he just tweeted another story today. I really do hope he makes it at LFC, cos he IS FUNNY, although it's kinda in a silly manner...

lala's world cup awards (+ what's next for this blog)

2010-07-21T15:52:00.008+08:00

Ok, now that the WC is over... what should happen to this blog?
Should I retire?
Delete the blog?
Go back to blogging about Liverpool?
Just keep the blog here and blog whenever I feel like it?

Decisions, decisions, decisions...

Ok, before the WC, I was thinking maybe I should just stop blogging altogether. For one, blogging is outdated, now that you have Facebook/Twitter where you only need to type one-liners to broadcast to the world what you're thinking. And then I've got bigger priorities in life now. Frankly speaking, although I'll still say I'm a Liverpool fan, talking about Liverpool isn't one of my favourite activities these days. What do I have left to say? Oh, I think we've a very bleak future, I don't know if we can hold on to Torres, Gerrard, Mascherano, etc. I don't know if we'll ever get rid of the owners, and it's an endless battle between the fans and the owners. I don't know if it's all downhill for Liverpool right now, I don't know if Uncle Roy is going to start buying all the Fulham players (or Fulham's targets). Let's just say I hate repeating what people has to say about Liverpool, cos there's just hardly anything positive related to the topic these days.

And then, of course the WC came around, and I found myself having a lot to talk about. I couldn't stop gushing over Germany, I wanted to kill octopuses when Germany lost, I wanted to laugh when Italy and France flopped, I wanted to hug Yoann when he got sent off. There were boring matches, controversial moments (some red cards got me all mad), irritating vuvuzelas buzzing at every match, but the thing was, at least I had something to talk about at last. Even if the matches (where Germany weren't playing) were boring, at least we still had the vuvuzelas, octopuses, parakeets, and Jabulani balls to discuss.

Yes, it was fun.

So now, let's (finally) wrap up the tournament with my own personal award ceremony.

lala's awards for...

Favourite player to watch:
Thomas Mueller

other notable nominees: Mesut Ozil, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Philipp Lahm, Lukas Podolski

Most entertaining team:
Germany

Favourite Joachim Loew & Hansi Flick fashion choice:
the shirt they wore for 4 matches (vs Australia, England, Argentina, Spain) (No, if it works, we won't get sick of it really...)

Best off-the-pitch entertainment news:
The French debacle

Most regrettable moment (aka The I-wish-you-had-stayed-longer award):
Yoann getting sent off

other notable nominees: Harry getting sent off

Top Villain:
Luis Suarez (for handballing against Ghana)

other notable nominees: Paul the Octopus (for predicting my Germany would lose to Spain)

Thank-you-for-participating-but-we-won't-remember-you:
Cameroon (I was going to say North Korea, but at least I remember their 7-0 thrashing.)

You-didn't-make-it-far-but-we'll-remember-you:
New Zealand

other notable nominees: Slovakia

Most entertaining match:
Germany 4 Argentina 0

other notable nominees: Germany 4 England 1

Most entertaining match (that didn't involve Germany):
Italy 2 Slovakia 3

Most memorable character of WC '2010:
Paul the Octopus

Oh yah, so what's happening to this blog...?
Hmm, I've decided that...
For now at least, I'll just do a weekly column thing. Yup, I'll just update this blog every week and talk about whatever football thing I wanna talk about. Might be about the latest Liverpool match, or might not (if we still suck). We'll see how it goes from there... If I end up becoming lazy or not having much to write about, I'll let this blog die a slow death...

Awwwww, so sweeeeeeeet!

2010-07-13T20:15:00.004+08:00

Iker is a kissy boy!

Don't really know Spanish, but apparently Pepe's talking to his mum here. Sooooooo sweeeet!!

Yesh, Pepe is not only a sweet son, he's also a sweet daddy ...

In an earlier training session...

Viva Espana (again)!

2010-07-12T22:13:00.005+08:00

So, two years on after winning the European Champions, Spain are now also the World Champions... their first world title ever, and they're also only the 2nd team to hold both European and world titles at the same time.

I can't really comment much about the match itself cos I was pretty much (more than) half-asleep throughout most of the match. Was drifting in and out of sleep till the 105th minute or so, until Torres was subbed on to be exact. I don't think I missed much, and can tell you the match highlights as well as anyone else who was awake.

Hmm... let's see... basically the match went like this:
1) Spain dominated possession for most parts of it.
2) Both sides had some chances, both 'keepers produced some good saves, but at the end of the day, the best team won.
3) Match was looking to go to penalties until Iniesta's goal in the 116th min.
4) MAIN highlight of the match besides Iniesta's late, late winner was the 14 yellow cards being given out. Oh, and Heitinga got sent off, but we expected someone to be sent off much earlier. Puyol probably could have gotten sent off too, but didn't.

Yeah, that was pretty much it. I don't think I left out anything important, did I?

OH YAH, one more thing... Torres pulled his hamstring in stoppage time. He was chasing after a long ball, his hamstring suddenly pulled up and he fell over. He was left writhing on the ground as the Dutch players refused to put the ball out of play (can't blame them really). That was the last I saw of him as once the final whistle went and the Spanish players begun their celebrations, I switched off my TV right away to get my one hour left of sleep. When I got to school, I kept asking if anyone saw the prize presentation ceremony as I wondered what happened to Torres in the end, whether anyone got to him at all (esp admist all the celebration).

Ok, I finally found out what happened to my dear Torres in the end. Yeah, he did get attended to.

Mean old HH was saying how he's becoming like Harry Kewell... yeah, I think my Torres quite poor thing now, he's REALLY injured again btw (while he was rolling on the ground I wondered if that was something serious again or if it's just something the miracle spray could cure), although we still can't help but smile at these pics...

Hahaha, k lah, I don't really have much to say about the match itself. Maybe I'm still a little sore that my Germany didn't make it to the final, because I still want to say that the Germany-Uruguay match was much more interesting than this. 4 years later, if you ask me what I remember most about the final, I'll tell you that there were 14 yellow cards, and Paul the Octopus got his 8th consecutive prediction right. It's a bit like if you ask me what I remember most about the final 4 years ago, it has to be Zidane's headbutt. Lol.

But I suppose, who cares whether it was a football feast eh? Certainly not Spain. The best team still won, and congrats to Spain!

Oh, and now that the WC is over, I can start having more sleep now. Don't think I'll have time to suffer post-WC withdrawal symptoms, because I am really having to start WORK now. As for this blog... I'm still not quite decided what to do with it. Will probably make up my mind in 1-2 weeks. I do have some more things to say about this WC: the players' awards (everything Golden - Ball, Boot, Gloves, etc), my own favourite moments/players, Paul/Paulo the Octopus (yes, I'm not quite done with him), and so on. Maybe I'll need to add some other comments about the final itself after taking a look through the highlights I've missed (some kungfu kicks I think). Then after that I'll still need to talk (finally) about LFC. We'll decide what happens to this blog once I've gotten all that off my chest.

Ta for now~

Team of 2010

2010-07-11T17:15:00.003+08:00

Germany 3 Uruguay 2

I'll REALLY, REALLY MISS these boys...
Ok, the boys as well as the men (i.e. Uncle Klose, Mr Loew and Mr Flick, etc)

Sob...
I'll have to admit that I had tears in my eyes at the end of the game. When the boys went up to get their bronze medals and then walked around the stadium with smiles all over, I couldn't help but feel this sense of pride. Yah, where did that feeling of pride come from anyway? I'm not German, I'm not their mother, but in many ways, I feel like they're MY boys. Maybe being a teacher is bringing out all my motherly instincts now, but watching these boys progress in the tournament is somewhat akin to seeing them grow and mature.

I won't kid myself. Once this is over (ok, it's over actually), I'll probably forget about the likes of Mesut Ozil, Thomas Mueller, Per Mertesacker, etc. I won't be seeing them in action for at least the next two years (till Euro 2012), unless LFC somewhat cross paths with their clubs in European competition or some of them find a move to the Premiership (please DON'T!! esp if it's not to LFC).

Yet for the past month, I've really grown to adore these boys and I must say, my love for football was rekindled because of them. Yes, I've finally felt it again because of them, because of their football.

It has been bittersweet, but more sweet than bitter definitely. Although in some ways it must have felt like a failure (runners-up at WC'02, 3rd place in '06, runners-up in Euro'08, 3rd place this year again), but if you watched the performances by these boys, you'll find it hard not to believe that this is only the start of something bigger, something greater. The progress made by this young side has been tremendous, and one would hope their achievements here will be built upon.

Third-place playoffs are always a little strange. Some would debate over whether we should scrape the idea of such a game. No team would want to be in a third-place playoff, having come so close to being part of the grand event of the final itself. I suppose some people would argue that being 2nd would feel much worse than 3rd, and perhaps they're right, but it still feels somewhat wrong when you go up to the stage, collect your bronze medals, and go off the stage without the chance of lifting any trophy.

I suppose the best thing about such a game is that you don't feel the intense pressure of winning anymore. Going into this game, I wasn't as on the edge of my seat, and was just able to enjoy the football on the pitch. I treated this match as my last chance to see my favourite team play (for quite some time), and the result was always going to be secondary. Mr Loew understood this point and promptly ditched his lucky suit (he must have been sick of wearing the same but didn't want to take his chances) and he also tried to give as many players as he could the chance to play. In many ways, yes, it felt rather like a friendly, but it was one meant to give fans the chance to say farewell and thank you.

Credit also has to go to the Uruguayan team as the free-flowing football, amazing spirit (from both sides) and very open game was a delightful treat for the viewing fans. Although I still feel quite weird seeing Forlan proving himself to be a good player, one would probably have to feel sorry for his brilliant freekick coming right off the crossbar in the last minute of stoppage time.

I definitely see the point of having a third-place playoff, because it gives us the chance to honour the ones who've lighted up the competition, nearly made it, but didn't. I suppose the only downside of this is that one team would end up being losers twice, in this case, it was Uruguay.

I'm glad for the German scorers - dear Thomas got his 5th goal of the tournament after returning from suspension (though I wished he could have returned to a final instead), the Milan Baros-lookalike Sami Khedira got to get on the scoresheet after how, in the earlier games, I would always scream for a goal-scoring chance NOT to fall to him, cos he didn't appear that prolific in front of goal, and Marcell Jansen was also someone I didn't really think too highly of during Euro'08.

While I'm (still) sorely disappointed that my team didn't make it, I'll be watching tomorrow morning's final. Hopefully it won't be a bore!

C'mon Dirk (and Torres if he plays)!

I'll leave here with some more pics of my fav boys (and one of HH's fav WAG).

Who's the bigger 'traitor'?

2010-07-08T19:31:00.007+08:00

Germany 0 Spain 1

Well, I still think Paul the Octopus is a bigger traitor than me. He's a German octopus (not English) after all!!

Yes, where I switched from the Spaniards to the Germans in this World Cup, our dear eight-legged oracle decided to do the exact opposite and chose Spain at this crucial juncture of the tournament.

I've been moaning and bitching about frying octopuses and eating sotongs, tako balls, and whatever you have that's related to the family the entire day. I'm almost sick of it by now, and er no, I somehow forgot during dinner and ate KFC instead. No no, I'm not against Mani the bird and his family, just octopuses.

Alright, I'll leave the octopus alone for now, until I remember to eat it later.

Let's just analyse, objectively, what went wrong for Germany, and what went right for Spain.

The game panned out almost exactly the way I'd feared. I can't understand why people are so surprised Spain won, and why people think that Spain played great football. Watching Spain dominate Germany this morning still hasn't quite switched me back to Spain, and I'm not quite sure what it'll take in fact. Yes, I'll say that Spain was indeed the better team on the day, and their tactics worked while Germany didn't, but I still prefer Germany's brand of football to Spain's.

And no, I'm not advocating defensive tactics and just choosing to sit back and strike on the break. Yes, that was what Germany did this morning and it was pure frustrating to watch, but I think it was merely the wrong tactic to use against Spain and the clash of the two contrasting tactics resulted in the tight, cagey, and perhaps boring match (at least the first half).

The difference between Spain and the likes of Argentina and England is that unlike the latter two, Spain is a much more organized side, and they are way better at retaining and passing the ball. Germany relied on Argentina and England losing the ball too easily at times and whenever the Germans manage to get hold of the ball, they could exploit the gaps left behind by their opposition and launch a quick counter. Spain, however, were much better at the passing game, and the few times Germany managed to get hold of the ball, they found their passes intercepted and their runs halted easily.

I can't stand it when people criticise Germany's style of play. Look, there's nothing wrong with their style of play. It's only their tactics for this match that had a problem. They relied too much on the opposition (screwing up), and because the opposition didn't make the mistakes, Germany were unable to make that first move and impose themselves more in the game. I don't think Germany set out to play defensively, but their Plan A to let the opposition do their thing and just capitalise on whatever mistakes made failed terribly. And there was no Plan B. They do have the ability to attack and not have to rely on the counter, after all, they did get wins over Australia and Ghana while having a larger pie of possession. But it's not to say that patiently waiting for the break has anything wrong by itself either, cause remember, though they had lesser possession against England and Argentina, they created similar number of chances as (if not more than) the oppositions, so they weren't like one of those lesser teams sitting back throughout and snatching a win with that one goal on the only break they had.

It seems a bit ironic that the eventual breakthrough didn't come at the end of Spain's intricate passing, but straight from a corner. It didn't come from their man of the moment, David Villa, either. Rather it came from the hairiest man in the team, Carles Puyol. Maybe there's something in the hair after all. Dang, in that case Nando, grow your hair back quickly!!

If I had gone with my head instead of my heart, honestly, I think I could have done as good a prediction job as that octopus. I foresaw Torres being dropped from the starting XI, and when Pedro got the ball on the break, I KNEW HE WOULDN'T PASS TO TORRES!!!!!! So no, I wasn't like caught between screaming at Pedro to let Nando score and hoping Germany didn't go further behind. I just sat quietly and knew that Pedro wouldn't pass and would end up losing the ball. He just had that "I'm a selfish asshole" look written all over his face. When he eventually lost the ball, I was caught between feeling relieved and amused. Yep, and he got what he deserved when he was subbed off. Hahaha. And... not that I'm generalising all Spanish players, but that's partly why I prefer Germany to Spain. If it was a German player, I'm 99% sure he'd have passed the ball.

Finally, yes, Mr Loew and Mr Flick wore the same shirts again (the one against Australia, England and Argentina), but unfortunately the lucky shirt just wasn't enough to dispel the octopus' powers...

And my dear Germany has to play for 3rd place... AGAIN. So in a way, it's still not the end for them (I get to see Thomas and co. one last time on Sun morning), although I still feel quite sad... :(

As for the final...
um... if Torres plays I'll (try and) support Spain... else I'll (try and) support Dirk's team. Yes, the consolation is, LFC will have at least 2 players (Babel/Dirk or Torres/Pepe) back with World Cup medals.

ps. this is a funny gif.

N Paul the octopus says...

2010-07-07T04:15:00.002+08:00

Spain to win the semi-final tmr morning.

Oh well, why am I so bothered about it? Stupid octopus, I never trusted it at all in the first place. But somehow I was still anxiously waiting for it to do its prediction for this one. There was a circulation of a photoshopped pic of it picking Spain earlier, until people started pointing out that it was edited and that the octopus hadn't made its pick yet. Anyway people are really that 'boliao' and lame.

I don't trust Mani the bird either. It picked an Uruguay-Spain final. Well holland are winning now

will Paul the octopus finally be wrong? Or is this the end of germany's streak?

Absolutely spellbound by the Germans

2010-07-04T08:04:00.004+08:00

My word, there's just too much to be said, where should I start?

I think I'll start with stating the blatant obvious:

Germany are sooooooooooooooo DAMN GOOD!!

C'mon, you must agree with me, Germany have played the best football so far in this tournament. Ok Holland are the only ones with the perfect record now (winning all their games), but Germany are the most entertaining to watch, and based on overall performance, they SHOULD win the tournament.

I don't know how they'll do against Spain the semis, and I don't know if the octopus will predict the correct result again, but I'm really thinking that no side deserves to win this tournament more than them now.

I'll go into my gripes about Spain later on though, let's just start with praising my wonderful German boys...

Germany 4 Argentina 0
Ok, remember the fashion watch on Loew and Flick? Well, well, you know what, Mr Loew and Mr Flick wore the same clothes that they wore against Australia and England. Yes, so on all 3 occasions, including this one against Argentina, they scored 4 goals. When Germany were 3-0 up here, I was already waiting for a 4th. Hahaha. I don't think I'm the only one who realised the coincidence, and I wouldn't bet against them wearing the same suit in the semis....

I think before this game, I was extremely worried about Germany's defence and their height. However, it seemed that Argentina had exactly the same problem and they had it worse than the Germans. Haha. Yeah, Argentina's defence was so much shittier. And surprisingly, Germany did an amazing job defensively! Now the one thing I like about Germany's brand of football is that they may not play possession football like Spain, and to a certain extent Argentina as well, where they try and keep possession of the ball by stringing together many passes, but they actually DO something with the ball.

Argentina may have had more possession of the ball, but I don't think they created much with it. They rarely really threatened, and such was Germany's defensive strength, Messi was... now where was Messi?

(to be continued later. I gtg to church now)

(after church)
Man, I realise I really have tooooooooooo MUCH to say.

Almost 24 hours later, I'm still feeling wayyyyyy over the moon over the 4-0 thumping of Argentina. When was the last time I've felt this proud of my team (I'm thinking back on Liverpool's season, but thinking about them these days always makes me feel sad so I better stop it now)?

Haha, at church today, there were a few youth who went a little crazy with the "YAY! GERMANY!" when they saw me in my Germany shirt. Our pastor also suddenly declared that Germany were going to win the World Cup. Now, our pastor isn't a football person, but his statement really struck me.

It seems that after this performance, people are finally seeing Germany as the hot favourites to win this tournament. When they struck four against Australia, that was then the most impressive display by a team at the opening round of matches, but people thought, well, Australia aren't a great side. And then Klose got an undeserved red against Serbia, they narrowly pulled through against Ghana, and when they struck 4 against England, there was still that disallowed goal to blame and people were also more preoccupied with the fact that England always underperforms. But many people, including myself, believed that Argentina just might be too good for the young Germans, so to see them tear apart a team full of great players in that fashion really got everyone to sit up and pay notice at last.

And all of a sudden, some people are also finally loving the football that Germany plays. Some people still like England for the sake of liking them, and many still love Villa and co. the way I did before, but I think the neutrals (and 'country-hoppers' like me) are turning to Germany now.

On the way back home from church, we spotted this bizarre sight of a car having this little German flag hanging from its window. It was stuck near the top such that the flag was just waving in the air as it passed through the traffic. I thought that was a really bizarre sight to see in Singapore.

Ok anyway, I'm tired of saying how much I love my two new young German boys Ozil and Mueller in every post about the Germans, so let's change the tune a little today. I felt the "old" ones were exceptional yesterday, it's time we give credit to the performances of Arne Friedrich, Miroslav Klose, and then my "old" fav trio - Bastian, Lukas and Philipp.

There was a time when I felt Arne Friedrich wasn't a really good defender. I can't remember if I got the impression from actually seeing him play at full-back, or was it just a Football Manager thing (where I bought him and he sucked), but today, Arne Friedrich has become the first-choice partner for Per Mertesacker in central defence, and he has been solid so far. He's finally scored for his country after nearly 80 caps!!

Mr Klose, what can I say, at 32 years old, he's like the uncle of the team. He's been in the German team for as long as I can remember, and there's a reason why his place in the squad is still guaranteed despite the emergence of the young talents. Uncle Klose may not be light-footed like the youngsters, but he still does his job oh-so-well. 52 goals in 100 caps, how many players can beat that! Both young Thomas and he are looking to fight for the Golden Boot (with Villa and maybe Sneijder) in this tournament.

And finally, my dear Bastian, Lukas and Philipp... I'll always love this original trio who got me following the Germans. My adoration of Bastian cooled a little recently when I read that Chelsea are interested in him. Seeing him in central midfield instead of on the left wing also made it a little strange, but like Lukas, he's relishing in his new position as well. He set up young Thomas for the opening goal with his free-kick, and his dazzling run to set up Arne Friedrich for a simple tap-in... I was struggling to see who was going past all those defenders on my tiny 14-inch TV, and boy, was I surprised to see that it was not Ozil, not Mueller, but my dear old Bastian.

Lukas used to play up front with Klose, and has since moved to left midfield, but he's still scoring from that position (40 goals in 78 caps). He caught my eye not for his attacking prowess this time, but rather, it was his defensive side that impressed me. Germany defended well as a team, and Lukas duly tracked back everytime he was needed. He did get back the ball from their own half on a couple of occasions.

And Lahmmy, now that he's captain, he's also leading by example. Lahmmy will always be my favourite right-back, cos he's not only good in attack, he can also actually defend (sry Glen, this is directed at you). He's small in size, yet he's colossal in defence... when he put his foot forward to knock the ball off Higuain's foot as the latter was about to pull the trigger, he reminded me of Carra for a while haha. Not sure why he keeps saying silly (and cocky) stuff in the media but I'll forgive him as long as he keeps up his performances on the pitch.

"Feeling it" rating: 5 of 5.
Zzzz rating: 0 of 5.

Alright, I'm just about done with praising Germany. Let's move on to the other game.

Spain 1 Paraguay 0
I was pretty much asleep through the first half, but it doesn't matter because I was awake when all the drama finally happened. I feel a little like a traitor, but I think I've 'completed' the 'transfer' now. The moment Torres was taken off, I stopped supporting Spain. I thought I was 'neutral', but I found myself wanting Xabi to miss his penalty after Cardozo missed his. Ok, I actually don't like Cardozo (I don't like Di Maria and him since our game against Benfica) and when Spain got the penalty at the other end almost immediately, the expression on his face was quite funny. And then, I found myself hoping Xabi would miss his penalty. I don't know if it was just cos it was Xabi, as I recently realised that I've been feeling 'betrayed' by Xabi. When I explained why to some of the new teachers at my school, they all found me as mad as Bella Swan, so I don't want to repeat myself again, but it all started with this.

That few minutes of penalty drama was pure entertainment. If it wasn't for that, the game was looking to be dull as usual again. I don't know if the fact that Spain has been mostly playing 2.30am matches has anything to do with me always feeling bored and sleepy, or is it really their football...

Don't get me wrong, just because I've 'transferred' my allegiance to Germany doesn't mean I hate Spain now. I'm liking Germany despite them not having any LFC players (but I now love some of their players). I disliked England even though they had some LFC players, and I don't really care for Spain now despite LFC's (diminishing) Spanish connection. It's still LFC first for me, it's just for the sake of this World Cup, that's where my allegiance lie.

And here, I've to agree with poolfans, that Villa is THE player, at least for Spain, he's numero uno. I feel quite irritated with Spain in this tournament because I don't think the team has been playing well at all. Villa is just single-handedly pulling them through all these games. He's good, I'll admit, he's very good, but I hope my German boys can stop him. STOP VILLA!!!!!! I honestly think it's between him and Mueller for the Player of the Tournament now, depending which side wins the semis... the only blemish of last night was Mueller getting the yellow which would see him miss out on the semis, but I still think if Germany can nullify the threat that is Villa and beat Spain, Mueller will stand a very good chance of winning Player of the Tournament. Yah, I think they always give that to someone from one of the Final teams right... (like Zidane in the last WC, which was a complete joke)

So, it's Germany v Spain again. The last time this fixture happened at the Euro'08 final, I chose to support Spain over Germany. The decision was pretty much made at the very last minute, but I still cheered Torres' goal (which made Lahm look like a meek lamb in the process). Now, I've made a greater than 180 deg turn, because I'm totally into Germany and not at all Spain. (The only conflict-of-interest would only occur IF Torres scores. I haven't decided what my reaction would be for that.)

2 years on, I think Germany now has a better side than they did 2 years ago. Objectively speaking, I think Spain still has the better team on paper. It's just that so many of their players ('cept for Villa) are underperforming at the moment, and Germany are the better side on form. I've also been saying that Germany deserves to be the tournament's winner based on their overall performance, and Spain just deserves to be 3rd at most. Still, I thought Argentina were the best team at WC'06, Holland played the most exciting football at Euro'08... and I always struggle to identify what exactly Italy did to deserve to win the previous WC... so you never know. No matter what happens though, I know Germany has been the one team that has genuinely excited me with their football and made me feel "it" in this competition. (Yes, I'll admit that the players' love for each other has also slightly gotten to me. I used to love the Spaniards for their 'excessive hugging' too you know)

Yes, I'm done with my post at last. This sure took a long time... (started at 8am, completed at 9pm)

'Sneijder is my height!' - HH's 2nd interview

2010-07-03T08:08:00.005+08:00

I decided to get HH to do a phone interview with me for this one, since it'll be more interesting than me typing about how sleepy I was... And btw, I indeed felt sleepy throughout this match as well. Not sure how I'll survive tonight's both matches because I'll have a long day before that (going to NDP rehearsal!)

HH gives his views before the match, at half-time, and after the match. Note how he's always wrong when trying to predict ahead...

Pre-match
Brazil-Holland match prediction?
HH: I think it'll be a boring match because Holland's matches are always boring. I haven't watch Brazil play much because they're always 2.30 matches. I only watched them once, and it was the boring one against Portugal. I think this game will be 0-0 followed by penalties.

You think it'll be a boring game even though they're both known to be attacking sides?
The Portugal-Brazil match was also boring even though both were supposed to be attacking sides as well. Holland are quite boring and they play like the old Italy. There's no Total Football, just Robben and his football.

Player to look out for?
Robben.

Half-time (Holland 0 Brazil 1)
What do you think of the teams' performances so far?
Robben is too selfish. He keeps holding onto the ball for too long. Brazil's 'don't talk' player very good.

What? Don't talk player?
Mai-kong, mai-kong. (Hokkien for don't talk) Maicon very good.

....Omg that's so cold.
Very good right? 'Don't talk' player. Hahahaha.

Ok, so what do you think of the game itself?
Err... ok. But the Dutch are making it very boring. Brazil's trying to make it more exciting. I used to like Holland but this Holland is very boring. Van Persie sucks too.

So what do you think the Dutch can do to turn this game around?
They need to be less boring and more adventurous. Robben needs to pass the ball faster. Van Persie needs to improve. The Dutch defence sucks too.

Post-match (Holland 2 Brazil 1)
So... what do you think?
Holland were lucky. Brazil just started to self-implode in the 2nd half. I think Van Persie still sucks. Brazil's defence was sleeping for the goals. Sneijder is so short and he still can score a header. I also think Kuyt is better for Holland than for Liverpool.

What do you think Holland did right in the 2nd half?
They were not so boring in the 2nd half. Robben is very good at diving. He made people get sent off. Robinho almost got sent off too, and everyone in a Brazilian shirt wanted to beat him up. From the first half he knew that he cannot dribble his way through, so he started falling to win the freekicks. I think Brazil should wear the yellow jersey because it makes them more lucky.

Anyway, I think Holland will go all the way to the final and they have a good chance at winning this.

What do you think went wrong for Brazil?
They just lost their head after they realised they were very 'suay' (unlucky). They kept wanting to fight and wanted to beat up Robben. Robben is very smart even though he's a solo kia. He know he cannot dribble then he kept falling down and the Brazilians all very angry with him. Brazil's defence was also very lousy. Sneijder is so short still can score header. How short is Sneijder ar? I think he's 1.69m like that. He's like the shortest player out there.

1.69m? Are you referring to yourself?
Yah, he looks like my height. (On checking, Sneijder is indeed close to that height. He's 1.70m)

Who is your MOTM?
Robben. He's very clever.

Villa's the man (sadly?)

2010-06-30T16:22:00.007+08:00

It's really happening now.

I am falling out of love with the Spaniards.

In fact, I've a feeling in their next game against Paraguay, if Torres isn't on the pitch, I won't be supporting Spain at all. Otherwise, I'll probably support Spain up till the point when Torres is subbed off. I was slightly feeling that when Torres got subbed off in this game. I'm not going to deny that Spain played better once Torres was taken off for the newbie Fernando Llorente. At least Del Bosque is smarter than Capello... where the latter never takes the lacklustre Rooney off, the former does sub off Torres when he underperforms... yet again. I think Torres just really isn't quite match-fit yet, but while the mind tells me that Torres should be given more time, the heart tells me that I'm really watching Spain just for Torres these days.

It started off with me loving the Villa-Torres partnership - I was happy to see Villa shine with Torres alongside him. Then when people started praising Villa more and my Torres faded into the background, I started feeling a slight tinge of envy mixed with disappointment, and now I'm slowly approaching the "insanely jealous" stage.

I'll try and do this as objectively as possible...

Objectively speaking:

1) Torres isn't match-fit, and he just looks really rusty on the ball. Perhaps it's time he's rested/dropped?

2) Villa is the in-form man at the moment, he's topping the goalscoring charts at this tournament (alongside Gonzalo Higuain and Robert Vittek) and apparently he's scored 32 goals in his last 34 matches. Now, that is some record.

3) Fernando Llorente did well when he came on, he probably should be given another chance soon.

4) Spain's brand of possession football will work only if they actually create chances with the ball and score them. Unfortunately, they can be a bore to watch at times if that doesn't happen and they just hold on to the ball.

By the way, regarding Ricardo Costa's red card... that's another one to the red card count, and TV replays failed to show the elbow on Capdevila. Not saying that the latter dived... but not saying that he didn't either... Either case, must have been a harsh or totally unjustified red. Again.

Torres... why did you cut your hair again?

Oh, and Cristiano apparently spat at the TV camera. Cheers. The reason why I was still clearly supporting Spain for this game lies with the fact that I didn't like Portugal at all.

In other news...
Soccernet is reporting that:
1) Man City are signing David Silva
2) Liverpool is set to name Roy Hodgson as manager

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
(If it happens, please let me eat my words.)

Dull Dutch

2010-06-29T14:59:00.002+08:00

Holland 2 Slovakia 1

Oh dear.
Yesterday's game was so boring I probably watched only 20-30% of it. Caught the goals but I was pretty much dozing off for the rest of it. I don't think it was just because I was tired from my work day, because even my dad remarked early on, "Wah, this one very sian leh. Germany game more shiok leh."

Yah, this was the polar opposite of the Germany v England game. I don't know why man, 'cause there were still goals, Holland still dominated the game, but it was like we were just suffering from a bad hangover from the Germany v England game.

The Dutch did excite me with their football during Euro08, but I think during this World Cup, Germany are the only team that has excited me with their brand of football. The rest, even if they're attacking teams like Spain and Holland, I could still go to sleep while watching them. Ok, I'll reserve my judgment on Brazil and Argentina, because I've yet to see Brazil play (ok I watched parts of that dull stalemate with Portugal) and I have only seen a few of Argentina's games which were pretty much so-so as well.

Anyway, I can't really go into much for this game since I spent most of the time drifting in and out of sleep. I noted how Robben was still the same ol' Robben, still the 'solo kia'. His 'solo-ness' sometimes pays off, like in this case it did.

I can't really go on already... just typing about them makes me sleepy again...

Hopefully I can get some sleep before catching the Spain v Portugal game at 2.30am tomorrow morning...

"Feeling it" factor: 1 of 5. After the estacy, the hangover sets in.

Zzzz rating: 4 of 5.

Yay!

2010-06-27T23:49:00.002+08:00

Germany 4 England 1

Hohoho.

I've had almost 24 hours to let the result sink in already, but I'm still in a mighty jolly mood. Hahaha.

Ok, I'm not sure if Germany were 4-1 better than England, but... they're at least 4-2better than England! HOHOHO

Hahaha.
HAHAHAHA.
HAHAHAHA!!!!!!

Yeah, I'm not going to rub it in about how England never produced a tournament-winning performance at this World Cup, not before this game, not during this game either. I'll just let the England fans (only the delusional ones) whine about how the ball was over the line for the next few years (or decades).

Yup, the ball was over the line. I won't debate about that. It should have been 2-2 at that point. Even without the replays, from MY angle I already saw the ball cross the line. It was OBVIOUS lah, the 'keeper even turned and saw the ball cross the line. Neuer was practically on the line, and the ball was BEHIND him.

That aside, I don't know if I should spend the remainder of my post elaborating how shit England was or how great Germany was. Ok, let me try and do both. First let's start with how shit England was.

One point that stood out was how dumb Capello was. I expected more from Capello to be honest. I don't know how the hell he could be so dumb, but he was. I've only watched Germany for 3 games, and I can already tell you what Germany's main weaknesses are. Besides the lack of experience, their one main weakness is in the height of their players. They're bad with overhead crosses/headers and it's true for both attack and defence. Ok, maybe in attack they'll still do okay if Klose's there, but Klose is pretty much the only attacker who can use his head. Germany will still prefer to play the ball along the ground if they could, and if they are denied space and have to resort to long balls and crosses, they'll suck (like they did against Serbia, even before Klose got sent off). In defence, although the other defenders besides Lahm or not that short, I don't think they do very well at set-pieces and incoming crosses as well.

In fact I was just telling HH all this shit when England had a corner and I told him this could be dangerous. They didn't score directly from the corner, but a resulting cross from Stevie saw Upson head the ball into the net. Jerome Boateng (he isn't too short) just stood rooted to the ground next to Upson. None of the German players nearby (except for Neuer) bothered to jump at all.

So then I thought Capello might have figured it out, but no, he never did. In the 2nd half he took off his best players in Milner and Defoe. And I don't understand why he doesn't play Crouchy either. Crouchy would have been a good choice against the German defence.

Where I recognise that Germany's defence is not exactly their strongest point, it seemed as though England's was much, much worse. Germany were allowed too much space to exploit, and especially for Mueller's goals, which came on the counter, woahhh, Germany had the numbers advantage when they managed to take the ball up the pitch so swiftly. Even though he's a Liverpool player, I've to say Glen Johnson was never great at defending. You probably don't remember where he was whenever England conceded, neither do I, he and Ashley Cole just went MIA while Upson and Terry were unable to cope with the German attackers either.

My dad, who's pretty much a football noob, just kept going on about how Stevie was selfish with the ball, always opting to shoot instead of passing to his teammates. This was unlike the Germans who would pass to a teammate who's in a better position. To be fair, I don't think any of the other England players were found in a much better position whenever Stevie had the ball. Not like the case of Germany's 2nd and 4th goals especially, where it would be only too easy to square the ball to the teammate who was completely unmarked and in a great position.

Ok, on Germany...
I JUST LOVE MESUT OZIL AND THOMAS MUELLER!!!!!!!!!

I think I mentioned in an earlier post how Germans are always known for their efficiency and organisation. Ok, I take that all back, this German side is nowhere like that. It does worry me a little that they may not be as solid at the back as some of their predecessors (and this could later be a problem against an attacking team like Argentina) but they play some breathtaking attacking football. All their goals (and some near goals at the start of the 1st half) left me quite breathless. lol. They're able to produce some crisp quick passes, they're lightning quick when they hit on the counter, and man, these boys remind you how great it is to be young.

Haha, I realise it's easier to say negative things about England than to gush about how great the German boys are. Umm, I just really love these boys k? Yes yes, at the back of my mind, I honestly think that their next game against Argentina will be one really tough one. Maradona aside, Argentina are a team who could really win this whole thing because they really have the entire package. They are brilliant going forward as well, and they just have enough experience to cope with any kind of pressure. No matter what though, I still love Mesut Ozil and Thomas Mueller. They're going to be my new fav young German boys now than the original trio (Bastian, Lukas and Philipp) have grown up. Look at Philipp, he's still not grown any taller, but he's already the German captain! Awww... hopefully my new boys Mesut and Thomas will have a bright future ahead of them too. :)

I'll just end this with a few great pictures... (of hot German WAGs as well)

Feeling it rating: 5 of 5! :)
Zzzz rating: 0 of 5

Sarah Brandner - Bastian's girl. HH thinks she's hot, that's why I'm including this pic here. Beside her is Mario Gomez's girl.

And this lady... apparently she's Thomas Mueller's WIFE! I don't know, that's what they put in the caption! But he's only 20!!

I never knew what was Becks' role at this World Cup. Probably his role is to pose for the camera from the bench...

The headlines from the German and English newspapers

If Loew and Flick's clothes look familiar, it's probably because they recycled what they wore at the Australia game... their lucky suit then perhaps?

Suarez strikes to send South Koreans home

2010-06-27T07:44:00.005+08:00

Uruguay 2 South Korea 1

School is starting... (for me it'll be the start of a 10-week practicum at a new school tomorrow) which means 2.30am matches are pretty much off for me now. Unless they're really matches I can't afford to miss. Luckily, tonight's big match between Germany and England will be at 10pm, so I'll be able to catch that definitely.

These days I feel really sleepy even for the 10pm matches, and yesterday's match between Uruguay and South Korea almost drove me to sleep in the first half. Suarez's first goal came from a mistake made by the South Korean goalkeeper who came off his line but missed the cross completely. During half-time, I got up from my bed and walked around the house a little to try and shake some of the sleepiness off. HH was supporting the South Koreans, but he went home at half-time so as not to miss the bus.

After Uruguay scored their 1st, they kinda went off to sleep a little, which meant I went all drowsy as well, while they were just contented to soak up the waves of South Korean attack which wasn't quite finding its way through.

Sometime early in the 2nd half, in another bid to make myself feel more awake, I went to the toilet, and that was when I heard some shouts from downstairs. I counted off five seconds before I heard my dad shout "1-1!" Lol, see, Mio TV really lags.

I seldom miss goals when I'm not at the TV, but that was one I did miss.

Anyway, that goal kinda kicked the game into life and woke up the sleeping Uruguayans. I, too, was jolted awake now. So then, Uruguay regained control of the game and started pushing forward more and Suarez's second was simply a beauty. Curled from outside the penalty area into the top corner of the net.

Amidst the downpour at Port Elizabeth, Luis Suarez made all the difference in this game.

And the South Americans sure are doing well in this tournament, aren't they?

"Feeling it" rating: 2 of 5
Zzzz rating: 3 of 5

ps. I'm so nervous about tonight's Germany v England game... I wanted to slap Beckanbauer when he made those comments about England. Old man or not, he was stupid to make those stupid comments. You don't need to make England more fired up man! And it makes my team look more cocky and that's no good...... The stupid octopus which predicted a Germany win is another irritating thing. I hate it when my team become favourites... they say the octopus is always right, which means all the more the octopus is wrong... ain't it?

HH on the World Cup so far: The 1st Interview

2010-06-26T20:28:00.005+08:00

Inspired by my previous interviews with my dear HH during Euro2008 (which I'm still amused with whenever I read them now. see here and here.), I decided to celebrate the end of the World Cup group stages with another interview with HH! I interrupt him while he's watching Shaolin Soccer on Channel 5 at my house... note the questions may be boring, but the responses are still classic-HH.

Me: Hello
Hi, can you don't interview me?

No, I must interview you.
I am a boring person. Can u interview someone famous instead?

No. I must interview you.
Ok, can you hurry up.

Ok, first question. How have you found the World Cup so far?
Boring.

Why?
Because I keep falling asleep during matches.

What % of games do you think you have seen so far?
Almost all, except the 2.30 matches.

So you haven't watch the 2.30 matches?
Yah, I did for a few, but I fell asleep at the England and Spain matches. England is very boring. Yah I fell asleep during the England vs Algeria match before it even started.

So, which team are you rooting for at the moment and why?
South Korea. Because I love Asian teams.

Which team do you think has been the most impressive so far?
France.

Huh. Why?
Because they're unbelievably, impressively suck. They're the most entertaining team, they kept impressing me with their off-the-field antics.

Which is a bigger shock: The Orchard Road flooding or both the previous World Cup finalists out in the group stages?
Orchard Road flood. (Me: Why?) Because the government... will I be politcally implicated? (Me: Yah) (he rants on but it's all censored.) I expected France and Italy to suck at this WC. Because they have too many LKK (lao kok kok - slang for 'old') players. And their LKK players cannot keep their mouth shut, they're like the wife who you married too long and keep nagging and can't keep her mouth shut.

Am I going to be like that?
Yah, after a while you'll probably be like that.

Which team is worse: France or Italy?
I already said. France.

Which has been the most memorable game for you so far?
Italy vs Slovakia. Because the last 10 mins, I thought Italy were going to come back. But I think their defence... Fabio Cannavaro is... It's obvious right, don't ask stupid questions, else I'm going to walk out of the interview.

Have you gotten used to the noise made by the vuvuzelas?
No. I still hate it. I cannot stand the bees. They should ban vuvuzelas. I miss the chantings and singing, vuvuzelas just kill the whole atmosphere.

Which player(s) has caught your eye so far?
Keisuke Honda and Mesut Ozil. Honda has restored the faith in Japanese car brands. I think Mesut Ozil is better than Ballack, and it's a blessing that Ballack has been injured else he might not have been able to play. I like Thomas Mueller too, at least he was good in the only Germany game I watched.

Do you think Liverpool should sign them?
Yah, but I know Liverpool has no money left in the bank account. They're probably selling Gerrard and Torres.

What do you think of Joachim Loew's fashion sense?
He has good fashion sense. But he should ask his assistant to stop wearing the same clothes as him. It's extremely gay. And they both have a gay look.

(HH doing his best... Joachim Loew impersonation?)

Who do you think is better-looking? Yoann or Santa Cruz?
Myself.

Nooooo.
Myself. Can I say myself?

Nooooo.
I want to say myself.

We're coming to the end of our interview. Do you have anything else to add?
Huh. Shaolin soccer just scored.

Ok last question: What do you think of this interview?
Waste time. The questions are lame. I want to walk out of this interview soon. I want to walk out like Anelka.

Ok, thank you for your time.

Oh yah, another question. Do you read my blog?
No... Oh yah, I do, when you force me.

Oh yeah, this game is beautiful!

2010-06-24T23:52:00.004+08:00

Italy 2 Slovakia 3

The World Cup has finally kicked into life now.

Who would have thought both finalists in the previous WC would have failed to progress from the group stages.

Previously, a look at this Group F seemed to reveal that this was a pretty straightforward group. New Zealand and Slovakia should have been easy tasks for the likes of Italy, Paraguay probably would have presented some threat but surely Italy could have no trouble topping this group? Yet, at the end of it all, Italy found themselves without a win, and finished bottom of the group.

Actually, I was watching the Paraguay v NZ game initially, but I just happened to switch over and saw Slovakia score their first, and so I continued watching the game from then on.

It sure was a game full of drama. Twice, at 2-1 and 3-2 Italy ALMOST looked like pulling off a comeback. It was pure amazing stuff. Never mind that the only Slovakia player I recognise is still Skrtel, I was one of those who were rooting for the team in white. Everytime Italy almost made a comeback definitely made the game very exciting, and when Slovakia pulled ahead with the 2nd, 3rd goal, it just made it hilarious. Who would have thought Italy and their famed defence could let in 3 goals against Slovakia!

Yeah, who would have thought... and this is just why the game is so unpredictable, and so beautiful.

I was saying this: Italy are probably the only team with hot men whom I hate.

Yet I couldn't help but feel a teensy weensy little sorry for some of the Italian players, like Fabio Quagliarella. He certainly livened things up after coming on as a substitute; he had a goal disallowed for offside (marginally) and curled in a stunner from outside the box (could have been one of the most memorable goals in the tournament had they pulled off that comeback). And one image that really struck me was when after the game, in the midst of all the jubilant scenes of Slovakia fans/players/staff celebrating, the number 18 Italian man was captured lying on the ground, with his hands covering his face, but visibly shaking and broken down with sobs. Fabio Cannavaro, the captain, a player whom I admired for a while back in 06, looked (old and) dejected, but he still went over and pulled his teammate up.

Sometimes football just evokes the most extremes of emotions.

And that's because of how much it means to us all.

"Feeling it" rating: 5 of 5. Yes, I've finally felt it! By far the most dramatic and entertaining match of the tournament so far. And the biggest upset.

Zzzz rating: 0 of 5.

Bye Socceroos... and it's England v Germany next.

2010-06-24T07:37:00.005+08:00

Germany 1 Ghana 0

Now, let's begin with the fashion commentary on Joachim Loew/Hansi Flick first. (Every Germany game needs to include this section now.) Please note I am far from the fashion expert though.

Hmmm, I must say I do not quite like this blazer. The buttons are a little strangely arranged and the scarf around Loew's neck looks very bulky. Makes him look a little gay as well.

Ok, that aside, I went off to bed after the first half of the 10pm matches so that I could wake up for the 2.30am match between Germany and Ghana. Ideally, I would have wanted both Germany and Australia to go through, but it was always going to be a hard mathematical equation to beat there.

In the end, Australia's heavy defeat against Germany made their goal difference a too difficult task to overcome. Yes yes, on hindsight, my dear Germany shouldn't have dealt my dear Australia such a big thrashing huh?

Having said that, this game against Ghana was far from easy for Germany too. After being thoroughly impressive against the Socceroos in the opening game, the weaknesses in Germany are definitely starting to show up more now. The height of the German defence is one, their inability to capitalise on crosses when attacking (especially without Klose, and it's due to both the lack of accuracy of the crosses as well as the shorter forwards) is another, and most of all, their inexperience at this stage for many of their young players. It's weird sometimes, because on the one hand, you can argue that Germany, as a footballing nation, has plenty of experience at the later stages of the tournament. Yet on the other, because of the age of the players (they're the 2nd youngest team in the tournament), they may lack the tough mentality needed to cope with the pressure at this stage.

Ghana certainly had their chances to win this game, but they failed to convert any of them, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't worry at all for a second about Germany progressing. It'd have been an absolute disaster if Germany somehow didn't reach the knockout stages, but yes, I did have my doubts and fears for a while.

In contrast, while I only watched England for the first half only, it seemed like they turned on the style for this game. I don't know who will go into the upcoming clash as favourites, but I would say it won't be a straightforward one at all.

It was a little sad when at the end of the game, I switched channels and saw both sets of players in the Australia v Serbia game looking downright miserable. Both teams ended up the losers for that one, a complete opposite for the other game.

One last thing, Mesut Ozil's strike which sealed top spot for Germany in Group D: what a cracker! I sure hope Germany can go far just so I can see him and Thomas Mueller in action more... :)

"Feeling it" rating: 3.5 of 5
Zzz rating: 1 of 5

P.S. Bye Socceroos... see ya in a few years' time again... I love this pic of Timmy and another Roo (not my King Roo which remains deflated somewhere in the house). Cute smile!

Red for another of my favs

2010-06-22T22:44:00.006+08:00

I'm mad. Damn angry. This is so bloody unfair. I waited for more than a year to see Harry play again and he got sent off within 23 mins. Now I've waited for I-can't-even-remember-how-many-years to see Yoann Gourcuff play and he too lasted about as long as Harry on the pitch. Yes, again you could argue there was an elbow there, but like I mentioned in my previous post, the red cards in this tournament are way too harsh. Maybe I'm kind of cursed too, so my favs are being sent off so easily. Arghhh. Ok, let me just explain briefly why I've wanted to see Yoann play for years. A few years ago, I bought him on football manager. It was like when I bought kaka while he was still a relative unknown at Sao Paolo. I didn't know yoann and I sure as he'll didn't know how cute he was. I only knew he had model-like looks when he became slightly more famous in real life and yeah, it took me this long before I got the chance to see him play.

Sigh. I don't like the French at all, but why must this happen to Yoann... The moment he went off, I switched channels already. There's just no point in watching anymore. Sob.

IT WASN'T A RED!!!!!!

Spain - not so sexy anymore?

2010-06-22T09:12:00.014+08:00

Spain 2 Honduras 0
After Torres trimmed his hair, somehow he and Villa don't look so much like a gay couple anymore.

Btw, Mr Iker Casillas has finally gotten rid of his facial hair as well. (And Pepe loves it)

Whenever a footballer cuts his hair, there's a few who like to associate it with a change in luck. I'm not the superstitious sort when it comes to hair, because I've seen players do well/suck with long/short hair, so there doesn't seem to be a direct relationship really.

But I do think that the hair (on the top of the head and face) of the Spanish players is somewhat affecting me in my liking of them. Oh, I still love Torres, pretty hair or not, but I was looking at the Spanish team play this morning, and I realised I didn't quite like them as much (as in Euro08) anymore.

I tried to analyse this feeling, and I've come up with the following reasons for it:
1) I like to support the "slight" underdogs. Now being European Champions, Spain are hot favourites.

2) There're more people liking Spain now, Spain sold the most jerseys here in Singapore. Even more than England. I hate supporting the most-supported team.

3) Liverpool isn't so Spanish anymore. We only have Pepe and Torres in the Spain national team, and even then, they do not seem as important as Iker and Villa in the team.

4) I feel betrayed by players like Xabi (and a bit of Arbeloa) who having become stars after joining Liverpool and became established international regulars, just got up and left for Real Madrid, a club I intensely dislike.

5) Spanish players don't look as good as they did before.

By the way, I think points 1 to 4 definitely outweigh point 5, but to explain what I mean by point 5, look at this:

What's Cesc Fabregas (Kickette.com refers to him as Sex-Fabregas) thinking? I've always seen Cesc as a little boy because he's forever younger than me, but with that amount of facial hair, he looks 30 years older than me!

My goodness. I think Spanish people often go through a phase when they feel they should have more facial hair. Look at Rafa, and Xabi's also doing the same (to a lesser extent) as well. To be fair to Cesc though, he did play very well when he came on in this match. He almost scored within seconds of coming on. Yes, even though I don't think there's a relation, maybe he felt that growing more facial hair will do his football some good.

Back to the football. Spain dominated this game throughout and Iker had ZERO saves to make for this one. The only concern for Spain was the amount of chances they fluffed. Poor Torres looks really rusty, and Spain really should have won this game by a bigger margin. When Villa scored that superb individual goal for his 1st, I thought this could end up like the Portugal v N Korea game. Alas, Villa could only find a second (good shot, albeit off a deflection), missed his chance at a hat-trick when he sent his penalty wide of goal, and everyone else just kept missing chances on their own accord.

Now, Spain reminded me more of Arsenal in this game. They were fluent in their movement and passing, but sometimes they made a pass too many in the penalty box, and kept screwing up in front of goal.

Still, they won, and for this game at least, I guess that's all that matters.

"Feeling it" rating: 3 of 5

Zzz rating: 2 of 5

Portugal 7 North Korea 0
I was out all day, and by the time I got home, it was already 4-0 to Portugal. Ok, sidetrack a bit, I went to see the RoboCup at Suntec and when I was there, I saw Singapore being up 10-0 against some Rest of the World team. I couldn't help commenting, "This is the only World Cup we can win." lol

Anyway, 7-0!!! WTH!!! Oh, I hate Portugal, and I still do, but wow, that sure was a stunning result. The half hour of the match I got to see... my word, it just seemed like every time Portugal attacked, they looked like they were going to score. I felt sorry for North Korea really, I'm sure they were trying, but their defence was sliced open time after time way too easily.

Refs too harsh with red cards?

2010-06-22T09:12:00.013+08:00

Read the following excerpts of articles on Soccernet...

Behrami: Vidal ruined my World Cup
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-cup/story/_/id/799958/ce/uk/?cc=4716&ver=global

Valon Behrami (Switzerland):
"How I feel now is that it's destroyed my World Cup. A season like this, it's unbelievable. It surprised me because it's normal to have contact in football. My movement wasn't [intended] to create damage or do something to the player. I just wanted to protect the ball, like I have done every time. It's unbelievable for me."

Ok, compare the above excerpt with this:

Harry Kewell says referee has killed his World Cup
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-cup/story/_/id/799230/ce/uk/?cc=4716&ver=global

Harry Kewell (Australia):
"It's a shame that it happened that way but, if you look at the situation, it's hit my arm, but it wasn't deliberate. It was only that I was trying to get my shoulder there. I think the ref made a decision that he can only answer.

"Unless I actually detach my arm and put it somewhere else, there is no other way I can move my arm. I didn't deliberately go for the hand, I didn't try and handball it, I tried to use my chest. I was playing by the rules, but the ref saw it another way. He's probably the only one who did.

"The guy has killed my World Cup."

K the article actually continues for quite long... (Harry was a very angry man, he said a lot lol)
The rest of what he says...

"I'm devastated. We got the early goal. I thought okay, they started to come back, but I thought they had the grip on it.

"We controlled it, I thought, and then again a decision like that, they have haunted us throughout the World Cup, but again, that's football you have to take it on the chin.

"It's just unfortunate that the ref saw something that probably everyone thought, 'Okay, fair enough, it was a handball, but was it red card?'

"We've seen some decisions in this World Cup that haven't been red cards. Why is this one different? That's why everyone gets confused, everyone gets frustrated with referees because one minute they're are saying this and one minute they are saying that.

"He's the referee at the end of the day. You can't tell him what to do. He's the judge, jury and executioner."

And Lala says:
When I saw the first headline on Soccernet today, I just thought it reminded me awfully much of the Harry one earlier, so I dug the article up as well. When I saw Behrami getting the red yesterday, I had this feeling that I've never seen so many red cards issued in a tournament like this before. I went to check it up, and sure enough, there's been 10 red cards issued in 32 matches so far. Now, that is really A LOT. Just think, right off your mind, do you think this tournament has been any more violent than usual so far? I struggle to think of one really cynical foul or tackle that stands out.

I somewhat remember an article saying that before this tournament, Fifa had briefed the referees to clamp down on some of the challenges that were deemed dangerous. Indeed, I suppose for most of the red cards/penalties we have seen in this tournament, you can't really fault the referees for their decisions because they largely went by the book. Yet, I can't help but feel that some of these penalties and red cards given have been way too soft. Like I said, I can't think of a single tackle that has really been over-the-top.

While we do want to protect the players from dangerous tackles and abide by the laws of the game, I think the refs do need to show some sensible judgment and allow for more flow of the game. Come on, football isn't a game for softies!

Another upset - NZ holds reigning champs

2010-06-21T08:57:00.004+08:00

I think New Zealand just might be my adopted 4th team (after Germany, Spain and Australia).

Maybe I just have a soft spot for Oceania nations like Australia (though they've "migrated" into the Asian Federation) and NZ because of my pleasant holiday experiences there, but NZ really pulled off a major result there when they held the reigning World Champions to a draw.

The only NZ player I knew before this game was their captain Ryan Nelson, who plays for Blackburn Rovers in the EPL. But now I can add Shane Smeltz the goalscorer and Mark Paston the superb goalie onto that list as well. The first thing I noticed about the two teams was how young both their goalkeepers looked. I supposed I was used to seeing Buffon in the Italian side. Anyway, they're not really as young as they look. I've checked it up, and Mark Paston's 33 while Federico Marchetti's 27.

By the way, do you know that New Zealand only has a population of over 4 million while Slovenia's around 2 million? There're a few other nations in the World Cup with population of around that of Singapore's as well, and all these nations really ought to be an inspiration for us.

I remember how when I was in NZ with some of the other students from my school in Sec 3, our guide told us that NZ has more sheep than people. And judging from how low the population density is, how vastly spread out these people are (you keep seeing miles and miles of green pastures, they don't seem to have neighbours close by), I wondered how they managed to find all these players and put a proper football team together at all.

Like Switzerland did, I must say, New Zealand defended brilliantly against the Italians. The Italians were at times restricted to only long shots by Montolivo, and any long crosses, set-pieces, were dealt with superbly.

There was probably a hint of an offside for Smeltz' (I love his name!) goal but the Italian defence really bungled up there when Cannavaro deflected the ball onto Smelt'z path.

You know, while I do recognise that the Italians are always just about the team with the sexiest players in any international tournament, I never really liked them. I had the hots for Fabio Cannavaro for a while (last WC to be exact), but he's getting old now, and I am mostly immune to the Italian man's charm. Haha. Probably it has to do with them diving, kicking my Aussies out of the WC the last time round... Where's that stinky Grosso anyway? (Oh, he's not in the squad at all)

It'll really be amazing if NZ manage to get through to the knockout stages at the expense of the Italians... Hmm, can both Paraguay and NZ go through (though they face each other next)?

"Feeling it" rating: 3 of 5
Zzzz rating: 2 of 5

In other games...
Slovakia 0 Paraguay 2
Paraguay's probably the 5th team. Everytime I see Roque Santa Cruz in the Paraguay shirt I'm reminded of how I had a brief crush on him 8 years ago. Before I was even a real football fan. I think how it happened was that I was just "passing by" the TV, I saw him score, and thought to myself, man, he's HOT! Haha. Yeah, what a way to develop a crush. It turns out that he only scored a goal in that WC but I only saw that one so I thought he's good and he's hot. It still remains the only goal he's scored in the WC finals if I'm not wrong though... Anyway, where the big European nations aren't doing so well in the tournament so far (except for Holland, every one of them has dropped at least 2 points), the South Americans are doing rather well in general. Paraguay actually play some pretty good football, and players like Riveros, Vera, Barrios and Valdez all did well in this match.

Just for my personal enjoyment...

On a sidenote..
To be frank, I must say some of the off-the-pitch news have been entertaining me more than the football itself. The French debacle, with Anelka kicked off the team after insulting his coach, and then the team refusing to train... and some of the in-fighting as well (senior players think younger players suck, Gallas doesn't like Evra being captain, Yoann Gourcuff the cute boy is teacher's pet - he must be using his charms on the coach...) wow, the headlines they're making are definitely more entertaining than their football.

Another red for Aussies

2010-06-20T08:16:00.003+08:00

Ghana 1 Australia 1
Ah, crap. I haven't even seen Harry play enough, and that's pretty much the end of his World Cup already.

Now, I think someone needs to clarify this. Does a handball need to be deliberate?

There are conflicting views of this one, and what I feel is that though the ball did hit Harry's hand, it wasn't deliberate. He had his arms on his sides (not waving it high in the air like Vidic against Germany) and when the ball hit the top of his shoulder, it couldn't help rolling down his arm as well. Only way he could have prevented a handball was if he had kept both his arms behind his back, but who the hell does that!

Even if a handball doesn't need to be deliberate, now, giving a straight red AND a penalty seemed way too harsh.

Sigh, all I can say is that I really, really feel sorry for Harry. He's the most cursed player I've ever seen. Injuries after injuries, and now his World Cup campaign lasted all for, what, 23 minutes?

The Aussies are seriously lacking good players. It says a lot when one of their star players is Harry Kewell, one who hasn't been playing much football himself of late. And without Harry and Timmy in the side, there's hardly anyone they can rely on. But having said that, I thought 10-men Australia played immensely well this time. They could have gotten another goal (although so too did Ghana). Maybe they're more used to playing with 10 men now...

Well, thinking about the equations needed for any of the sides in Group D to go through gives me a headache. It'll be hard for the Aussies I think, but I'm still crossing my fingers for both them and Germany.

This Aussie side is one that badly needs new (and young) blood though.

"Feeling it" rating: 3 of 5.

Zzzz rating: 1 of 5.

In other games...
Holland 1 Japan 0
The Dutch were not exactly playing the free-flowing football they're good for, but played well enough and managed to avoid another upset similar to what some of their European counterparts have been suffering of late. I don't think the 'keeper was at fault for Sneijder's goal. His shot was struck brillaintly and was too hot to handle really.

Emotions run high

2010-06-19T17:30:00.004+08:00

It sure was a night of drama and shocking results in the World Cup.

Starting with...

Germany 0 Serbia 1
I was pretty riled up by the ref's performance and the subsequent defeat by Germany, but however mad I was, I was nowhere close to what Joachim Loew was feeling...

Now, that is one very, very angry coach.

I knew that after the impressive performance against the Aussies, with greater expectations, it was always going to be hard to replicate that kind of performance again. But I never, ever thought that it could end up like this. Man, I really wanted to kill the ref when he showed that red for Miroslav Klose. It was wayyyyyyy too harsh. He was really dishing out yellows for fun then, but it still came as a rude shock when he showed Klose that 2nd yellow. HH mused that the Spanish ref must have an agenda at Germany, but it just seemed that he was a little too card-happy all around.

Serbia definitely came into the game with a solid gameplan. Even before the sending off, Germany were hardly getting a sniff at goal, such was the defensive tactics of their opponents. I still can't figure out how one should play against a team where they continuously close down on the players with the ball, denying you of any time or space.

In fact, I think Germany on the whole kinda played better when they were a man down. Or to be more precise, they actually played well from the start of the 2nd half (after they had gotten over the shock of being a man down) right up till Podolski's penalty miss.

My poor Lukas though. I really wanted to hug him after that miss. Evil HH just kept going on and on about how he'd never seen a German miss a penalty before, and that Lukas ought to be taken off, and he should go and play with his cat. Of course Mr Loew wasn't that mean, it seemed that he understood my theory on how if Lukas were to be taken off, he'd feel really sad and he'll never recover from that later.

But it was kinda true, my Lukas was like Messi the other day. I don't think he was awful, he just couldn't find the back of the net...

On the Serbs, one thing I found irritating about them was their names. The commentator kept going "blah-blah-blah-ich" that my ears were starting to itch. Why is it that you don't pronounce Vidic as Vee-deek but Vee-dich anyway? I can't stand the "ich" sound. Stankovic, Vidic, Zigic, Ivanovic...

They have super tall strikers as well. I tried to find one picture of Lahm and Zigic, but couldn't, else it would really make for a funny picture... there was once Lahm and Zigic both jumped for the same ball and I wanted to laugh. Why did Lahmmy bother to jump anyway!

And that guy who scored? Milan Jovanovic... I almost didn't realise that we (Liverpool) actually have a Serbian player. Ok, he's kinda the almost-Liverpool player. I've read reports of Rafa wanting to hijack the deal which would see him joining Liverpool... Before seeing him, I was thinking, ok, whatever, just take him, he's Rafa's signing anyway and we don't want another Cisse situation here, but if he's really that good...

Sigh. I still want the Aussies to win Ghana tonight, although it would make for a really strange equation in the final group games if all of those in Group D end up with 3 points each...

One high note of the game, Mr Loew and his assistant Mr Flick look lovely in their matching clothes again. They have impeccable tastes in clothes, but I just don't get why they must wear matching clothes.... (It's super gay in HH's opinion)

"Feeling it" rating: 3.5 of 5. It was only entertaining because the ref made it to be though. Definitely stirred up some emotions.

In other games...
Slovenia 2 USA 2
England 0 Algeria 0

I went off to bed at 2-1 in the Slovenia game, but I must say, the likes of Slovenia and Algeria are really giving USA and England a run for their money. This was supposed to be a straightforward group with the top two seeds, England and USA, going through easily... Doesn't seem to be the case now, does it?

Higuain the toast of Argentina/ French are toast now?

2010-06-18T14:31:00.006+08:00

Argentina 4 South Korea 1

So where Messi failed to get onto the scoresheet again, a little sorry for South Korea because they were ALMOST in it actually. When Martin Demichelis made that blunder to allow Lee Chung-Yong to snatch his 2nd goal of the tournament, between that goal and Higuain's 2nd, South Korea had a few great chances which they failed to convert into an equalising goal.Gonzalo Higuain led the rout against South Korea with a hat-trick. As the commentator said (btw he said a lot of rubbish), the Argentines played like Spain, with the only difference being that unlike the latter, they could score.

There's no doubt Argentina definitely played well, although one probably would feel

In the last post on Argentina, I mentioned briefly about the striking options Maradona has included in his World Cup squad. Somehow I forgot about his son-in-law (a cheating one, according to rumours) Sergio Aguero. Aguero did really well when he came on, having a hand in both of Higuain's late goals.

One thing though, I still think Maradona is a loony, and he looks silly in his suit. And another, I think Di Maria sucks. He reminds me a bit of Mario Gomez now - they are somewhat lacklustre for their national team.

"Feeling it" factor: 3 of 5.

France 0 Mexico 2

A quick one here, I specially got up to watch the 2nd half of this match because I wanted to see Yoann Gourcuff play! To my dismay, he didn't feature in this match at all! Man... I've heard of him since years ago and I still haven't gotten to see him play. If he doesn't play in the next match, it's likely that I'd not get the chance again since France are pretty much out of the World Cup now.

And dear me... France really does suck. I think Domenech is probably a worse coach than Maradona and it beats me how they even got to the Final under him the last time round.

Well, the equation is simple, if Uruguay and Mexico draw their next match against each other, both would qualify for the knockout stages, regardless of the result of France v South Africa. They may have made steps to prevent a conspiracy like what happened in 1982 in the West Germany v Austria game that saw both sides play to a scoreline that allowed both of them through at the expense of Algeria, but this is something that having the matches play simultaneously would not prevent now. Well, we'll see...

Swiss shock Spain

2010-06-17T09:42:00.003+08:00

Spain 0 Switzerland 1

This game was somewhat akin to a frustrating Liverpool game. In the 1st half, Spain had plenty of possession but didn't really create any real chances and almost drove me to sleep again. In the 2nd half, they upped the tempo a little and kept pouring forward in attack, but alas, they still couldn't find the breakthrough and Switzerland nicked a shocking goal on the break.

Any one of Pique, Torres, Alonso, Villa (if he didn't try those weird chipping crosses/shots) could have scored really, but credit has to go to the Swiss for their outstanding defensive display and well, if you don't score, you don't win, so there's nothing undeserved about the scoreline.

The shocking scoreline aside, I've always viewed Switzerland as the only potential banana skin for Spain in this relatively easy Group H, and I feel that Spain will still qualify for the knockout stages. They really need to up their game against the relative minnows of Chile and Honduras though, especially since the two sides will be expected to play defensive against them as well.

One thing to note, I think again this result reinforces my belief that somehow Germans are always so good despite lacking that "star factor". Credit has to go to the Swiss coach, ex-Bayern manager Ottmar Hitzfeld for being the master tactician here. I kinda wanted him to be our next Liverpool manager, although it seems like we can't attract him... sigh.

"Feeling it" factor: 3 of 5. I may be supporting Spain, but sometimes, some upsets are good for the game. Haha.

Zzzz rating: 3 of 5. I almost dozed off in the 1st half.

Back from Langkawi/ The German force

2010-06-16T11:33:00.008+08:00

My hotel at Langkawi only showed the World Cup matches at the lobby/lounge area. It did make things a little inconvenient and because I was always so damn sleepy after 9pm or so, I ended up watching only a little here and there of most matches. The only match I watched from start to finish was the one between Germany and Australia. The match-viewing session at the hotel lobby was actually quite funny sometimes. You know, on the first night I was there, when we went to the hotel lobby at 2.30am, we were the only souls in the entire lobby. Halfway through the match, 2 or 3 people came and sat behind us, but on the whole, the "gathering" was really that pathetic. (For the earlier matches, there was 0 people there.) In the 2nd half, we brought down our cup noodles and potato chips from our room to enjoy since there wasn't anybody around to make us feel embarrassed anyway. The next day, we received a flyer informing about the World Cup screening at the lobby (previously was just a chalkboard at the lobby to promote the screening) and the turnout that night was a lot better (about 20+ people).

Anyway, pity for those who only started watching the matches later, because I thought all the remaining matches, besides the Germany one, were pretty damn boring. Yeah, I think so far, Germany v Australia was the best match, and the performance by Germany was the best by a team.

Germany 4 Australia 0
Germany was just too damn good in this match. The thing about them is that, even though they don't seem to have any individual who really stands out for his skill and technique, as a team, they are always efficient and organized. Their attacking display was one that was built on strong understanding between teammates, precise passing, good movement off the ball and positioning. They were simply AMAZING to watch.

I don't know why the Germans always play so well at the international level despite a relative lack of real stars. Is it because of the fact that they understand each other so well since most of them play at the same club (Bayern)? I've read reports saying that they have an advantage with the new Adidas ball at this World Cup too, since some of the German clubs have been playing with the ball since Jan. I don't know, there could be an advantage there.

And yes, I do feel a little sorry for my poor Socceroos, I don't think Tim Cahill should have been sent off either (btw the ref looks like a drag queen), but Germany would have deserved to be even 6 or 7 up based on this one performance.

On my fav German boys, I thought they did brilliantly too. I really, really love Podolski especially! I think why I love the trio so much, besides the fact that they are quite cute (either in their names or looks - though not the drop-dead gorgeous sort of "cute"), and they never seem to suffer poor form at the major international tournaments (when I see them play), is also because they're relatively "untainted". They're forever at their neutral clubs (FC Koln & Bayern), and I generally do not feel any animosity towards their clubs since I don't know anything much about them anyway. There're some rumours of Schweinsteiger joining Chelsea though, and I sure hope it doesn't happen, because he'll be "tainted" the moment he joins EPL!! To be honest, I think I don't even want them joining Liverpool, it's just somewhat more special when I'm only seeing them once every 2 years (at Euro or WC).

Yeah, Podolski and Lahm played exceptionally well, as they had a direct hand in the goals (Podolski both scored and assisted).

Mesut Ozil and Thomas Mueller really impressed me a lot in this game. Haha, maybe, just maybe, if they remain "untainted" and not join one of the bigger European clubs and just stay in Germany, they might be my next "sweet young German boys" to like. Ozil is currently at Werder Bremen, and Mueller's at Bayern. If Mueller continues to play the way he does, he could very well be as good as the other Mueller (Gerd), the German legend. Ozil looks to be a very talented winger, he was good on the ball and he does have some skilful footwork. But because of the fact that he's not at Bayern, I think he probably won't stay in the Bundesliga for too long now...

Haha, one thing that made HH irritated was the constant show of "affection" amongst the Germans. It seems like besides Spain, there is now another contender for the "gayest team". For a start, coach Joachim Loew and his assistant Hansi Flick turned up in matching suits.

Wow, great fashion taste, but considering they didn't seem to be official team kit, the fact that they wore matching blue shirts was kinda weird! Loew also had a habit of hugging all his players as he took them off. Awwwwww... I was just thinking, you know how Rafa had a policy of being rather professional with his players right... just imagine him hugging players like that. =x

"Feeling it" rating: 4 of 5. A superb performance by the Germans. Sorry for my dear Socceroos and the undeserved red for Timmy...

Zzzz rating: 0 of 5.

Messi - mesmerising or frustrating?

2010-06-12T22:55:00.004+08:00

South Korea 2 Greece 0

You know, the odd thing is, the only "Asian team" I'm supporting this World Cup is Australia. I don't like Japan and South Korea, and I don't care about North Korea. I know there are some people who feel that being Asian, we must support the Asian teams, but for me it's a little like, if Liverpool is out of the Champions League, there's no way I'll support the other English teams in it.

I don't like South Korea also because of their Man United connection. Yeah, it's because Park Ji Sung plays for Man United and because South Korea's nickname is "Red Devils". It's a lame reason, I know, but who cares,

I'm always fascinated by the names of the players when it comes to the international games. Sometimes it can be downright funny. For instance, I'm sure everyone has noticed how many Lees and Parks there are in the South Korean team. Luckily they don't put their surnames on the backs of their shirts like they usually do for the clubs though!

Of course the Greek names are always challenging to pronounce as well...

Bias aside, I think the South Koreans totally deserved their victory over the dismal Greek side. They outplayed the Greeks in every area and showed a lot of promise going forward. By the way, where was our Greek Samurai? Injured? After all, as a Liverpool player, surely he should be a first team regular?

I was surprised to see that the Greek coach looked utterly familiar to me. After checking, I realise Otto Rehhagel is still in charge. Yes, since their Euro 04 triumph. Angelos Charisteas, the match-winner in that final, is still in the team as well, though he is probably past his prime now.

"Feeling it" rating: 3 of 5. Good match, pity I didn't really care for either side though.

Argentina 1 Nigeria 0

Remark no. 1 (by HH): Maradona looks funny in a suit.
Remark no. 2 (by me): His moustache looks fake.
Remark no. 3 (by my dad): Eh you know Maradona's hair fake one? He actually botak one.

The thing is, if they didn't have a loony coach like Maradona, I'd definitely rate Argentina as one of the top three teams of this tournament. The attacking options they have - Messi, Tevez, Higuain, even people like Di Maria, Milito - are some of the biggest names in club football, and it's scary.

I missed the opening goal by Heinze, and what a pity it was, because the next 80+ minutes that followed had everyone asking, "When will Messi score?" Turned out the answer was, "Not in this game, at least." Try as he may, mesmerising as some of his footwork was, Messi just found himself unable to beat goalkeeper Vincent Enyeama.

To be fair to the Nigerians, they saw plenty of action over at the other end of the pitch as well. It was just one of those games which offered plenty of action on the attacking front, but a strange lack of goals.

This was also the first game with our Liverpool players in action. Mascherano, and then, Maxi. I didn't notice much of their performances, except I knew Mascherano seemed to be playing much deeper than he usually is for Liverpool, and Maxi ought to have won a penalty for the Argentinians.

Overall, a good game, but I sure hope I get to see more of Messi actually scoring the next time round...

"Feeling it" rating: 3.5 of 5

Zzzz rating (applies to matches 10pm and beyond!): 1 of 5. Just a couple of yawns whenever Messi missed...

Other fixtures:
England v USA (no time watch, need to sleep! early flight tomorrow.)

ps. I'm off to Langkawi tomorrow, till Wed... hopefully I'll get to catch the matches there, though I'm pretty sure there won't be internet access...

TSHABALALA!!!!

2010-06-12T09:22:00.004+08:00

No, I'm not just shouting any random made-up word, but Siphiwe Tshabalala of South Africa (and of the club, not band, Kaizer Chiefs) was the first goal scorer of World Cup 2010!

Woohoo! Don't you just love his name? I didn't quite catch it as the commentator rolled it off his tongue during the match, but upon seeing it in the Straits Times, wow, his name has a LALA in it! Haha. Yes, I also love Torres' wife's name... Olalla...

And everyone must love the goal celebrations by African players, they always like to do a little dance :)

Ah, the match itself was pretty boring for me though. Wanted to sleep throughout and I couldn't stand my damn Mio TV. My dad was watching the match on living room TV, the one without cable, and his coverage was about 5-10 seconds ahead of me. Yes, so it was pretty lame, 'cause as I was watching the match, I'll hear him shout, "Goal!" and then I'll stare at my own TV... nothing happening... still not even close to scoring... 1, 2, 3, 4... seconds would pass before, "Oh. Yeah, so that's the goal."

It was just utterly stupid. Ok, I've already analysed this before. A cable-less TV receives footage faster than one on Starhub, which is also faster than one on Mio. So Mio TV, is the absolute slowest when receiving the TV feed. It's not about the channels itself, my Channel 5 and Channel 88 was of the same speed, it's just the Mio box itself receives the feed slower.

Yeah, so the match itself, utterly boring for me. Still not feeling it then. I didn't catch the later match as I went to get my precious sleep, but it seems like all I missed was the tournament's first red card which went to... *drum rolls* Uruguay's Nicolas Lodeiro and seeing a certain French cutie...

I've kinda liked him since buying him in Football Manager many years back, but strangely enough, I've never once seen Yoann Gourcuff play in real life... never mind, I think I'll see him soon enough.

Results:
South Africa 1 Mexico 1
~ "Feeling it" rating (read here to know what it means to feel it): 2 of 5. Was a rather boring match for me. Almost dozed off. Zzzz rating (applies to matches from 10pm onwards, measures how much I wanted to sleep): 3.5 of 5

France 0 Uruguay 0

So, I'm supporting...

2010-06-11T15:16:00.003+08:00

Is this in a particular order? I don't know, you tell me :)

(all pics courtesy of www.kickette.com <-- have I mentioned how it's my favourite site now?)

1) Germany

Ok, never mind the picture. If I must say, the pic kinda disturbs me actually. I like cats, and I love Lukas, but the expression on his face is just so... err =x

So why do I support Germany? I've been saying this the past Euro, the past World Cup, but let me just repeat it again. It's because I lurrveee the 3 German boys: Bastian, Lukas and Philipp. It's funny, because I remember them being young quite some time ago, and loving them since young. Years have passed, so usually that means they must be pretty old right now, but can you believe the oldest of them, Philipp, is still ONLY 27? Amazing stuff. They aren't that much older than me really.

Anyway, I think for this World Cup, Germany have kinda been overlooked. I'm doing this World Cup Prediction contest with my MapleStory guild right now, and of 30 entries, no one picked Germany to win (although I told one guy to put Germany, so there's one now)! Hot favourites? Spain, followed by England, then Brazil.

If you look at their recent record, Germany have actually been doing pretty well. Runners-up at the 2002 World Cup, 3rd placing in 2006, runners-up at Euro 08... Ok, maybe this "second-place syndrome" is precisely why some people do not give them much of a chance, (heck, even Bayern came in 2nd in the recent Champions League) but I think the Germans have always had this quiet efficiency about them. They don't make too much of a noise, they have little media coverage compared to the more flamboyant teams, but they've always done well. Even for their individual players, I can't think of any really scandalous individuals, can you? They don't create much news, but they're always pretty good. (Which brings me to how I had hoped Ottmar Hitzfeld would be our next manager... slim chance though)

I only didn't really like Ballack, although yes, I'm not quite sure how much his absence would impact them...

2) Spain

Er, why support Spain? It's obvious, isn't it? The papers reported that Spain has the highest jersey sales in Singapore, ahead of England, and I suppose it's because we're all now so familiar with the Spanish players in the La Liga as well as in the EPL. And also, they play good football, they've been on great form since Euro 08, and yeah, they have great-looking players as well. I still prefer Nando's old hair, but I'm definitely looking to some of those Spanish players' "love-scenes" during their celebrations. Yes, girls love watching good-looking guys make out with each other.

3) Australia

Oh, did the pic hurt your eyes? I must say, when I first saw that picture on Kickette, I was with HH and both of us were disturbed. Ok, it was more like, I was screaming (I don't know what for) and he was muttering how it must be photoshopped...

I was supporting Australia during the last World Cup with a big inflatable kangaroo (named King Roo) that I went allllll the way to the Land of Oz to get. This time, Roo remains deflated somewhere in the house, and I don't think I'm going to search for it either, but I'll still hope that Australia can do well in the competition. I remember hating Italy the last time that Grosso dived to win a penalty that knocked the Aussies out of the last World Cup, and I hope something heartbreaking like that won't happen again!

And yes, I am hoping to see Harry play again... hopefully he has recovered properly from his groin injury (he's forever hurting his groin) to play against... guess who? Germany. On Monday.

Goal 2010 - Feeling IT

2010-06-11T09:06:00.004+08:00

So, the World Cup is finally here again, and surprise, surprise, Singapore still isn't in it!

Remember how all those years ago, we were dreaming of entering this edition of the World Cup? Okay, so the idea was scrapped a few years back after the people up there 'woke up their idea' and realised that it remains nothing more than a pipe-dream. And to be fair, we went further than before in the qualifiers this time.

Still, as long as my own national team isn't featured in the competition, it means I am entitled to not feel any form of patriotism and loyalty to any other national team in the competition. A lot of people just don't get this point, because whenever they ask me what team I'm supporting for the World Cup, I honestly answer, "I don't know really, but maybe I'll be supporting Australia, Spain, Germany..." They then ask, how can I support so many teams? I should only stick to one team!

Well, I've always seen this as totally different from the club issue, where I do feel we should only have ONE team, and if you pick the wrong team from the start, then too bad, you can rue over your decision forever but it's like a marriage, you should have made your vows to stick with that team forever. (Of course, you can file for a divorce, but I'm the traditional sort who believes in "in sickness or health, till death do us part")

I've to admit, I'm not quite feeling it for this World Cup. I don't know if the previous EPL season has somewhat dampened my spirits for the whole game in general, whether it is the sky-high prices for the subscription packages, whether it is because I am not supporting any ONE particular team, whether it is Rafa Benitez's sacking and the club turmoil at Liverpool, or what the hell it is, but I'm just not feeling IT. Maybe someone just needs to throw me a dose of some "Feeling IT for the World Cup" potion or something.

Yes, so for me, my personal Goal 2010 in this World Cup would be to re-ignite that passion for football again, to re-discover feeling IT.

For a start, the one thing that has gotten me feeling close to IT, is whenever I hear the World Cup theme song by Shakira on the radio. And after watching this video (there are many versions of the MTV, there's one of animals playing football too), I feel like jumping up to dance some African(-style) dance too.

Yeah man, waka waka eh eh!

Ok, maybe I'm starting to feel it again... So without Singapore, which team should I support? Watch the next post...

The End... or a new beginning?

2010-06-04T09:35:00.002+08:00

Ok, first announcement to make... I might be closing this blog pretty soon. I won't delete it, because this blog contains many of my memories, but I probably won't be posting regularly soon. I would say this decision came to me, pretty much, gradually. Over the past year or so, the lacklustre season, the new work commitments, just sort of took away my interest in blogging. It's becoming more of a chore than of an interest. Even my passion for football has been affected.

The final decision will be left till after the World Cup, and honestly, I'm just hoping that the World Cup can stir up my passion for the Game. The past season has just been so bleak, I can hardly see any positives.

I only knew of Rafa's departure this morning when I flipped open the Straits Times. In the past, I'd probably have known it sooner, but these days I hardly visit soccernet.com. The only football-related site I visit regularly is www.kickette.com (which btw, is a great site for female fans haha).

Rafa's departure, I would want to liken it to that of GH's, where at the end, there was just a tinge of disappointment, but ultimately, I wasn't intensely devastated about it, neither did I feel any animosity towards him. He did some great things during his time at our club, he brought us to some places we weren't previously capable of, but at the same time, he didn't bring us the Holy Grail we so craved for. So, let's just leave it at that.

But where after GH's departure, I immediately bounced back to feeling excited in anticipation of who our next manager would be, I think this time, it would be a much, much, harder task ahead. I'm no expert in finance, but I think our financial future looks bad, and without $$, things are going to be rough. I don't know which manager can we attract too. If you ask me to draft up my dream list, I'd probably put Guus Hiddink at the top of it. But I won't dwell on it too much.

I remember how, many years ago, when I was in JC2, I was away from home at the Pre-U Seminar. Ok, I wasn't that far away from home, I was just in NUS. But I remember throughout that time, I relied on phone calls with HH to get my latest news. I so badly wanted the then-Valencia manager Rafael Benitez to join us after GH left, and would bug HH on any rumours surrounding that. Now, years later, I can only look back on that memory with a little fondness, with a little numbness.

I honestly can't see the path ahead of us now. It frightens me a little, but at the same time, I'm not letting myself get too bothered about it. We'll just wait, pray, and see.

liverpool 2 atletico 1 - the most painful victory

2010-04-30T05:49:00.002+08:00

Sigh. Ytd's TNP had the headline 'My most beautiful defeat" or something, said by Jose after Inter's loss to Barca in the 2nd leg (but they progressed to the final on agg score). Today, well, we took the role of Barca... we won, yet we lost.

I think we played well... when Aquilani and Yossi scored, they had soooo much emotion on their faces I thought they were going to cry. When Yossi scored, I shedded a tear. Yeah, I was that emo. I know this is only the Europa league, and I'm sure I'll get over this pretty soon, but it's been a long time since I felt so nervous through a Liverpool game. My heart was beating so quickly throughout most of the game. It almost, ALMOST, felt like one of those big CL games against the likes of Chelsea, Inter, etc.

When Yossi scored and I'd already heard Fulham had won their game, I was thinking what an odd final it would be with Liverpool v Fulham. But that thought was shortlived... our 'lead' was shortlived.

Forlan... don't get me started on him. Simao too, for that matter. When I see Forlan and Simao, I don't seem to remember us winning against them.

First time I saw Aguero playing. Seriously, I don't know why he needs to put the name 'Kun Aguero' on his shirt, when nobody seems to call him that. Not the commentator, not us English-speaking people, anyway. And of course, he was of no great significance in this game... Everytime I see him I just kept thinking about what would happen to him if he cheats on his wife. What will Maradona do? K, never mind, I don't know why I was thinking that anyway...

K, as I'm typing this, I think I'm starting to feel better already. Honestly, we didn't play badly, we didn't deserve to 'lose'. Our bench was shit though... real shit. I can totally understand why Rafa delayed bringing on the subs.

Lastly, I still don't know what to make of this weekend's match against Chelsea... poolfans ah, I understand your position, but I really can't imagine myself wanting us to lose that one on purpose. But I'll be really, really surprised if we finish fourth. Truth is, I just don't think we deserve it at all. We've been total shite the whole season... really. I think the games we've deserved to win, I can count on my two hands, probably even one. This was one of the decent performances, but they've been real rare, and on the whole, even with the bad luck with injuries, I think we don't deserve anything at all from this season.

And now... just what am I going to do with my Mio again... let it rot?

burnley 0 liverpool 4 - so, what now?

2010-04-26T07:57:00.003+08:00

lol. I almost felt sorry for Burnley.

They didn't really deserve the scoreline, to be honest. Up till our 1st goal, we never looked like scoring. Then the goal from Stevie came via a deflection...

Why aren't we this lucky all the time though?

I love Stevie's 2nd btw. A powerful shot from range... he rarely does that these days.

The game against Atletico got me real mad, because our players, whenever they had the ball, they just didn't know how to shoot. At the end of the game, the stats showed we had 0 shots. ZERO SHOTS!! I wished I were playing Playstation or Xbox and I was controlling the players. I'll bloody hell make sure I press the shoot button. If you don't shoot, you don't score. Simple as.

And well, it looked like it was going to be another frustrating game again... until the deflection.

Credit to players like Aquilani though. Haha, I really still don't know what to make of him... He set up two of our goals on the night, and I think he's had quite a few assists considering the games he's played, hasn't he?

I'm really concerned about our game against Chelsea next weekend though. So, like my title says, what now? I know we still have an outside chance of finishing 4th. Slim, slim chance. I'm too lazy to do the calculations, because Villa/City/Tottenham are going to play each other and it kinda confuses things even more, but I know our chance is very, very slim. On the other hand, we don't want United to win the title. So, am I suppose to hope we win/lose against Chelsea?

I think this is something similar to the Blackburn situation all those years back. I suppose when it comes down to it, we'll still want Liverpool to win our game, and hopefully Man U somehow screw up by themselves. Still... I really, REALLY, don't want them to win the title... the 19th... I have this vague feeling/vision that I dreamt about Fergie winning the 19th last night...

liverpool 3 west ham 0 - little excitement

2010-04-20T22:33:00.002+08:00

Sadly, it's getting to a point where even though we won, I don't feel that excited and optimistic any longer. Yeah, as of 2 weeks ago (I think), I gave up all hope of CL and I think if we want to be super optimistic, we can look forward to winning the Europa League this season and perhaps retaining it next season?

And then news of Torres' injury made me entirely sick again. I don't... see N'gog leading us to a Europa League win... yes, I may be wrong, after all, we won the CL with Baros/Cisse as strikers, and they aren't that much better either. Oh, and we had Traore in the side remember?

Now I don't even know what to look forward to in these remainder weeks. It sucks when I don't know whether I should have wanted Man Utd or Man City to win in their derby, and I don't know if I should want us to beat Chelsea next week. It just tells you exactly what we have left to play for eh.

Yes, I'm just feeling a little sorry for ourselves. More than a little sorry. :(

liverpool 4 benfica 1 - into the semis of European football, baby!

2010-04-09T07:32:00.002+08:00

Wow, it's weird that Liverpool & Fulham are the only English teams left in any form of European competition this season. Hahaha.

I was going to say ONLY Liverpool are left... but then I realised Fulham are there too, so yeah. Feels weird to be lump together with the likes of Fulham though, makes it sound a lot less glamourous (sry Fulham).

So we did slaughter Benfica at Anfield after all! Take that!! HA

You know you must have done something wrong if you managed to make me mistake Lucas for Torres for a while. Yeah, when Lucas raced onto the throughball from Stevie, dinked past the 'keeper and then slot the ball into the back of the net, I was cheering, "yeah Torres!" (mentally) from my half-asleep mode.

We'll be taking on Atletico (again) in the semis. We drew them on both occasions the last time we met, and poor Torres was still on sick leave... Well, hopefully now he'll get the chance to play against his boyhood club, although whether he'll be the key difference... I don't know. It's always weird when you play against your old club, you either have a higher tendency to score against them, or have a higher tendency to suck against them (see Owen). Goes both ways really...

In the past, when we were sucking in the domestic league, European football was something to look forward to. Of course this isn't the European football we want to be playing again next season, so a top 4 finish is a lot more important still. Getting harder as the weeks go by though. I know it's still mathematically possible to make it, but when you see that gap not really reducing as the remaining games get lesser... it's really getting harder and harder.

When there's so little to cheer for these days, it really kills my mood to blog I think. Sigh. I don't know if I'll get a little cheerier once the World Cup comes by. Still no news of us getting the coverage too.

Anyway if you haven't seen our new kit, here it is:
http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/shop/kit

I don't know if it's suppose to look that tight fitting though...

benfica 2 liverpool 1 - stop kicking torres!!

2010-04-02T07:56:00.002+08:00

Yes, I do feel more than a little aggrieved at our result at Benfica. But for once, I'm more pissed off with Benfica, the ref and the result in general than with our players.

The Babel red card, the two penalties were arguable, either way would have been reasonable so I won't dwell too much on it, they just made me pissed off with the situation. But when I see what was happening over on the other side, it just made me made like hell. How come those idiots (Luisao & Luiz) can keep kicking our dear Torres and still remain on the pitch? I suppose my sense of injustice stems not from our punishment itself per se, but rather the fact that they got away with what seemed more severe than our crime(s). Our "crimes" seem pretty petty if you ask me. Yes yes, I felt they were a teensy too harsh. I still would have kept Babel on the pitch, though Babel was silly in the first place...

Honestly, sometimes when I see these opponents kicking my Torres non-stop for 90 mins, it gets on my nerves. I wish I can just jump into the TV and kick their *****.

Never mind.

I suppose the atmosphere got to me too. Yes, it was a tough away venue, yeah yeah, "great" atmosphere on their part - those fire-crackers got on my nerves, the endless noise got on my nerves... probably affected the ref as well.

Having said that, I hope we'll slaughter them at Anfield.

liverpool 3 sunderland 0 - best 45mins of football?

2010-03-30T22:23:00.002+08:00

wahh, I'm so busy lately, really no time to do anything else already, so I'll keep this brief.

First, let me say that I think it'll be very, very difficult for us to finish 4th. In fact, I all but dismiss our chances of finishing 4th after the loss to Man Utd and after Tottenham's win, I realised that basically we'd need them to lose 3 of their remaining 7 games, and we would need to win practically every game left. It's no longer in our own hands, that's for sure. And even then, we'd need to play every one of our remaining games like it's a cup final to stand that slightest chance.

After I realised that Tottenham still have Arsenal, Man Utd, Chelsea and Man City to play, I thought, maybe we still have a chance. Maybe. The odds are still stacked heavily against us though.

At least now I think we'll finish above Villa, if that's of any comfort. I'm not sure if 7th is even enough to guarantee a Europa league spot, so maybe 6th will be of some difference there.

Anyway, on the match on Sunday night, damn, was I the only one who got tricked into thinking the match was starting at 11.55pm? TNP had the match to start at 11.55pm (I won't blame them, I'm sure it was Starhub who sent them the wrong timings), and HH smsed me at 11.15pm to tell me the match was already on. Of course, I'd missed Torres' first goal by then, yah, I did see the replays to know it was an amazing goal, but missed it in real time 'live'.

Still, from what I saw of the first half, it was totally one-sided. Some say it was the best 45 mins of football we'd played all season, and it was hard to refute that. Only thing was I was somewhat disappointed at the end that it was just three. Should have been more, much more.

HH commented that without Lucas, we look so quick and fluid in attack, like Arsenal. Yeah, I agree, but looking at the lineup, I can't help but worry that what happened with Riera might happen with Yossi soon if he doesn't get to play more. Babel is playing better these days, so undoubtedly he deserves his spot as well... Just where Yossi figures I don't know. And there's still that Aquilani boy...

It's good to have everyone back fit though. Choosing which players to start/play is becoming a dilemma, but I'd think it's a good one to have.

And one last thing, if Torres was fit all season, I'm sure he'd be top scorer. And we'd find ourselves in a much better position too. Sigh.

liverpool 3 lille 0 - torres/stevie again

2010-03-20T07:35:00.003+08:00

K let me first talk about the side-story that's the Riera outburst. Ok, for anti-Rafa people, they would probably argue that what he's said is true to a certain extent, but still, you NEVER, EVER do that to your boss unless you wanna be sacked. And then there are stories that he punched a young player, apparently Pacheco, or something. Now, that's a big NO-NO as well, that should be something only a thug like Joey Barton is capable of.

And these stories made me upset for sure. I LIKED Riera. I never thought he could be anything like that. He looked like a decent guy; I still remember how during the boat cruise at Sg river, he was happily urging all the fans to jump into the river. He seemed like a decent guy for sure. I was a little peeved with his injuries and Rafa not playing him more often, but I never thought there was so much unhappiness behind the scenes.

And then there's the feeling that I just might have jinxed him. Last Jan I bought HH a Riera 11 LFC shirt. His first ever LFC jersey. It was, in a way, to commemorate the fact that Riera scored the first goal we ever witnessed at the Bolton game at Anfield in Dec '08. And may I also mention, the other scorer of two goals in that game was... Robbie Keane. Later on I realised that was the last game he ever played for Liverpool, before being offloaded back to Tottenham in the Jan transfer window.

More evidence of a jinx. My first LFC shirt, and the only one to ever had a name on it, was a Kewell 7 jersey, given to me by HH back in Nov '03. Mind you, he'd just joined the club and was in top form then... shortly after I got the jersey, he started getting all those injuries...

Remind me why I should never print any player's name on a jersey again. And it doesn't just apply to me wearing it, but also buying it for others it seems. Then again, maybe I'm just jinxing the whole club when I get a nameless jersey.

In the meantime, I've told HH to burn the jersey... Sad, isn't it? I think he wore it less than 10 times, maybe even less than 5, in the past year.

On to the match this time. Another good performance. Against Lille. Aquilani has disappeared again, presumably to a sickness this time. And I'm still saying he won't start against United tomorrow. Yes poolfans, I know he has some class in him, but will he be given enough time to adjust to the EPL? I'd have thought that in the European competition, he'd have a higher chance of starring really, but against the likes of United, where precision is key, I don't think we can afford to let him go wayward with some of his passes.

I'm still a little apprehensive as to saying we're well and truly back. The real test, really, will be tomorrow. Against Portsmouth, well, it was just Portsmouth. Lille... I was thinking they're probably close to Fulham in their standard. Then again, HH argues that Fulham is better. Perhaps true, these days I think the EPL teams look the strongest in the continent.

Still, it was great to see us getting that result after a disappointing 1st leg. That 1st leg game drove me mad. After that result, it was always going to be a tough one for the 2nd. If Lille had scored at any point, we'd have been in deep shit. As it turns out, I think we were pretty much in control for most parts of the game. A little nervy towards the end, knowing a goal conceded could spoil it all, but when Torres scored our 3rd, we could breathe again. And may I say, I kinda foresaw that we'd get our 3rd to calm the nerves. We were playing well, and any twist in fate would be thoroughly undeserved.

We've gotten a tough draw for our next opponents in the Europa League. Benfica first, and if we overcome Benfica, it'd be a Spanish team in Valencia or Atletico next. All three are tough, but seeing these teams can make me try and fool myself into thinking that we're still in the CL, because they're CL-calibre teams. Speaking of which, is it just me or have Man Utd gotten the easy route to the CL finals again? In comparison to Barca/Arsenal, they've gotten the easier route ahead definitely.

I sound just like Fergie claiming injustice eh.

Anyway, putting the Europa league aside, our priorities, and the toughest challenge still lies in our domestic league. Tomorrow will be the real test... I've to say, everyone else except us are still the favourites, but everything's still in our hands at this stage (yes, I believe if we win all remaining games, we'll be 4th), so pray hard...

liverpool 4 portsmouth 1 - aquilani shines

2010-03-16T08:32:00.002+08:00

K before I move on to talk about the match this morning... let me just mention about something that happened this morning. My mum passed me an envelope which had no name on it, only the address, but since it was air mail from Liverpool she assumed it was for me. I was soooo excited, because I had a rough idea what it was... You see, last Dec, I wrote this letter to Pepe Reina... I sent him two photos as well, and asked him in the letter to autograph 1 of the photos for me (I wrote to the PR person saying that if he helped me, I'd recommend him to his boss for a promotion too). The two photos were the ones Alan took during the boat cruise in SG last July. I won't tell the whole story again, it's somewhere on my blog if u wanna know.

So anyway, I opened the envelope... and to my disappointment, there was a team poster, a generic autographed photo of Pepe, my 2 photos returned (unautographed), and an enclosed letter. The letter mentioned about how they (the club) were sorry that they couldn't fulfill my autograph request and basically the club's policy on autographs was that they would only autograph items for charities and fans who were sick or dying.

Awww... sad... but at least they explained and returned the photos... then again, I wished they didn't return both photos! I'll probably send another letter to try and get the photo to Pepe again...

Ooohhh, and on this morning's match, wow, this is the first time we've scored 4 this season right? Although I was kinda disappointed with the conceded goal and that we didn't hit a 5th...

And Aquilani finally had a good game! Wow, goal aside, he still did quite well in the match. His passing rate improved (though I did catch him on at least one occasion where he passed the ball right out of touch), he was more involved, he showed some great vision (with the pass that led to Torres' 2nd goal)...

Yeah yeah, I know it was just Pompey. I foresee Aquilani being dropped for the Man U game quite frankly. Else he'd probably be raped by the United midfield. (Yes, I'm predicting that he'll be dropped for the United game!!) Still, at least our 20mil pound signing has contributed to at least one win...

Our 1st goal was definitely somewhat fortunate on our part as the Portsmouth 'keeper Ashdown made a mistake under pressure from Stevie. But that gave us a big break, and led to a 6-minute spell which saw 3 goals being scored... when was the last time we scored 3 in 6 mins!!! (yeahhh, Istanbul~~) Heh, I was targetting a 5-goal haul by the end, yeah, was somewhat disappointed in that sense, but we did come close a few times.

Sigh... I don't know when am I going to be able to post again (remember my policy of only posting after a win)... so I'll definitely treasure this moment while it lasts haha.

liverpool 2 blackburn 1 - torres lovin' (and a lil' for the backstreet boys)

2010-03-01T11:43:00.006+08:00

good news - we won!
bad news - tottenham (and mancity) too.

oh yah, let me just side-track for a moment.
Yesterday, I went to the Backstreet Boys concert!!! WOOOOOO!! It was FUNNNNNN!! I felt like a teenager all over again, or maybe, I just felt like a teenager at last, because I don't think I've ever attended a concert like that - screaming like a teenage girl, singing along to 3/4s of the song (I couldn't sing the 1/4 songs which were new). Ok, HH remarked that it wasn't as spectacular as many of the concerts in their heyday, no spectacular effects, no funny-looking robot costumes, just 4 men doing their coordinated dancesteps and singing. BUT IT WAS STILLLLL FUNN!!! Maybe it was a little like blaring your old BSB albums out loud and singing along, but come on, you never had like 10k (I think) people singing along, jumping up and down, screaming their heads off like that!! I may have moved on from the Backstreet Boys and not allowed myself to be stuck in that era - I've moved on to a1, then Blue, then Simple Plan, The Click Five, Jonas Brothers even... - but there's only one band in the world right now that can hold a concert 17 years after they got together and still have a sell-out crowd!! Come on, think about it, if the Jonas Bros hold a reunion concert thingy 10 years down the road... how many people would attend? =/

I bought my tix 1 month before, but still got, like the worst seats in the category. The last row of the mid-range tix @ $100. Couldn't see them at all, as in you could just see 4 men + dancers prancing around on the stage, but can't really see their facial features and all. They didn't have those big screens as well, so really can't see... :( Still, I screamed along when Nick Carter took off his jacket. HAHAHAHA. That was funny in a way. Who says women in their 20s and 30s can't scream like we've never seen a guy take off his jacket before!!

Oh, and HH was a little mad as well. He says he was just playing along, but at one point he and the boyfriend of the girl next to him were both jumping up and down, pumping their fist in the air and going, "WOOO!" I stared at them like they were retarded.

And just like the game at Anfield, we practically stood throughout the entire 90 mins or so of the concert. No choice lah, people in front stand so we have to stand also lo. But it was both silly and fun to be able to jump up and down, wave your hands in the air... hahaha, I can't help but think many of the people who attended this concert were trying to relive their youth a little. Hey, I never did that when I was in my teens ok! When I attended this Blue concert (they're a boyband in case u dunno) last time, I paid like $20+ for the lousiest category but got to move forward because many seats were empty (haha, I paid $100 for this BSB concert - mid-range tix), then when Lee Ryan pulled down his pants and flashed his boxers, I remember feeling rather embarrassed. First time a guy ever flashed his underpants "at me"! Now when Nick Carter took off his jacket, I couldn't see much but still screamed and then laughed.

Quite silly lah, but it was great fun.

Luckily the Boys started early as well. The tix wrote 8pm, and I thought we might have to wait till about 9 or so, but once the crowd had stopped streaming in and the convention hall (at Suntec) was filled, they promptly dimmed the lights and the concert kicked off at about 8.20pm. Ended around 10pm, so I managed to rush home for the Liverpool v Blackburn match....

Now, actually I wasn't that a hardcore fan of BSB back in my Pri/Sec sch days, did buy their albums and can sing those hits, but I don't think I ever had a real crush on any of them. I've one for Torres though! Can't help it lah, he so cute, and when he scores, every Liverpool fan just falls in love with him all over again eh?

:)

You know what, I don't care if we get labelled a two-men team or what, it's great to have both Stevie and Torres back. We really need them both to be in top form and fitness though. 10 games left, we really need to be firing all cylinders now. I stillllll wasn't that convinced by this performance. Looked dangerously shaky at some set-pieces and we've to thank dear Pepe for his amazing saves to keep us in the lead throughout. Almost got the penalty as well...

Yeah, while we almost conceded at least one or two to Blackburn, generally I couldn't stand Blackburn's dirty play as well. Chimbonda could have been sent off for his studs on Maxi's chest. Maxi, by the way, I thought he had a good game. I haven't commented on him so far, whereas I've let my feelings known about Aquilani (quite useless) because unlike Aquilani, he has done just okay thus far. Neither impressive nor obviously bad. But he had a good game yesterday, showed some flashes of brilliance. There was that assist for Torres, and I remember one other moment when he chased down their LB or somebody and got away with the ball. Built-up for first goal was good as well, although I think Stevie got lucky when he got onto the ball carried by momentum, the passes leading up to it were good.

Oh yah, and that Nzonzi, who the hell is he and who the hell does he think he is! He should have been sent off for that "assault" on Lucas! In HH's words, he "choke-slammed" Lucas already still dare to push his face to the ground!!! Yikes, can't stand Blackburn's dirty play sometimes, but oh well... Fat Sam's teams are always like that, his obsession with buying Diouf says it all...

chelsea 2 man city 4 - that's why we love watching reality tv.

2010-02-27T22:39:00.010+08:00

I don't usually comment on games involving the other teams, but since this one was an early match and the result was of some concern to us, I thought I might as well watch the match.

Yeah, I was one of those people who was curious to see whether Bridge would shake Terry's hand after all. He didn't, not that I was surprised, but I still found it amusing. Sorry lah, I know it's none of my business, but we're all naturally kaypoh people, and the soap opera part is entertaining ok.

Just to make it clear though, I'm obviously on the side of Team Bridge, just don't support Bridge's team for obvious reasons. So yeah, I was still rooting for a Chelsea win, or draw at least.

Too bad the result didn't quite go our way. In fact, it went the opposite way. Not quite sure what happened there because I think Chelsea were doing quite well at first, went one up deservedly and then Hilario...

Aiyo, next time you know ah, never ever give your children such names. Hilario associated with being 'hilarious' is becoming too overused now, it's so not funny anymore (yes Mr Joe Morrison, not funny!).

K, some other brief thoughts on the match:

Damnnn, a Chelsea slip up benefits Man U.

Damnnn, a Man City win means we're 4 points behind. And this was one of the games you'd expect them to lose.

HH misses Craig Bellamy. Not sure how I feel about selling him, but yes, maybe I do prefer him over people like Ngog.

I wished we'd signed Tevez. Or maybe more realistically, we could have picked up Santa Cruz, he seems a bit redundant at City.

Chelsea fans are nuts. Why the hell were they booing Bridge? What did Bridge even do? It's one thing to support your Captain Terry, but did you need to boo the victim? I don't think Bridge was even looking for their sympathies as an ex-player, but I seriously can't understand what those Chelsea fans who booed Bridge were thinking.

Watch the slow motion replays of the 'handshake incident'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ2gH7mml-0 HH thinks Bridge 'diao-ed' Terry for a moment. I don't think so lah, cos in real time he just seemed to have avoided looking at Terry altogether. He did it ever-so-smoothly as well, I was hoping Terry would extend his hand and then Bridge would slap/punch him or something.

HH and I were talking about how the pundits at Football Channel or anywhere else for that matter, seem to be so useless and are paid to just talk some nonsense. And I agreed with him saying that these predictions are always so silly, I don't think they really can base their predictions on any "real knowledge". For instance, I could just as easily predict that Chelsea and Man City would be a goalless draw as they both have Italian managers who're known to be really negative. Well, while it turned out to be true for our match against City (Italian manager vs Italian-style manager), it wasn't quite the same case here eh? That's why I say, football predictions are lame. You really can't base it on anything.

Unirea 1 Liverpool 3 - unlikely goalscorers

2010-02-26T07:57:00.002+08:00

AND FINALLY, I got to use my mioTV!!!

Lol, just an update on what happened in the end first. Well, the technician came down on the morning after our 1st leg against Unirea last week, checked the box out, and determined that the box was spoilt (and mind you, I only touched it once in Nov. maybe that was the problem as well). Box got replaced, and I didn't touch it again for a week till now.

Only thing was for most of the 2nd half, I was pretty much asleep, while for the first, I was struggling to keep myself awake as well. The game was pretty much played at snail's pace, which was good and bad I suppose. Good in that, in contrast to the weekend's game at City where we kept giving the ball away when unable to catch up with the pace of the game, we were more composed on the ball this time. And then bad obviously because it drove me to sleep. ><

I'm glad that we were more clinical in front of goal compared to the Romanians, haha. Stevie and Babel's goals looked almost identical in that it was about the same distance from goal. I did think we look slightly shaky when defending corners again, but that was the only one we've conceded for a long time now.

Mascherano's goal - What a stunner! Haha, it's only his 2nd for us, but his goals are real gems indeed. Initially I was thinking who the ball had fallen to and produced such a thunderous strike. From the position, I was thinking it had to be one of the central midfielders, and I'd seen Stevie further in front, so I was thinking, that can't be Lucas, can it? Hahaha.

It's always good to score 3 away from home. After last weekend's result against City, I must say I'm starting to worry about our 4th spot. As I posted on my FB status, I've always felt that we'll eventually go on the winning streak and then all the pretenders will just slip away, but if you look at the table right now, we're still potentially behind the other 3 (some have a game in hand) with 11 games left to go. Yeah, I'm starting to freak out alright. Some people were saying how we're on a decent run right now, having lost just that 1 game to Arsenal in our last don't-know-how-many games. But while I recognise that, I still don't feel we're quite on the run I was hoping for.

If you remember, last season we'd this run between March to May when we were scoring 3 or 4 against practically every side we met - Real Madrid, Man Utd, Blackburn, Villa, even the disappointing 4-4 draws against Chelsea and Arsenal... That's the kind of run I'm hoping for. I know, I know, I'm a little greedy, but our form right now, though better than at the start of the season, errr, still not that convincing lah.

Hopefully the return of Torres and Yossi makes a difference, and after all... we're going into March now.

On another note, Babel has done well for the past few matches now. Not sure if that would guarantee him an extended run in the side, but well, he deserves it I guess. And a future at Anfield? Perhaps... perhaps...

liverpool 1 unirea 0

2010-02-19T12:27:00.003+08:00

Ok, in the end I watched the match on http://www.singtelfootballfrenzy.com.sg/.

Took me quite a while to login though, cos somehow I can't seem to press the "login" button on the page; I've to dig up the old activation email and login through the link there. By the time I got everything set up properly and ready to watch the match, we were already 20 minutes into the game.

Luckily, the quality of the streaming was great. I don't think I was lagging behind much either, cos the timing seemed just about right to me, no buffering midway too. So that was the good part, the only bad part was that the audio was lagging behind by about 10 secs. I never pay much attention to commentary, and I didn't turn up the volume either, but to try and keep me awake, I realised some sound was necessary. But the lagging audio made it quite stupid. For instance, I'd be dozing off peacefully when the crowd and commentator started sounding very excited so I opened my eyes, only to see the players passing the ball around peacefully or the 'keeper taking a goalkick. Yeah, the action already happened 10 secs ago you see. Similarly, after Ngog scored, it was so peaceful, and I counted 10 secs on the time shown before the crowd erupted. HAHAHAHA. The out-of-sync audio would have been more amusing if I wasn't so sleepy though... Not knowing when to open my eyes sucked.

From my drowsy state, I did notice how we were struggling to break them down though. Yeah, we piled on the pressure, but it was one of those games where you thought we could go at it all day and not make a single breakthrough. Have to say the substitutions worked though. I know some people are calling for Babel to start, but I'm afraid the moment he starts, he'll be back to square one again you know? Yeah, he rarely starts, but whenever he does, he doesn't really do himself any favours either. And on Pacheco, I think a few matches ago I said I liked the look of him! But even after that, we had to wait a long time before we saw a 2nd glimpse of him... Still looks good though, I must say!

And a bit on Babel. The other day I had nothing better to do so I went and sign up for a Twitter account. Yikes, I'm not so into Twitter either, and frankly since then I've done nothing with the account either. I just wanted to check out some stuff, so I tried to find some people on it. I think I found Babel. Hahaha. Seriously! Last updated in Oct or so though (I think he probably stopped twittering after one of the tweets landed him in trouble with the club), and you know they had this "location" thing. Darren Bent's one was 'Sunderland' obviously, but guess what was Babel's? It was... 'On the Bench'. I found it so incredulously funny, but I seriously think it's really him after going through some of the previous tweets and stuff.

(K, time to try and find the name of that damn opponent we played against to fill up my title for this post before pressing 'submit'. I just know we played against some Romanian club starting with the letter 'U')

Mio TV is seriously a jinx

2010-02-18T07:38:00.002+08:00

Remember how I signed up for Mio TV last Nov but I only got it installed AFTER we were knocked out of the Champs League?

Fine, I thought, I'll watch the Europa League instead.

But I have been leaving the box there for a few months now. In fact, since they installed it in late Nov, except for the first day, I haven't touched it at all, thanks to the fact that I need to unplug my Starhub box cables to attach the Mio's ones.

But since we've got this Europa League game coming up, and I suspect it's on Mio TV despite the lack of publicity, I've been trying to start my Mio TV since last night. There's some problem though. Ok, a big one, cos I can't get it to start at all. I've called the technical support hotline twice (made to wait at least 10 mins each time), and latest news? They're sending a technician down tomorrow. Yes, TOMORROW, after our match.

Oh great.

My Mio TV is just a big fat waste of time (it's free for now, so no money)...
And a big fat jinx, cos I just can't seem to get to watch Liverpool at all.

My next hope is trying to get the online thing up. I figured I should have some free access to the online Singtel Stadium right? But again, there's some problem there, cos I can't seem to see the 'validation code' on the sign up page.

I HATE SINGTEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Liverpool 1 Everton 0 - guts and character

2010-02-07T08:01:00.002+08:00

For most of the season, I usually don't care about Everton. Until the Merseyside Derby comes along. Being non-Scouse, I don't quite feel the animosity towards Everton, simply because they don't pose much of a threat to us. Nevertheless, I can tell that there's something special in Merseyside derbies.

Well, the red card appears frequently in the derbies.

With the rare exception of one derby a few years back when Stevie got sent off early in the game (but we went on to win 3-1 I think), I don't think the appearance of the red card usually put us at a disadvantage. Hence, even though I had a feeling it would make its appearance once again in the match after the first few mins, I wasn't overly concerned until it was flashed to our Greek guy.

Yeah, I think the ref made a few mistakes in this game. There were a couple of incidents from both sets of players which could have warranted a sending off, although granted, it was a difficult game to officiate I suppose. Joe Morrison commented at half-time, as he chuckled, "I apologise for the lack of football in the 1st half." Well he needn't have apologised. Sure, there was a lack of pretty football out there, but I think I enjoyed watching the match. There are some people who enjoy watching WWE, aren't there? I'm not one of them, but the display of guts and character in the game drew me in.

Haha, I know it's hard to credit anyone for the football he played, but I felt that even down to 10 men, we deserved the win. Where there was football played, we came out tops, and I was more than happy with the result.

And the result itself meant a lot, as we're finally in 4th place!! The other results went our way as well, Tottenham and Villa drew while City lost. Of course, it's still a long way to go, and our next match, against Arsenal, won't be any easier... Just glad that we've got this little run going on...

liverpool 2 bolton 0

2010-01-31T18:24:00.003+08:00

Why can't we keep playing like that?

I think, so far this season, we've only really performed well in 3 games. The Man Utd victory earlier in the season, the 2-0 win over Tottenham, and then, the game against Bolton yesterday.

After the draw against Wolves in mid-week, I was left grumbling a lot again (though not here on the blog). My main gripe was with Stevie G. I wasn't just totally frustrated with his form itself, but that game again reminded me of this trend - when Stevie's in the team, more often than not, his performance correlates with the team's performance. And I'm not indicating a two-way correlation, but rather, when Stevie G plays well, he tends to inspire the team around him to play better (but not necessarily); when he sucks, well, the rest just suck even more.

As we all saw, Stevie was lacklustre against Wolves, and the rest of the team which fought hard like hell against Stoke and Tottenham suddenly looked like shit against Wolves as well. Sure, some changes were made, but I can't help but feel that surely there must be a connection there. How often do you see the rest of the team playing well DESPITE Stevie G being shit and in the lineup? I'm not so sure what's the problem there, but my own theory is that when Stevie's playing, the play more or less revolves around him, hence if he sucks, the rest do not play that well either. At the same time, the players ought to be able to stand up and be counted and not just look to the captain all the time, however, I think only Torres has the ability and mentality to do that. When Stevie isn't in the team however, the responsibility is more evenly distributed, hence you see the players sticking together and playing out of their skins against Tottenham and Stoke.

Yesterday though, Stevie was good. He wasn't our best player on the pitch, but you could see that when he started being more involved in the 2nd half, our play naturally became better as well. I've never seen Insua being that good before, it must be his best game for us so far. The players around Stevie, just somehow showed more confidence and it was certainly a treat to see people like Insua, Dirk, Riera, Ngog twisting their way past other players. Ok, on Ngog, I must say I was rather happy with him in the 1st half. HH expressed his surprise that Ngog wasn't half-bad after all, he does have some skill, but after the 2nd half, my sentiments towards him changed, as I wanted to strangle him for missing easy chances. I like Riera's setpieces too, and I think Insua must be our MOTM after wowing us with some amazing runs and crosses.

I think only Aquilani played pretty much like shit out there, although he did get that assist. I really don't know if he's so intelligent he's on a different wavelength with everyone else, or is his passing just shit. Whenever he tried to spray those long passes, they'd always find an opponent or just go all the way out of touch. Maybe he's too intelligent at reading ahead of the game, and is trying to pass into space in anticipation of a teammate's run, but I seriously doubt so. I think we should dispel the thought that Aquilani is our next Xabi, because right now, I have no idea what he can do... He doesn't look like he can pass, I haven't seen him shoot or dribble either, and he never puts in a tackle... umm, what is he exactly good at? Ok, I should stop being mean, because he did get an assist, it's just that going by yesterday's performance, I think Masch looked more likely to be our next Xabi. Haha. And I didn't even have any complaints when Lucas came on for Aquilani. Somehow, I feel more safe with Lucas around. Maybe I'm more used to him already... =/

Well, good performance yesterday, but I'm sticking to the theory I was so convinced of after the Wolves game, that is, if Stevie plays well, we'll be good, if he doesn't, we'll be total crap. So let's just hope that the fit Stevie will still be good in the next few games.

Oh yah, that Korean fellow from Bolton looked pretty good in the 1st half eh? Well, like I said, we weren't so good in the 1st half, and that Korean fellow scared me quite a bit. Disappeared in the 2nd though.

liverpool 2 tottenham 0

2010-01-21T16:08:00.002+08:00

yesh! I can blog! Hahaha.. yeah, I do intend to stick with my word of only posting if we win (or at least put in a noteworthy performance) for the rest of this season.

I've got no idea if Spurs were bad or we were just great, but we certainly deserve our victory thoroughly. True, there were moments of doubt and unease, especially when Defoe looked to have embarrassed Kyrgiakos and Reina when he slotted the ball into the net for what looked like an equaliser (luckily the assistant ref's flag went up, but was it for offside? till now I've no idea when an offside isn't one), and we were only sure once Kuyt put away that penalty (twice) towards the end.

We fought hard, and truthfully had more chances than them, but such is our luck and fragile confidence these days, you're always worried the opposition would clinch a late goal. When I thought Defoe had scored, all the colour just drained away from my face. Before the match, I'd seen this footage of a 'keeper (not sure who) putting down the ball on the ground (seemingly for a goal kick) when Robbie Keane suddenly appeared from behind him, rounded to his front, stole the ball away immediately and put the ball into the back of the net. It all happened in a flash, I don't think the 'keeper had a clue Keane was there at all, but needless to say, it was a 'keeper blunder. That scene immediately flashed across my head when I saw Defoe robbing Pepe of the ball and putting it away. I still... don't know if the flag was for offside or for pushing Pepe to the ground. Honestly, this entire offside thing confuses me, because I thought if the ball came off the opposition player, it's not offside? Is there a rule like that?

Anyway, it would have been harsh if the goal was allowed. And a tremendous blow to our confidence again.

I still think Kuyt isn't that great up front, but after Torres, Stevie and Yossi (in that order), Kuyt has always been our next best shot for a matchwinner. Err... don't ask me who's after Kuyt, cos I think... it's N'gog already. lol. Yah, we're a sad case.

I was rather worried about the chances we were spurning. Some people say Degen played well... I didn't notice that, cos I wanted to kill him when he wasted that clearcut chance. Why the hell didn't he shoot!? I'm pretty sure if he'd shot and missed, I wouldn't have been as angry as when he chose to square a pass back to Kuyt that went wasted instead. Riera, Skrtel and Kuyt (besides scoring, he missed a couple as well) also came close to scoring.

Before the match, HH was asking me if I was sure I wanted to watch the match as he felt it would be a waste of time. Yes, I know on paper we now seem to have a shittier team than Spurs (the lineup -similar to against Stoke- still doesn't excite me), but this morning, we definitely came out tops somehow. I think we still kind of lack match winners, because before the match I was saying how I felt Lucas will almost score as usual but wouldn't. Although it wasn't exactly Lucas who wasted the chances this time, the chances we wasted reinforced my point.

Nevertheless, hopefully, we can continue to fight hard, and somehow or rather produce the match winners from somewhere within.

I know we've always fooled ourselves into thinking we've finally turned the corner, and yet we always come back to the same bleak outlook this season... I don't know man, but let's just hope I get to blog about the next match yeah?

stoke 1 liverpool 1

2010-01-17T08:21:00.003+08:00

Isn't this kind of tiresome. Maybe I should stop blogging about the matches unless we win, so that this blog will stop resembling a bleak obituary page.

I was out last night, but I came back pretty much early in the 2nd half. First thing I saw was Kyrgiakos (after he scored, I felt I needed to check how his name was spelt instead of always referring to him as either the 'greek guy' or 'samurai') gesturing to the ref and then coming off the pitch. A dreadful thought came to my mind right away - I thought he was sent off. Turns out he just had a cut on his face, phew. Anyway, it was a shit starting XI to begin with, I couldn't help cringing when I received the sms from HH, that it seemed to be Aurelio and Degen in midfield, Ngog and Kuyt up front, and the 'Samurai' was playing. I knew our squad was thin after the injuries to our key trio, but what ever happened to Riera and Agger too? And I wanted to see Maxi in action as well. As for Aquilani... don't ask me who I prefer between Lucas and him at the moment.

I heard and saw for myself that the game was rather evenly matched (sucks that we're "evenly matched" with Stoke), but after going ahead through Kyrgiakos, of course it sucks like hell to be conceding yet another late goal. I kinda saw it coming, and that was like their 9th or 10th corner, but it's still dreadful...

Positive note (yah, there's actually a positive): The players showed a lot more fight last night. We were really fighting to hang on in that last 10mins or so.

Negative: We obviously lack the quality. Judging by the match, you could either think we were playing someone like Chelsea and thus were fighting to hang on at the end or more truthfully, we simply looked like a mid-table team.

Thankfully, our Merseyside neighbours helped us by clinching a win over Man City. If City had won, we'd be 7 points behind them, and somehow, we gained a point on them instead.

~ anyway, I've decided. I'm only going to comment when we win. Or pull off a noteworthy performance. No point muttering about the same old thing every match.

(fa cup replay) liverpool 1 reading 1

2010-01-14T08:44:00.003+08:00

I was feeling pretty murderous and frustrated towards the end. Not sure who I exactly wanted to strangle, or maybe there were quite a few, but I was definitely seething as I sat on the edge of my bed.

Until I saw that young Liverpool fan cry.

It broke my heart, and I too wanted to cry after that. I ended up shedding a tear or two. Maybe two.

We all know football isn't a matter of life and death now, but for some, it still means way too much.

These days I'm enjoying being a Liverpool fan most in between matches. Probably 2 days after each match and before the next one. You know, just a day or two to get over a terrible result, and then you can go around proclaiming to be a Liverpool fan without much teasing. Hopefully no nasty news come out in the papers about Gerrard, Torres leaving and the days go by pretty peacefully. Sometimes an article or two about Hicks Jr sending a Liverpool fan an offensive email at 4am cracks me up as well. Guess we're not the only ones frustrated and pissed off with the world.

I thought we were on a run of fortune, but I guess someone should have warned us that would run out by the 92nd minute. We were shit all round, and got what we deserved. Shit in defence really, a never-heard-before McAuffy was made to look like Henry or Ronaldo. Then Aquilani has hardly inspired thus far, sometimes he gave the ball away too cheaply. Yossi, our only hope after Torres and Gerrard went off, should have scored, but instead.......

I don't know if there's any other man better than Rafa for the job, but at this rate, the players are definitely doing their best to get him sacked. Enough said.

Where's that golden sky at the end of the storm?

(fa cup) reading 1 liverpool 1

2010-01-03T14:43:00.002+08:00

Yikes.
Torres should have scored the header at the end!!

Ahhhhhhh...
I hate REPLAYS!!

Towards the end of the match it got rather frantic. On the one hand, I could see that neither side wanted to lose. Yet, on the other, I don't think we were relishing a replay either, so it was pretty much end-to-end stuff. We could have lost, could have won too, if Torres had put in that header into the back of the net...

Hmm, I don't know why people are surprised we got held by a Championship side. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I remember, we've always been knocked out of the FA Cup by lesser sides. You know, teams like Burnley, Barnsley, EVERTON... haha. We put out a decent lineup this morning; despite leaving out Yossi and Aquilani in the first XI, we should have been quite up for it. Of course, Reading played well as well, and we were rattled quite a few times.

Oh well, I don't mind the replay if we go through. Usually I don't care about the FA Cup that much, but sometimes I've to admit the FA Cup has its own romanticism about it, and it's more important this season after our first two priorities (league title and CL) are no longer achievable. I just hope it's not another waste of time like last season's FA Cup tie against Everton, where we played over 210 minutes of football against them and still went out. That sucks totally.

Aston Villa 0 Liverpool 1

2009-12-30T06:55:00.004+08:00

Haha, even though like the previous game, we never really looked like winning for most parts of it, I'm definitely way more excited about this victory. Hey, after all, I can't remember the last time we won 2 straight games, so this has got to count as some "winning streak" already! Haha!

Of course, it helped tremendously that we took some points off Villa as well. The final 10 mins, I think I'd have settled for a draw, it was so frantic for a while in front of our goalmouth that I worried we'd concede a late winner.

But cometh the hour, cometh the man. Torres had a frustrating night throughout, but when Villa slipped up (was it Warnock?) and Yossi's ball fell to Torres, he finished off his only chance in the match perfectly.

Martin O'Neill looked like he was gonna cry after that. Or did he actually cry? Poor chap, but looking back, I think we haven't usually done well against him, have we? Even when we got knocked out of the UEFA Cup years ago, it was at the hands of his Celtic I think.

Maybe you could say we were lucky, I don't know, but it does feel good to have things go our way 2 straight games in a row! If we can win the Tottenham game 2 weeks later, things will definitely look brighter.

Of course we're still 7th... 6 places down from where we started this year. But considering how the past few months have gone, rounding off the year with a victory surely brings some comfort to all of us.

Oh well, it's 7am now already. Almost time to go off to school soon... and it's my last day at this school (which has been absolutely fantastic to me), will be going to NIE next Mon!

liverpool 2 wolves 0

2009-12-27T09:57:00.004+08:00

Oh well. We've turned... another corner? Is it too much to wish that the path goes straight from now on?

To be frank, I still wasn't that convinced by the performance. We started off well again, for the first 10-20 minutes we looked positive and confident. But when our shots kept going straight at Hahnemann, I think some insecurity crept in. Luckily we managed to hold on, and our break came when Stephen Ward was sent off. Or maybe the turning point was when Stevie scored. Either way, it was great to see Stevie score, we really needed that. He hasn't been all inspiring lately, and you just hope that he's able to lift us out of this shit like in Istanbul. I'm not saying that he alone can do the job, but hopefully, with him in top form, the rest of the team will automatically be lifted as well.

The gloom still hasn't been completely lifted. After all, the next game against Villa... that's going to be one tough one.

The Boxing Day match had me thinking back to 1 year ago, when I'd gone to my first match at Anfield on Boxing Day. And although we won the Boxing Day fixture as we did last year, I can't help but feel that the mood has completely changed 1 year on. It was nice to see the Kop being able to cheer every player as he took a touch on the ball towards the end, as we also did last year, but this victory didn't quite feel the same, and it's not just because I was on the other side of the TV. For one, I think the emotion we all felt after Yossi scored was closer to that of relief than any other kind of positive emotion.

Before the game, I took a quick nap, but before the nap, I watched the closing minutes of some of the other games on TV and I've to admit I was more concerned with the Fulham-Tottenham result than Birmingham-Chelsea. It's just sad really, but I realised I didn't know who I should have been rooting for in the Birmingham-Chelsea game. I suppose a draw was a good result, since I still can't stand Chelsea, but realistically it was Birmingham we had to look to overtake on the table.

This morning I took another look at the table, and sadly, I realised we're still only 7th. There's actually a pretty wide gap between us and 4th-placed Villa. I know, 4th is still a realistic target, but the gap between us and them (especially before we went one game up on them after last night's win) is pretty much the gap between us and the top before we were kinda ruled out of the title race for this season.

I was telling HH if the other top teams played like they did this season and we were playing like we did last season, we'd have won the league. I'm not quite sure what happened over the past few months, how come the likes of Chelsea and Man Utd are dropping points like crazy, and we happened to drop even more, a lot more.

Anyway, on the performance yesterday, like I said, I still wasn't that convinced... we've still only had one thoroughly convincing performance this season and that was against Man Utd. Positive note was that we kept a clean sheet, Aquilani finally started and he did OK, Stevie scored and hopefully that's the start of a lot more from him. Haha, I was thinking, Dani Pacheco came on and play for only like 10 mins, but I kinda like the look of him. I can't really put my finger on it, he didn't nearly score or anything, but he looked really good on the ball. Whenever he had the ball on his feet, he looked confident with what he was going to do with it, whether it was to pass the ball or to run with it. I thought it was just me, but when I browsed through the forums, people had the same sentiment as well. I don't want to jinx anything, but I almost thought he'd showed more potential in that 10 mins than Aquilani did in 80? Ok, like I said, Aquilani did do OK, just that I hope Pacheco can get in a few more mins next time...

O yah, Singapore Idol final tonight... Going to Indoor Stadium for the final! Haha, I'm not a BIG Idol fan, ah, but I still don't mind free tix for this sort of stuff.

portsmouth 2 liverpool 0

2009-12-20T08:06:00.004+08:00

It was exactly the same as the Arsenal game.

We started well, but once we conceded (and went a man down), we totally collapsed.

The commentator rightly said that we looked as if we felt the whole world was against us. Well, I certainly felt that way when Masch got sent off. I don't use the f word, but when the ref flashed the red, indeed the words that went through my mind were "what the... ****"

Christmas is a time for miracles, and how we need a miracle right now. There have been times when Liverpool were excellent at creating miracles when we needed them the most, but with the way things are going right now, it's hard to see the light at the end of the long, dark tunnel. We may begin each match afresh, but the heads are totally gone when the slightest thing goes against us. And then things just go from bad to worse.

Some of the players have just come back from injury, but as a team, the minds are just too weary. It's like, we don't have anything left to dig deep anymore. As a supporter, it's a similar sentiment. I just can't see the miracle.

Everyone has just lost it. From the boss, to the players, even to us as fans. We let our heads drop far too easily now. And unfortunately, when things are wrong, we look all the way to the top to blame. Hell, I know it isn't only Rafa's fault, but he's made some mistakes, he's the boss, and at times like this, we expect him to drag all of us out of the shit, and he hasn't.

It's hard to watch us play these days. The players are a collective bunch of shit. I don't know what to say anymore. It's not just Lucas as well. Initially, he was the easier target to blame. Now you look around and you think, Glen Johnson's a crap defender, Stevie is hardly himself, Kuyt too, everyone is just shit. Our luck is shit as well; Pompey scored 2 goals that 99 out of 100 times they would have missed (it's only players of Torres' calibre that score goals like that). Rafa is making strange decisions; where on earth is Aquilani again and why was Dossena playing instead of Yossi (who's been our best player so far this season I think, although he's only best cos everyone else is shit and he was better last season)?

Yes, Murphy's Law. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong...

On a sidenote, I can't believe Mark Hughes has been sacked. Oh well, if Rafa were at any other club besides Liverpool, I guess he'd have been gone by now as well.

As for all of us, no doubt what our Christmas wish will be... hope that it's a time for miracles, and that we're still capable of that.

liverpool 1 arsenal 2 - that tiresome, weary feeling

2009-12-14T17:24:00.003+08:00

sigh, all these is becoming tiresome.
how many times have you thought to yourself, ok, this is the match, we're gonna turn the corner and go on a winning streak from now on... and then it blows up right in your face, you feel despondent again, but you look forward to the next match and hope that will be the one then... and the cycle goes on and on...

and then it's december.

almost half a season gone, and no sign of things turning around.

at the very least, we seem to have our players back already.

and FINALLY, I SEE AQUILANI PLAYING. although it wasn't much.... not enough to make any real kind of impression, positive or negative, really.

but, but... the feeling is that just because they're back, it doesn't spell instant recovery.

for starters, captain stevie was hardly inspirational yesterday.

oh, for sure, at half-time, i was filled with that damn hopeful feeling again. hey, for once i felt like, we might win this after all, we might not concede a stupid equaliser (and then winner) for once. i thought our defence looked okay, i've always had a thing for agger over skrtel. although we missed some good chances in the 1st half, at least we had gone ahead through kuyt's goal. and then there was the fact that arsenal were known to be huge wasters in front of goal, so i thought maybe we weren't going to be made to pay for those wasted chances. arsenal have been decent this season, but they've also been whacked terribly by the likes of chelsea, man city, etc, so i thought we might be able to do it too you know.

and then glen johnson had to go and score that own goal. it was unlucky alright, and to be fair, he's been a great signing for us, although at the back of my mind i can't help but wonder why is it that ever since he joined us, our defence just doesn't look as sound anymore - could we be slackening defensively in exchange for his contributions in attack?

after that, of course, things weren't quite the same again.

i still don't think we played that badly. but yes, something went off after his goal, and it was as if the insecurity crept in again, and we were just back to square one. not back to the top liverpool side i know we were capable of being, but back to the liverpool of late.

damn arshavin too. i just don't think arsenal are quite the same side without him. at least, when it comes to games against us... that's 5 goals in 2 games against us i believe? there're some players who seem to score against us pretty often, off the top of my head, i know i don't like seeing drogba play against us. now, surely arshavin has to be one of the players who's scored most against us. yah, there was that moron baptista who once scored 4 against us too i believe, but arshavin's goals aren't as tyco. ok, i don't believe he can pull such great goals every day, but there's actually some great quality in him.

i'll like to push the blame to someone else for once. it's quite sickening to keep blaming rafa, the team, etc. let's just blame arshavin, and then, there's xabi alonso too ok. damn him. what the hell was he doing at our match? hh says he was there to laugh at us and haolian about his importance. hmm, i don't know what to think of that, but anyway, he jinxed us. damn him.

a look through my facebook friends' statuses showed there were 2 people i knew who are in UK right now. one of them went to the game yesterday i believe. sigh, i feel sad for him really. i kept thinking we might not lose that game because i met this one other liverpool fan once who told me that when you travel all the way to liverpool to watch a game, you just believe there's no way your team will lose, and usually it happens that way. i don't think that was the guy's first match at anfield, but i know it'll still suck to have paid so much and watched us lose. and as strange as it sounds, i think that's the first time i've come across a fan from sg who went there to watch a match and we lost. somehow, i've also only heard of local liverpool fans going there and we'd gone on to win, sometimes even remarkable victories over the bigger teams like chelsea and man utd.

i just hoped they somehow still enjoyed themselves, instead of getting the sucky, weary, familiar feeling we felt right after the match. the feeling doesn't last as long these days, let's just say, sadly, we're used to it.

blackburn 0 liverpool 0 - dull and boring sleep fest

2009-12-06T07:48:00.003+08:00

K, nothing much to say about this one really.

I was dozing throughout most of the match. The game only kicked into life in... the 70th minute? N'gog had a few real chances to score then, but didn't. It's a game of 90 minutes guys, even though you can't be on top for the full 90 mins, you can't expect to just play for 20 mins and expect much.

On a side note, we still can't seem to win just 2 games in a row.
And, Aquilani is STILLLLLLLLLLLLL not playing. It's December already, baby.

everton 0 liverpool 2 - fighting hard

2009-12-01T15:20:00.002+08:00

Just a note, my Mio TV's finally up!
It's kinda stupid though. Cos I think the small TV in my room is kinda old, so somehow I can't run both the Starhub and Mio boxes at the same time. In fact, I can't even just switch off one of the boxes and switch on the other, I've to remove the wires connecting one of the boxes to the TV before the other one can be switched on! The technical people tried to leave both connections in and switch on just one box, but no image would appear because of the clash!

Troublesome right?

And so far I don't know what I can watch on Mio too. I seem to have all the channels for the time being, but I don't know what's the Mio equivalent of Disney, MTV, HBO, etc...

It's the holidays (2 weeks frozen hols) at last for me, but I still feel like I've got a lot to do, ok, maybe they centre around mapling. I'm even forgetting about blogging these days.

I'm not still at the point where I forgot about watching Liverpool matches. Yeah, it's been rather painful to watch Liverpool these days, or perhaps, I'm kinda numb from each bad result already. Just waiting... waiting, to wake up from this nightmare really.

We've finally won after... goodness knows how long, but then again, we did win Man U too, so it's still not enough to be convinced we're out of this shit yet.

I realised something strange over the weekend though - Arsenal are only 2 points ahead of us!!!

Ok, they have a game in hand, but still, I thought they were somewhere up there! I thought it wasn't too long ago when I checked the table and saw Arsenal higher up, something like if they'd won their games in hand, they'd actually be 1st or something (of cos, I've avoided noticing how many points those teams up there have). Oh well, it seems like it's too much of a long shot to hope that Arsenal win the EPL (there're sort of the 2nd team amongst the Big 4 for most Liverpool fans I think), it seems more realistic to hope that Chelsea prevent Man U from winning their 19th!

Sigh.

Onto our performance in the Merseyside derby. I think it's fair enough to say that while we battled hard like I knew we would in any derby, Everton were perhaps unlucky on their part. Yah, but I wouldn't say it wasn't an undeserved victory for us. Everton failed to convert their chances, and even though two Everton goals were disallowed, they were quite wrongly disallowed.

It's rare to see us winning a game where we weren't playing so well these days. The opposite seems to be truer, after how we've always conceded after going ahead, sometimes in the dying minutes as in those games against Lyon.

Don't know if such a result will change anything, but in the meantime, there's still a lot of hoping:

1) Stevie G didn't have a great game, but let's hope that with more matches under his arm, he'll be back to his top form in no time at all.

2) Hopefully, Torres will be back soon (on a side-note, as shit as we often think N'gog is, he's actually been scoring. Anyway, I always preferred N'gog to Voronin - although both seem shit compared to Torres)

3) We finally kept a clean-sheet (we have to thank Reina, and the awful Everton strikers for that)! Hopefully, we can continue to keep it tight at the back. I tend to prefer Agger-Carra in the middle, so pray Dan can stay fit.

4) Dear Aquilani, when will you finally play (as in, really play)?

liverpool 2 man city 2 - injury curse!

2009-11-22T19:19:00.003+08:00

2 weeks later, and we're still cursed!

It was unbelievable seeing Agger and Babel being taken off so early. When the Greek Samurai was getting ready along the sidelines, I was shrieking, "Noooo!!! Not the Greek guy!" It's not that I've got anything against the Greek guy, ok maybe I have, but I wish our defensive line-up could stop changing every other game, we just haven't been looking stable at the back.

If it weren't for the injuries, I suppose Aquilani would have come on as one of the subs later on. Oh well. When is he ever going to play (start) though!?! I know he's bought for the long-term, but at this rate, our 20m pound-signing is going to play only when our season's effectively over. Or perhaps, it's already almost over...? Sigh!

Nothing much to say about the game itself. HH remarked how Man City's starting line-up looked better than ours, and sadly, I found myself inclined to agree with that statement. We probably only had the one world-class player in Stevie G, other than that, they actually seemed to have better players than us in every department! And yes, especially up front... When they brought on Tevez later, they effectively had 3 or 4 forwards in Bellamy, Adebayor, Tevez and Shaun Wright-Phillips. It's crazy! Who did we have up front? Only N'gog! Arghhh. Goes to show how thin our squad is eh. And the reserves are definitely not up to mark at all.

Still, as a team, we're more experienced, and being the home team, we were expected to take the game to them definitely. I thought the first half was kinda slow (only highlights were the injuries) but we were looking the likelier to score and went ahead deservedly in the 2nd half. (Finally) Skrtel scored! I always feel uneasy when we concede a corner these days, and sure enough, we conceded another from a corner. We can't afford to just be a goal ahead these days, because I always feel like we're gonna concede. I don't know why, but yeah, defensively, we suck!

Not that we're that great up front. Without Torres, we always seem to lack an edge up front. Our finishing just drives me crazy at times. Players like Kuyt, Yossi and Stevie can pop up with match-winners as well, but we seem to need to do an awful lot more without Torres.

To get us back to our top form again will require a lot more, in terms of luck, in terms of mental strength. Sigh, it's a long road ahead...

Btw, I've gone to subscribe for Mio TV at last. Argh, I went down to a Hello! shop on Tuesday, thinking that if I signed up then, I'd be able to catch the upcoming CL match. As it turns out though, the earliest appointment date is on the 30th, so yeah, gonna miss this next one again. For those who haven't signed up, there's no harm really to sign up now since the promotion now works in such a way that we only pay from Aug 2010 onwards and we get to watch free CL matches now.

liverpool 2 birmingham 2 - cursed.

2009-11-10T06:09:00.003+08:00

sigh. what's wrong with us...

we must be cursed or something.

hell, we weren't bad, were we?

same old story: we had most of the possession, created many decent chances as well, finishing just wasn't there. n'gog dived and we got the equaliser from the penalty as a result, but a draw is still never, ever good enough. yeah, despite the dive, i felt we deserved more.

damnnn... it sucks when you wake up this early to watch your favourite team and then it isn't a good result again. and i've got a long day ahead. for the past few weeks, work sort of kept me from dwelling too much on every bad result, but i don't think the long day ahead today's gonna help at all. cpe called me yesterday to ask me to go down for invigilation duty today, and now, i'd rather do invigilation than go to school and do nothing... at least for invigilation, you get paid extra to do nothing, and your doing nothing is actually useful, but it just sucks when i'm down for both morning and afternoon papers.

anyway. i really have got not much mood to say anything! zzzzz... just that i think for some of our young players, they're good, but i think, especially for the defenders and n'gog, they've got to work on their positioning, and i suppose that comes with experience. still, i can see that we're working hard, and we deserve much more really. a result like this just hurts. damn. no matter how you think you're immune to it by now, it still HURTS.

i just don't get it really. i don't want to fault anyone today. i thought lucas was okay, glen johnson was fantastic, n'gog was good and bad, but he still contributed a lot... it was sad to see albert riera hit the ground in frustration - you knew his hamstring was gone straight away.

next up - stupid international break, but it might be the break we need to keep ourselves from dwelling on this too much. ta.

fulham 3 liverpool 1 - halloween horror show

2009-11-01T07:14:00.004+08:00

What a nightmare.

It all started when the starting line-up was announced. Where were all our players? Agger, Skrtel, Johnson, Aurelio all disappeared. They were not even on the bench, and yeah, we were still missing the likes of Riera, Gerrard, Aquilani too. Even N'gog had disappeared from the line-up completely. Where were they? They couldn't have been rested, cos if they were, at least they'd have appeared on the bench right? So were they all injured, or down with swine flu or something?

It was just baffling.

Needless to say, the players that filled in for them didn't make me feel any better. It just made me awfully uncomfortable to see players like Degen, Voronin and the Greek Samurai in defence (I can't be bothered to go and copy and paste his name, and for the life of me, I'm not going to bother learning to spell it now, let's just call him the Greek or the Samurai in this post at least). Sorry, they just don't exactly give me great vibes.

True to the Halloween mood, seeing all these supposedly "dead (from the scene)" players come back to life was a little scary. I thought Degen had died or disappeared forever, why did he have to appear again suddenly? I was surprised to see Duff appear again as well, thought he'd died too. Oh well, he seemed to vanish into thin air later on (subbed off at half-time, but I didn't realise it then).

To be fair to the Liverpool trio I mentioned above, they did fairly well in the first half really. In fact, we were doing okay, right up till the substitution of Torres... First half, we had tonnes of possession, were unlucky to go behind, but were lucky when Torres converted a half-chance into a great goal. We didn't really create anything besides that and Yossi's chance in the first half, but still, I thought we were alright, we'll be better in the 2nd half surely.

Which brings me to question (just like many of us must have done so): Why did Rafa take Torres off?

When he took Torres off against Man United, I understood his rationale. We were ahead, and even though it was a slender margin, Torres had just been back from injury and we could risk not having him in that last few minutes. But this time, Torres was taken off earlier, and we were still on 1-1, surely we were not just aiming for a draw?

It sickens me to think of this, but I really suspect that was what Rafa was going for. He'd set his eye on the mid-week CL game, and the substitution of Benayoun, and then Kuyt later on, kind of confirmed that he'd given up on this game. I really, really, just don't understand it.

It brings memories back to a game against Reading in Dec 2007 when once we fell 2-1 down in the 60th min, Rafa started taking off Torres, and then Stevie and Carra later on. In the end, we'd lost 3-1. There was a CL mid-week game against Marseille, which was a must-win game, and then a clash against United the following weekend. Still, I didn't understand why we would throw away an EPL game against Reading with a CL game in mind.

Similarly, I understand the importance of our mid-week CL game and the (financial) repercussions if we fail to qualify for the knockout stages, but the EPL should be, and is our bread and butter. Rafa has come out to say he had subbed off Torres to protect him, and true, protecting him makes a lot of sense, but protecting him specifically for a CL game, and knowing we could very well throw away this match as a result is WRONG.

Whatever happened to "one match at a time"? We should have been looking at winning this game, not ahead at the Lyon tie already. If this was the Carling Cup, fine, I can understand it, but I feel sorry for the fans who travelled all the way to London to watch us play Fulham, only to see Rafa "throwing the game away".

I am worried for Rafa now. Even if he wins the Lyon game, there will still be a bitter taste left in the mouth when we continue to perform shit in the league. And if he doesn't win in Lyon, his head will for sure, be on the chopping block already.

Our travelling fans are amazing, I was surprised they could still find heart to sing YNWA at the end, HH muttered how he wasn't cut out to be a Liverpool fan, because Liverpool fans are just so unbelievably "optimistic" and "delusional". Quote him, not me. I say, it's not because we're optimistic or delusional, at least, not for me. I just don't see the point of being like him, cursing, criticising, does that do anyone any good? It makes me feel a lot worse when he's doing that really. I can see all our faults, I don't need him to add fuel to fire. It's not that I'm a staunch Rafa supporter, you can see that I'm not, it's just that I support LFC, and while Rafa's at LFC, that's what I'll support. You just don't see banners saying "Rafa OUT" appearing at Anfield doing anyone any good really.

HH started watching the match late in the 2nd half, and while he was on the phone with me, he just kept going on and on about "Look how shit that Voronin is", "Look how shit the Greek is, who is he even marking?"... Dude, I can see it for myself ok. And like I said, I don't think the Greek and Degen were that shit initially, it's just that when Degen got sent off (too harsh that one), and Carra too later, who did we have left in defence? Yeah, the Greek, and Insua. Ayala later joined them as well, to which he had to make another snide comment about how this wasn't the real Ayala, he was his bro.

About the two red cards, I felt they were harsh as well. They were not enough to deflect the blame off Rafa, but hopefully they can get rescinded somehow, else we will be in for a shit few weeks. I won't miss Degen, but his was definitely too harsh. But by then, I was already so disillusioned I almost wanted to laugh out loud when he was shown the red. Bye again, you weren't even supposed to be here. Looking at Carra's foul by itself, I also thought his red was a tad too harsh, but Degen's had looked a lot milder, so I knew it was another red even before the ref pulled out the card. I don't think the red cards were the turning point (it was when Rafa sent out that line-up and then subbed Torres off), but it sure as hell made our day a lot worse.

It's hard to take out any positives from this game really, because what else can you say, when your manager decides that we'll give this game away? I feel a little sorry for the youngsters who came on too. They were treated like sacrificial lambs, and I can't see how they can grow from all this.

liverpool 2 man utd 0 - the stevie g impersonator

2009-10-26T22:05:00.002+08:00

hohoho. K sometimes it feels weird to only be blogging about the match, like, almost 24 hours later. Some of the excitement is gone, yeah, but any victory over the Devils can keep me happy for quite some time. Haha.

Don't we all just lurrrrrrrvvvvve Torres. Sigh. Ok, I'll have to admit, I couldn't help but wonder what went through our ex-golden boy Mikey Owen's mind when Torres scored and every Liverpool fan from Anfield to Singapore was singing the Torres song. And then of course, his entrance to the game later was greeted with a resounding chorus of boos and chants of "Judas".

I really wish I can don't talk about Owen, because I don't want to look as if I even care about him anymore, but still, I just want to point out something. It seems like most non-Liverpool fans can't understand why we're treating Owen in this way. After all, what choice did he have really? He made a move to a good club, and it's anything a sensible person would choose. However, I wasn't even slightly surprised by the "welcome" he received last night at Anfield. If even I, the most faithful Owen fan, the most forgiving person, have turned against him ever since he made the move to Manchester, everyone else would only hate him more. It's baffling, yes, I know, when I think of say, Henry moving to Man U, or even Rooney moving to Liverpool, I don't think they'll get as bad a reception as Owen did at Anfield. K, for the matter, I think if Rooney moved to Liverpool, Liverpool fans would probably have a harder time to accept that than the Man Utd ones somehow. I know I will at least. Haha.

So yeah, I probably can't explain it fully for everyone, but at least in my case, I think why I can't stand Michael Owen so much now is because of how much I'd supported him and believed in him back then. And even though you could argue that every move he's made since leaving Anfield (except leaving Liverpool itself) has been what any sensible man would have made, I still think we've all been left sorely disappointed by the decisions he's made. IAnd then there's his aloof public personality, it made many fans find it hard to warm up totally to him in the first place. It's hard to expect much I know, but I think we'd always sort of expected him to reciprocate part of the support and respect we've given him, and it appears as though he's given us shit all, so we're giving him back the shit now. Yah yah, I know, hadn't he already repaid us with all his goals while he was in a Liverpool shirt? Yah well, we did give him the support then, and even beyond (for many of us), but now that he's in the wrong Red shirt, don't expect anymore. That's it man. Like I said before, he was once Saint Michael, but when he chose to go to the Devil, he deserves to rot in hell now. Well, maybe the more we'd once loved, the more hurt and hatred we'll feel later...

On the other hand, fingers crossed, but Torres just seems to be quite the opposite huh. Awww, he looks so sweet, he definitely doesn't look like the type who'd break our hearts... Ahhhhh, love him to bits.

Hahaha, k, aside from Torres & Owen, the match did provoke many other thoughts and talking points as well. Firstly, the beach balls and other inflatables... hahaha, I didn't know whether to be amused or irritated by that. Seriously, don't these people have anything better to do?! And quite a number of them came from the Kop as well. Really, I just don't get it.

On the whole, yeah, I think we definitely deserved the win. Man U fans can make all the noise about how it's just 1 game and we guys are already acting as though we've won the league, but well, it's precisely because we wanted to win more than them did we play like that and deserved every bit of credit eh. Every player out there in red really gave it his all, even much-maligned players like Lucas and Carra were playing like Stevie G and the on-form Carra. (btw I was misquoted in TNP k, I didn't say Daniel Agger! I only mentioned Lucas, N'gog and Carra! I think I was talking too fast and Joyce heard me wrongly...)

Some of the ref decisions came under the spotlight as well, but overall, while I feel he made some wrong decisions, it didn't really affect the nature of the game. Yah, Carra probably should have given away a penalty when he slid into Carrick in the 1st half. At the other hand, Kuyt probably should have earned a penalty as well - Berbatov ripped his shirt (molester)! I thought Carra's yellow for bringing down Owen (ha! so what if they were once the best of friends! see, I told you, once Owen chose to go to the Devil, that's it, he's the enemy!) was fair, as was Vidic's 2nd yellow for a similar foul on Kuyt. Btw, well done Vidic on that hat-trick of consecutive reds against us. He is forever trying to pull one on sweet Torres, but sweet Torres always comes out tops. He's a top defender alright, but against Torres, hoho, he always looks like shit. LOL

I had to literally "touched wood" a few times throughout the game. Idiot HH lah. First, he criticised Rafa when he took off Torres for N'gog. Ok lah, I was against it as well, but if Torres wasn't fully fit, it's not as if putting on Voronin instead is any better. Haha. Then, when the ref added on 5 mins of injury time (seriously, where got 5 mins!! There wasn't any injury!), he smsed to remark that maybe Owen will score a late goal like he did against Man City. Of course, that's a horrifying thought, and I immediately touched the wooden furniture in my room.

K, yah, at the end of the day, this is only 1 game in the entire season. We still have to do so much more. We can only wish that Lucas will continue to be the great Stevie G impersonator he was yesterday. Hopefully, we'll continue to play with renewed confidence, else, we'll only be helping just Arsenal and Chelsea with this result. I don't mind helping them, as long as we're helping ourselves at the same time......

sunderland 1 liverpool 0 - game over?

2009-10-18T19:00:00.003+08:00

Oh, I'll refrain from making this a long post. What's there to say really?

Is it all over? Mathematically, no. But it'll be tough, very tough. And it's hard to be positive really. We feel like blaming that stupid fan really for throwing the beach ball, but that's life. I've been having some really bad luck lately - I've had the vending machine eat up my $$$, an SMRT bus pass by and splash water on me (leaving my shirt half-drenched) when I was trying to wade my way through a flooded pavement (my pants hence already thoroughly wet), so I'm in the best position to say this:

When things go wrong, they go very wrong indeed.

Take last season aside, and we can say we've all been here before. Our title challenge declared over before it even begun, barely 2 months into the season this time. There're some positive souls like me who'd still go into each game, saying, heads up people, it ain't over till it's over, but at the end of the day, we still find ourselves sucked into a downward spiral. Then there're the eternal pessimists, or the realists/critics, who go, "Sack Rafa", "get rid of Lucas", etc etc. It'll never happen though, at least not in the short run, so we've got to suck it up and get through this together somehow.

Next up, (Lyon then) Man United? Of course we can beat them. Just... how the hell are we going to find that confidence we need after the awful display last night?

chelsea 2 liverpool 0 - depressing...

2009-10-05T20:49:00.002+08:00

SIGHHHHHHHHHHH........

So how? We've lost more games so far than we did in the whole of last season already.

Actually... I feel that I'm partly to be blamed for our 1st goal. Umm, don't know how to put this, because while I don't want to be the superstitious sort... it's just so irritating when stuff happen like this. You see, I was pretty much dozing off in the 2nd half, so at the 55th min, I told myself I'll not doze off or tune off for the next 5 mins, and we'll score, or else... I was doing well enough I thought, I kept trying to keep my eyes open... but at the 59th min or so, I was suddenly "jolted out" and I thought to myself, "Shit! Did I just 'doze off' for that few secs?" I don't know how to put it lah, maybe if you all have watched a match and felt really sleepy you'll know what I mean... it's like, you weren't really asleep, but you still probably sort of dozed off for a few seconds or minutes type of thing? Right after realising I'd tuned out for that few seconds, I thought, "Shit shit shit, don't let them score pleasee!!" and of course, they did within a few seconds of that. If only I'd held out for one more minute...

Oh, and after that, I found it easier to keep myself awake already, with all my senses on heightened alert again. But sadly...

I don't think we were that bad to be honest. Our defence had to improve, and it did, or maybe it's just that they had more to do this time so they'll play somewhat better anyway. We started off well, but Chelsea gradually got into their stride and things were pretty much even up till that goal I thought...

I'm not trying to be delusional really. I can see the problems we had yesterday. Carra was turned inside out by Drogba, Torres was tightly marked by the defenders (no more 'noob defenders' to allow Torres the time and space to turn and shoot), our gameplan was pretty much "Plan A: Cross from the flanks and hope for the best" and that's it.

It was kinda made more depressing after I saw the way Arsenal tore Blackburn apart with their inventive attacking play. I saw their 4th, 5th and 6th goal, and was impressed by the way their players could always make a clever run, pass, and never seemed to run out of ideas.

With the lineup Chelsea put out yesterday, it was natural that we would look to the flanks to avoid the congested central midfield battle. But the problem was, our wide players like Riera struggled to beat the fullbacks, and we were just pumping in crosses that kept getting headed out. I don't have the statistics, but I think at least 90% of our crosses were headed out of the penalty area by a Chelsea player.

Also, I didn't watch the Fiorentina game so I don't know what happened there (except that we'd lost), but if you ask me, no matter what, Yossi should always start when fit! The thing is, he's about one of the few players we have that can actually provide something different, an unpredictable attacking option, that we so needed in a game like this. Really, seeing our crosses producing no end result yesterday just made me feel like slamming my head against the wall. I don't care who has to be dropped for Yossi, Riera or, even though I doubt Rafa would ever do it, Lucas, Yossi just has to play!

K, that's all I've to say. Nothing else except, well, chin up guys. Hopefully.... hopefully, things will get better.

yes, el nino's book is here!

2009-10-01T21:39:00.002+08:00

YAY~

I was playing comp in the evening when my dad got back and said there was a heavy Liverpool package for me. Haha, actually it wasn't exactly from Liverpool, but he always assumes anything that has the "air mail" stamp on it and is addressed to me must be from Liverpool. Not far off though, the package was indeed from the UK and it was my Torres' autobiography!

It's in hardcover, so the package was kinda heavy, but it's fun to receive heavy packages in the mail! (as long as they're not bombs!)

I bought a new digicam today too, so I actually wanted to take a few photos of the book to upload it here, but I'm still charging the battery... well, never mind, I'll talk more about the book when I've finished reading it!

Haha, I only just had a quick glance through, cos I'm still halfway through Rushie's autobio that I borrowed from the library. Not much time for reading these days, mainly do my reading on the bus to/from work if I'm not too sleepy. Anyway, the book has more pictures than text, which is a good thing hahaha. I remember seeing Cristiano's 'Moments' book which had many pics too, but that was kinda gross. This one's WAYYYYYY BETTER. So many cute pics, heh. Of course there's a considerable portion of text too lah, but maybe it's because he still not that old for a full text autobio, so this one has more pics than your regular footballer's autobiography where they have dedicated pics section in the middle of the book.

Yah, and I must thank that Tze Shan again for this recommendation ah! The bookdepository.com is really efficient and good! I only ordered last Friday and it hasn't even been a week! I don't know exactly how much I paid because I didn't check, just know it's something like US$24, and I love the free worldwide shipping part. Usually that's the killer when it comes to ordering online. I think this is probably cheaper than buying from Kino, and yeah, much faster!!

So happy!

p.s. singtel sux.

liverpool 6 hull 1/ singapore gp 09

2009-09-28T17:05:00.003+08:00

So yes, we all love Torres don't we?
Oh yeah btw, thanks to my facebook friend Tze Shan, I got a tip to order Torres' autobio online at www.bookdepository.com. Just thought I'd share the great tip with the rest, cos it's free shipping worldwide, and she says the books usually arrive in a week. Can't wait till it arrives in my mailbox!

Yup, despite our defensive frailities showing up once again in some parts of the 1st half, I don't think the scoreline was in any way flattering to us. In fact, if Torres and Stevie had stayed on the pitch, I dare say we could have absolutely murdered Hull. After Torres and Stevie went off though, I just kinda shuddered at seeing people like Voronin and Lucas taking shots at goal... they just weren't going to go in really, despite them all being great chances.

In contrast, the chances Torres put away were not really that easy. I remember for his 2nd and 3rd goal, I'd thought he'd missed the chance and would lose the ball to the defender/keeper, but he always kept his cool in front of goal, and dispatched it away with ease. Fernando Torres is just a really, really classy player. I mean, look at how Hull tried to stop him on Saturday! They had 2 or 3 defenders on him at any time, and yet he was able to score a hat-trick. Love him to bits. Heh.

Btw, I like how we're making use of Kuyt and Yossi to back Torres up in attack now. Instead of just relying on the Stevie-Torres combination which has become more predictable. Only, ONLY problem with us is that our defence still looks a bit... argh, let's just hope that when we go to Stamford Bridge this coming weekend, they'll rise to the occasion and that problem gets sorted out.

And on to F1...

Did anyone notice Taufik singing the wrong lyrics to our national anthem on Sunday? I didn't notice the blooper as I only switched on my TV towards the end of his anthem rendition, but I was listening to the radio this morning about how he has come out to apologise for singing "Marilah kita berseru"... Now boys & girls, this is why you should sing your national anthem every day during flag raising. You may end up being the Singapore Idol, but you still gotta know your national anthem in case you've to sing it in front of millions worldwide.

Anyway yeah, like I mentioned earlier, I'm not an avid F1 fan, but I follow a bit of F1 and when the Singapore GP comes by, like many Singaporeans, I just jump onto the bandwagon and watch it on TV. Usually I also won't sit through all 60 laps of any race, but just for patriotism's sake, I do it for the Singapore GP. Which almost drove me to sleep.

For most parts of it, I must say, I was just waiting for someone to screw up or to crash. Crash of the day definitely came from Sutil on Nick Heidfeld. Poor Nick, he would have been rightfully pissed off.

I realise something as well, that is, during the Singapore GP, I learn more about F1 than at any other F1 race. Well, maybe it's because I actually sit through the whole damn thing, or maybe it's just because our Singapore GP is always so exciting and calls for all these rules and penalties to kick in. Some of the rules just don't make any sense to me though, and here's the list:

1) How can they just end the last qualifying round because someone crashed? It didn't make sense to me that Hamilton got P1 just because someone else crashed when Rosberg and Vettel were going faster than Hamilton and looked set to beat his timing if they'd finished the lap.

2) How was Sutil able to get away with crashing Heidfeld? Surely it's unfair!

3) How come everyone behind Hamilton (i.e. Rosberg & Vettel) kept getting penalties!

4) How come Rosberg had to do his drive-through penalty when a safety car was out (effectively putting him right at the back of the pack)?

HH always likes to say how the most powerful car on the track is the safety car, but to be honest, I love the safety car, hahaha, its appearance usually shakes things up a little, although with unpredictable stuff like that being able to ruin someone's race, you feel that F1 really has a lot of room to allow 'kelong'. And if luck plays such a huge role (you have to "predict" the appearance of safety car sometimes), I don't believe F1 is really such a great sport after all.

And to tell the truth, I still don't see F1 as a sport. It's just a rich man's game, a form of entertainment with hot chicks, fast cars, that sort of stuff, really.

MU 4 Man C 3 - KELONG AHHH!!!

2009-09-21T09:37:00.003+08:00

Zzz...

The Manchester Derby was sooooooooo obviously KELONG. 4 mins of stoppage time turned into 6, how the hell could that have happened anywhere else but at Old Trafford? When the ref kept delaying the final whistle, you just got a feeling something awful was going to happen...

The real hero should have been Bellamy, because of his two fantastic equalisers that frankly, came against the run of play in the 2nd half. But because of that idiot ref, the other idiot ex-LFC player became the hero instead. Oh that made me sick alright. All the non-MU fans like me must have been hopping up and down when the 4 mins were up and the ref still didn't blow the whistle... there was a freekick given to MU, but when they took it and nothing came out of it, surely it was time to blow the whistle? No no, Mr Atkinson still didn't want to blow it... 5mins passed and all of a sudden, the ball falls to a red shirt in space... who was it? Owen?! CRAP! NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

And to think a few mins ago, we were still joking about how we haven't notice Owen in the 10 mins he's been on the pitch. That itself, should have been a sign I guess.

When Fergie made a sub during injury time, the commentator was talking shit about the sub adding on 30 secs to stoppage time. Where the hell did that come from? Since when did substitutions ADD on time instead of wasting time? Hughes said that 4th official Wiley gave the reason of their goal celebrations adding on time. Wow, I didn't know you added on so much time for celebrations either. Excuses lah, Atkinson & Wiley. KELONG MEANS KELONG!!!!!!

And did you see Fergie sharing a laugh with the 4th official after their goal? Really disgusting.

west ham 2 liverpool 3 - great escape, not so great defending

2009-09-20T07:40:00.003+08:00

Our defensive errors almost cost us. Not sure what's wrong with Skrtel and Carra lately, but this wasn't the first time we've looked shaky at the back this season. Except that this time the errors were more glaring and could be pinpointed down to the individuals.

Carra was beside himself last night. When he let Hines through in the 3rd minute, I thought that was it, we were going 1-0 down, only for the latter to hit the post with his effort.

Torres' first goal was awesome; lately he's been more closely marked by defenders, yet he was able to shimmy his way through and score from a really tight angle. To have West Ham equalise twice could have had a demoralising effect, and I'm just glad that Torres was there to rescue us again at the end. Couldn't believe it when Carra gave away the penalty, although the conversion had its controversy.

On Stevie's/Kuyt's goal... well, I think the goal should be Kuyt's. After all, he did change the direction of the ball, and without his toe-poke, the defender on the line could have cleared it! Apparently Stevie argues that Kuyt has enough goals and he wants it... lol

I wonder who has suscribed to Mio TV for the sake of watching the CL games. Stupid, stupid Singtel. But I've to say they're quite clever with the pay-per-view package. Yah, in case you guys don't know, you can actually pay for the matches you watch only, $6 for each match you watch online. I didn't do it for the Debrecen match, rather get some more sleep instead, but I figure if it's a mouth-watering semi-final clash or something, that $6 might be actually worth it. Costs about the same as a movie ticket after all. And yeah, even if you pay for all Liverpool CL matches, it ought to be much cheaper than if you pay the monthly subscription fees. Not sure how the online streaming quality would be like, and I think there'll be some who'd rather watch the match online for FREE, but like I said, Singtel is dumb, yet not so dumb. This $6 thing might have me interested after all, just not at this stage of the competition. And not sure if they'll raise it from $6 later...

The Singapore Grand Prix is coming soon again... of course poor people like me are only ever going to watch the race on TV. I just don't see the point of paying so much for walkabout tickets (definitely can't afford anything above walkabout tix), you stand at one spot, you can only see the race from one place, the cars zoom by you in a fraction of a second and you have your ears nearly going deaf. Of course it's the experience that you're paying for, but I'm not sure what kind of experience that is. Just not suited for me perhaps.

I'm not a huge F1 fan, but like your average sports fan, I follow F1 news, tennis news, just that little bit I suppose. And F1 has been hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons it seems. The latest scandal involving Renault in last year's S'pore GP is just... lol. If you check back my blog post last year on the Singapore GP, you'd have realised we already smelled a 'Renault conspiracy' back then. Still, it was a bit shocking to see our conspiracy theory proven right.

And no, of course I wasn't disappointed by this shocking revelation. Like I said, not a huge F1 fan, and frankly speaking, without all these incidents, I wouldn't even care a damn about F1. Cars zooming in circles? Not my thing at all. Yes, this is when I'm a bit of a sadist, the drama, negative or not, interests me more.

liverpool 4 burnley 0 - yossi rocks!

2009-09-13T13:53:00.002+08:00

It's not just football which has been on a break for two weeks; I've just had a week-long break from school as well, though I can tell you, just like when I was a student, school hols fly past just as fast for a teacher.

Anyway, I've noticed since I begun teaching, football sort of takes a backseat in my life already. It doesn't feel like a hopeless obsession anymore, it feels more like a hobby. I'm not sure whether it's good or bad, but now in my conversations with HH, at least I don't keep going on and on about football even when nothing much is happening, I talk a lot about my students, school, and work instead.

But in the past week, some dilemmas, no maybe that's not the way to put it, but I don't know how else you'd call those situations, well let's just say that I was put in a situation where I had to rethink about being a football fan and its position in my life. And let's just put it this way as to the conclusion I've arrived at - that is, football is definitely not the be all and end all in my life. But I love being a football fan, and I love Liverpool. And even when my work and other priorities take me in the opposite direction, I think being a Liverpool fan makes me a happier person.

That aside, I need to mention how surprised I was when thanks to Desmond from the fan club, suddenly there's this video clip on Facebook of the Torres-Carra autograph/photograph session at Velocity. And 4 minutes into the 5-minute video clip, I saw myself! Or should I say, I saw my back. But it doesn't matter, the main thing was I saw myself giving Torres the baby shoes, and the split second when he looked up at me in surprise. OMG..... It all lasted for barely a few seconds, and the "surprised look" lasted for not even a second, but that clip proved that I hadn't imagined it and now no matter what happens later on in my life, I can continue reliving that moment over and over again!

Now, back to the match.

I think I must have mentioned this quite a few times last season, but let me say this again, I LOVE YOSSI!!!!!!!!

It sucks whenever people say we're over-reliant on Stevie and Torres, and when we prove them right. But yesterday's display was more like the Liverpool I love, the Liverpool of last season. Look, Stevie & Torres are great, but we can count on players like Yossi, and Dirk as well. And of course, there're also players like Albert who can chip in with some goals and assists, and now there's Glen Johnson too.

I liked yesterday's starting line-up. Except for Lucas (who played in Masch's position yesterday), I think no one should have anything against the players in the team right? I liked the way Dirk & Yossi played behind Torres, maybe, just maybe, Stevie should continue to play in midfield and when Masch's back, Lucas can... ahem, yah.

I still think our defence looks a little shaky, and I did exhale a sigh of relief when the Burnley player (Patterson?) blasted his shot just wide of the post in the opening minute.

I'm never feeling over-confident about any match now, but for these sort of matches, the first goal is always important. Once Yossi scored an excellent opening goal (I honestly thought he was going to get squeezed out by the defenders and lose the ball, but he kept going and he weaved his way through brilliantly), it was easy for us from then on. I'd watched Burnley's game against Chelsea 2 weeks back, and it was the same, they started off defending brilliantly, created a few chances for themselves, but once Chelsea scored, HH and I declared game over for them, as the floodgates would open now. Same case this time, for teams like Burnley, once it becomes 1-0 to the opposition, life gets a lot tougher. Of course, for Liverpool, I never start to relax till we're at least 2-0 up, then at 3-0 you can fully enjoy the game without feeling the tension anymore.

And to think, we could have scored more as well!

The only downer of the day was the Chelsea match though. Zzzzz... I saw it coming, but even I couldn't have prevented it. It was pretty much similar to their opening game against Hull really, they went a goal down, and then scored the winner deep into injury time at the end. I thought maybe I was the 'suay' one, because when our match went into half-time, I switched channels, saw the score at 1-0 to Stoke and my last line to HH over the phone was: "I hope the score stays like this." 2 seconds after I hung up, Drogba scored. DAMN my mouth! Then through the 2nd half, I kept sneaking a look at Arsenal's and Chelsea's scores (btw Man City is on fire eh?), and when I realised Chelsea were still at 1-1 when our game was over, I didn't dare to switch the channel over. I just sat and watched the commercials on Ch27 until I decided their game must be almost over or over and I pressed the remote to Ch21. And DAMN, DAMN, DAMN, they were celebrating. Note that I didn't see the goal, so I wasn't the jinx, they'd already scored and were celebrating wildly like they'd just won the league. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz...

And then of course, Man Utd later won their game against Tottenham with 10 men.

Bolton 2 Liverpool 3 - Relieved

2009-08-30T08:57:00.000+08:00

At the final whistle yesterday, the overwhelming emotion was one of relief. We were staring at losing 2 or 3 points yesterday, until Bolton went a man down, and Stevie G popped up with the winner at the end.

The first goal we conceded, through yet another set-piece, was awful. I know zonal marking has been pinpointed as the problem everytime we concede from a set-piece, but it's simply baffling why we're conceding so many through set-pieces all of a sudden recently. My guess is that the recent changes in defence, especially in the middle, led to a destablising effect. Carra looks shaky lately as well, not sure if it's anything to do with the bandaged forehead or he's just not used to his defensive partner constantly changing. I don't think our defenders have been individually woeful, but certainly, there's a lack of understanding amongst them, and that explains why sometimes some of the opposition players aren't picked up.

And let me say this again, Glen Johnson has been one of our best players during this dismal start to the season. He's proven to be an awesome signing so far. I wasn't quite sure why we paid so much for a fullback, whether he'd have the kind of impact that's worth that price-tag, but if he keeps this form up, he's definitely worth every penny we paid and more.

HH says he's kinda like Riise, in the positive sense that they're both really attacking full-backs that is. His defensive qualities aren't too shabby either, so that's a good sign.

HH watched the 1st half with me yesterday, and with the yellow cards flying around from very early on, he was correct in predicting that a Bolton player would be sent off later.

Of course, I don't want to think that we only won because they went a man down, but I have to be fair and say we did only turn up the pressure once we had the numerical advantage.

I don't know if we've turned the corner, because this performance still doesn't fill me with as much confidence as last season's countless comebacks did, so we'll just have to wait and see how it goes in the next few games.

I'm glad to see Riera back, he also played tremedously well yesterday, I just think we should find a way to slip Yossi into the starting line-up as well (*looks at Lucas...* sorry).

liverpool 1 aston villa 3

2009-08-25T20:31:00.000+08:00

So how?

It does look pretty bad for us now huh.

The eternal optimist will proclaim, "Well we'll win all of the next 35 games & clinch the league title!" The pessimist will say, "Our chances of winning number 19 left with Xabi. Our players aren't good enough, our team is in a totally bad shape and I don't see how we can win the league this season."

As for me, well, I'm not pressing the panic button yet, but I've to admit we'll need to improve dramatically for any shot at winning number 19. I'm also worried that we might not be able to replace Xabi, but I'm also puzzled over how 1 departure should make such a huge difference. Thing is, we've always thought the likes of Voronin & Lucas weren't quite up to the mark when they were previously in the team, so why are we suddenly thinking that the team is shite with Voronin being the "best option" we have on the bench and Lucas is just playing just an OK game?

Honestly, I don't think Lucas is awful, but yeah, he's in no way the player Xabi is. But c'mon lah, who are we kidding when we expect Lucas to be Xabi overnight... We either have to accommodate his style, change the tactics, or just change the players around (i.e remove Lucas from the side, put Stevie back in midfield, Yossi or any other striker behind Torres, etc).

I do feel a bit sympathetic towards Lucas. Everyone is expecting him to have the impact Xabi had on the team, and because he can't live up to it, they're all on his back now. The own goal musn't have done his confidence any good either. I admit, I cringed and cursed silently when he scored that own goal. What luck... zz

In fact come to think of it, I felt quite disappointed over this result because of the way all 3 Villa goals were kinda 'tyco'. 1 own goal from a freekick, 1 goal from a corner, and 1 from a penalty. All set pieces eh. Irritating. We were outplayed by Tottenham, but I think we deserved more from this game... still, we only had ourselves to blame for making those stupid mistakes.

Yeah, let's try and put things into perspective here. True, we lost a class player in Xabi, but that's just 1 less good player, and we didn't suddenly get all the shit players. I just think we need the senior players to stand up and be counted, and we need to instill the winning mentality back again. The players are not supposed to be THIS shite, and if changes are needed, I hope we find the necessary formula soon. Stop expecting Lucas to be like Xabi, if he wants to excel, he needs to find a different role in the team. Else, just drop him completely, cos I don't see him becoming a playmaker like Xabi or Stevie when he was in central midfield. And although we've lost one good player and bought an injured player (I still can't figure that out k), at least we still bought another good player in Glen Johnson. So if we're worse off in terms of depth and quality than last season, we shouldn't be THIS worse off. I believe our problems can be addressed, but how, and when, I don't know...

Let's just pray and wait.

liverpool 4 stoke 0 - that's more like it!

2009-08-20T18:07:00.000+08:00

It's funny ah... the last time we had a rotten result, I had a good day in school... now that we just enjoyed a great result, I ended up having a pretty awful day in school.

K, let me just try and put all the negative feelings aside now, I've got tonnes of test papers to mark later, so I need to do this quick.

I actually set my alarm to wake me up at 3.30am, because I thought 3am might be denying me of too much sleep, and that extra half hour will at least keep me awake through more of the match.

So yah, I missed the first goal. But I think the fact that the first goal came so early must have helped, because last season, it was just so hard to break Stoke's defence down. With an early first goal, it would have allowed for the game to be more open, hence the other goals came naturally after that.

After seeing Carra's face in blood the other day, we had to see blood dripping down Torres' pretty face this time. When he came back out from the medical room, initially I didn't realise where they had stitched up, but I noticed the eyebrow later.

Actually during this match, I was more than a little distracted by the other ongoing match at Ch27. I kept pressing my green button to check on the latest score, or just switch to Ch27 every now and then. Hahaha, yeah, I honestly don't know if I was more delighted with our win or Man Utd's loss to Burnley. K, I don't want to rub it in anymore, later karma...

Btw, Glen Johnson's good eh! And to think HH mentioned to me the other day that a full-back can't have much of an impact... Glen's really given a good account of himself so far. Haha, ok, his goal was a close-range effort, but he still made that look spectacular, and he contributed in other ways both to attack and defence as well.

Sigh. K lah, don't want continue already, also don't really have much mood. Sometimes I feel like I'm living double lives. On the one hand, when I am a teacher, I must not divulge too much information with myself, and I go by a rather different name in school, so students can't track me that easily on facebook, blogs and all that. Haha. Some of them do know I'm a Liverpool fan lah. Today I was so irritated with these boys, then I had the chance to show off to them when one of them was like, "Man U have 18 league titles, Liverpool got how many?" 18 lor. Then he tried to ask how many European titles we had won too, sorry lah, lose again. Lolll.

tottenham 2 liverpool 1 - disappointing start

2009-08-17T17:20:00.000+08:00

This is going to be a little tricky from now on. It's hard to go to sleep at 2+am (I couldn't sleep after we lost you see) and have to wake up at 5+am for school. It was easier as a Uni student because I usually didn't have that many lessons and didn't have to get up that early. But now as a teacher... yesterday night's match made me damn tired for the rest of the day.

The lucky thing is, the kids weren't that bad today. In fact they were quite good today, which cheered me up from my sour mood in the morning.

To add on to yesterday's defeat, the way I woke up already put me in a real bad mood. Let's just say I was having a nice little dream which had Kaka in it, but when it was reaching the climax, the alarm from my phone went off. Sucky right?

Anyway, after the Kaka thing, first thing I remembered was that we'd lost the previous night. Damn. And I remembered how awful we were.

Sorry to be another whiner, but I miss Xabi, and I think the team did yesterday too.

I think we deserved to lose. Some time during the match, I was aiming for just a draw. At least a draw at White Hart Lane wasn't really that bad, and we can still aim for an unbeaten streak later on.

To start off with a defeat was disappointing. Only a game gone and we're already lagging behind in the title chase! And we were absolute crap too. Lack of imagination, unable to hold on to possession... Glen Johnson did well to win the penalty, and Pepe did his best to prevent Robbie Keane from scoring, but other than that... don't think anyone else was great. Oh yah, and I thought Yossi should have started as well. To me, he's one of the few intelligent players we have left now.

1st half was pretty boring, in fact I was dozing off when I opened my eyes and saw Carra covered in blood and wondered what had happened. HH later told me that he thinks Carra is a bit of an ass sometimes, going for the same ball when he already saw Skrtel going for it... Hmm, don't know...

Sigh... I'm already dozing off again... it's been a long and tiring day... wonder how I can survive the Stoke game in mid-week. >< Well, pray that we can go at least one better than we did in the same fixture last season...

chasing Liverpool in SG - photos part 2

2009-08-06T16:15:00.007+08:00

The 1st day...
seeing people's butts @ the hotel.
the Cat High boys who took a cab to sneak into the hotel. Didn't take long before they were chased out of the lobby.
Claire Rourke, LFC TV presenter who became immensely popular with the fans over the next few days. ('koped' from someone's FB)
at the first 'closed door' training session, we went up this block nearby so we could see the training.
kenneth, me, honami (the dan agger fanatic) & her friend eileen
xabi blew kisses at me from the team bus when he saw this message... turned out to be a goodbye kiss after all. :'( :'(
a message for fernando that got pepe all tickled.

The 2nd day...

@ velocity: kenneth & i @ velocity: me, zach, desmond
nora torres' shoes
@ the national stadium: tzai wei (the cat high boy), me, and some bangladeshi friend tzai wei picked up o.o
@ national stadium: our bangladeshi friend, jun qi (also cat high), me
it spells out to 'xabi por favor no te vayas'
this xabi caricature is property of a HK girl.

The 3rd day...

@ clarke quay: alan - the pro photographer who took the amazing pepe pics

me & garfield, aka dr fun.

billy, me, chin kiat, n i've no idea who the other 2 foreigners are
i look like some STB promoter right hahaha.

The 4th day...
tzai wei with his cool banner (i 'koped' from his FB)

my bro & my dad (he was eating an ice-cream here)
HH & me

another HH: ng haley harrison, cute little boy huh.

Chasing Liverpool in SG - photos part 1

2009-07-28T22:11:00.008+08:00

Note: ALL THESE PICTURES ARE "KOPED" from people one... the first 4 photos are from Mr Alan Ong, the photographer sitting next to me on the river cruise. I'll upload the rest of the pictures next time, 'cos got some people take pics of me but never upload yet! (I was too lazy to take photos while enjoying the moment, and anyway, my camera lousy one...)

Anyway I love these photos taken by Alan lah, I took from his facebook one... In case u still don't know what happened during the river cruise, read my post on Pepe at the River. Btw I know that KKT in today's TNP too! He's the guy who suddenly asked me if I was Lala on the first day at the hotel... Aiyoo... don't know whether to say he mad or say Pepe blur. Pepe's a nice guy obviously, but blur sotong lah! Just hope he can find his jacket back...

K, I'll give a brief commentary on what happened in these next photos ar... Actually later I also got myself more photos when I added the guy sitting next to Alan onto facebook as well. That guy took more photos than Alan, but roughly the same things also, from slightly different angle. Hahaha. And Alan's photos more zoomed in and cropped, so look a bit nicer hahaha. But I think I very clever hor, ownself never take photo go 'kope' all the photos that the photographers around me took. Then again, they also quite lucky that because of my board, the players all end up turning in our direction and Pepe got such a dramatic reaction...

K this boat don't have Pepe, but the Spanish-speaking players also saw my amusing message for Pepe so they all turned in our direction. See lah, my message really very interesting; if I just had a Xabi message, they sure don't care as much, hahaha! (When I had a Xabi message, it was on the first day when my message was the first of its kind seen in Singapore! Once everyone started having Xabi messages, and Xabi himself also saw it too, I didn't see the point of carrying the same message anymore though...)

And when Pepe saw the message, his reaction quite drama... haha.

Pepe trying to fix his hair... umm?

Pepe trying to explain to the other players what's going on here... hahaha

Kuyt and Riera kept trying to get fans to jump into the river...

These next two photos, I also can't remember I 'kope' from where already... but I saved it cos Torres looks so pretty here, haha. K, Dan too.

Chasing Liverpool in SG - The finale part 2

2009-07-27T22:16:00.005+08:00

The odd thing is, according to HH, the atmosphere and match didn't seem all that bad on TV. Perhaps the random noises throughout the stadium became just loud noises on TV.

By the way, anyone noticed which Singapore player got Torres' shirt at the end?

I didn't, but Torres was sporting a Singapore number 16 shirt on many of the pictures at the end.

Damn you Daniel Bennett!

The Evertonian must have gotten his shirt then. zzzzz...

I suppose my main gripe with the match was that everyone was supporting LFC instead of Singapore (club before country ppl!), but few knew how to show support for LFC through songs. The support for Singapore then became pretty much farcical as well, the recorded 'fake cheers' said it all.

Over at my section, the fans were pretty subdued throughout. We were pretty much onlookers to most of the noise produced elsewhere. First, when the Man U fans appeared. I didn't even see them to be honest, just heard the boos and then word filtered through that a Man U shirt had turned up. Attention-seeking eh? Then later when the big LFC banner appeared at the Kop end, it never floated to our section, we could only look and admire.

Throughout the match, in true Singaporean way, the only noise the fans around us made were mainly abuses at the linesman, ref and some Singapore players. Noh Alam Shah in particular was noted for his rough play, I think he's a Man U fan actually, plays like Rooney too, lol. For me, the main noise came from the guy explaining a lot of stuff to his friend behind. His friend kept asking all sorts of questions, wanted to know why everyone was chanting Xabi's name, why Xabi would want to go Real Madrid, whether Real Madrid was a good team, etc etc.

Actually, we did support one Singapore player. INDRA!! Aiyah, I really wanted him to score towards the end, at least he'll have reason to get Torres' shirt or something. Indra's a Liverpool fan, quite a few people in our section realised that as well, so he should have gotten Torres' shirt instead of stupid Daniel Bennett!

I suppose the match wasn't THAT bad like I made it out to be initially, but it wasn't that great like the papers made it out to be either. It was probably just a great pre-season game, yah, at the end of the day, we all have to realised it was a pre-season friendly and the atmosphere was considered good for one away from Anfield. The real prize is still at the end of the season, and somehow, over the past few days, having seen the mad scenes and cries for number 19, I've just got this feeling (cross my fingers) that we'll be getting there.

Chasing Liverpool in SG - The finale

2009-07-27T06:27:00.000+08:00

Ok, I only have about half an hour before I've got to head for my teaching course... zzz!

Anyway, if I'm being honest, last night was a bit disappointing. The last 3 days were wayyyyyyy better, and Anfield was a thousand times better than this as well. Of course HH had to cynically remark that we did pay 3k+ to get to Anfield after all, and this was never going to be Anfield.

I'm not sure whether it had to do with where I was sitting, that perhaps if I'd sat somewhere else, the atmosphere would have been better, but either way, I think generally the atmosphere throughout the entire stadium was pretty subdued. It was nowhere near what it's like in the Kop at Anfield, and if I dare say, even the Singapore sell-out matches had better atmosphere than this.

I wasn't at the 2001 game, so I can't compare with that, all I can compare this with is with the other Singapore matches, and of course, that 1 game at Anfield. And from the very start, this crowd just struck me as a "confused crowd". We seemed to have an identity crisis here. Earlier, I'd asked some fellow Reds whether they cheer if Singapore scored, and to my surprise (yes I was actually surprised), the answer from everyone was a definite NO. Like the ST article today correctly pointed out, Liverpool was the 'home' team here. It didn't help that Daniel Bennett's interview in ST yesterday must have rankled some Liverpool fans, with him basically all but dissed us EPL fans, and he also revealed he was an Evertonian and advised us that if we wanted to be 'gloryhunters', then we should all go support Man U.

And even though we all wanted this to be like Anfield, the fact was we had so such 'singing culture' like the Liverpudlians. The fact is I don't think there're enough 'hardcore fans' in Singapore. The past few days had seen all the hardcore ones turning up at the training sessions and all, and while the 1000 or 2000fans can sing the songs, they were pretty much scattered throughout the stadium last night and you ended up with only a few pockets of fans throughout the stadium trying to sing something, but not enough to resonate throughout the stadium.

To summarise, here's all that 'went wrong' at the match:

1) The Kallang wave that died:
Before the match, there was a Kallang wave that was going around the stadium a few times, before the female emcee announced proudly, "This Kallang wave is dedicated to the Singapore team who's on the pitch right now." Immediately, the wave stopped just like that. Later on in the match, it took many tries before another one could get started again.

2) The 'fake cheers'
As the LFC team was announced, there were cheers aplenty for each Liverpool player. However, the cheers were noticeably less audible for the Singapore team, and when there were a handful of boos at Daniel Bennett, they resorted to playing some 'recorded cheers'. Kind of like your 'boxed laughter' as I call it. You just suddenly had these loud cheers, and you wondered where the hell it was coming from, before realising it was recorded. And it was pretty obvious as well. Just plain embarrassing.

3) The unannounced substitutions
Was anyone confused over who the hell was our number 8 on the field? When did number 4 - Plessis come in? When did Carra even go off? Nobody must have realised who number 7 was until he scored and Nemeth's name came through the PA too. All in all, 23 LFC players played yesterday, and while some of the more prominent subs (like Torres) were announced along with the Singapore substitutions, not all subs were announced and we were just left baffled when we suddenly saw a new unfamiliar number on the pitch. One of my friends who works in the media department for S-league later smsed me to ask if I knew who our number 8 was. I guessed it was Pacheco, but frankly speaking, I had no idea too. I just had to guess who everyone was from their rough positions on the pitch.

4) Can't sing
Besides YNWA which was led by the CD player (the opera singer version was horrible, she sang way too fast), like I said, I don't think there was any other song which really resonated throughout the stadium. The fan clubs probably were the loudest, but nobody else really caught on to what they were singing, and only the Liverpool chants, Xabi Alonso chants, and later the "We want Torres" chant were loud and clear enough. Majority of Singaporeans can't even remember their own national anthem or pledge, remembering anything more than a few lines just isn't the culture here I guess.

5) The empty seats
Was a bit disappointed to see the empty benches at the North & South ends. So there you go, I don't think we've got 55,000 LFC fans in Singapore after all. And of course, amongst the 45,000 or so in the stadium, there was a large group of foreign fans, and then you have the "fake" fans like those I brought in with me: my dad, bro, and HH. Those who are just here for the fun of it and don't really feel Liverpool in their veins and thus are never going to be singing anything. Some credit to HH when he did sing a bit of YNWA and we were the only 2 people in the stadium singing Albert Riera's song after he scored.

to be continued....

Chasing Liverpool in SG diary - Day 3: Pepe at the River

2009-07-25T17:30:00.004+08:00

The chase is almost over. In fact, it's already over for me in terms of the literal physical chasing. Hahaha. Yes, I was completely exhausted this morning, and upon reaching the river later, I was feeling completely bored, and my energy level still wasn't recharged yet. But just for that 1-2 hours in the afternoon, I was on a high again. Lol.

If you noticed, for the past 2 days, the highlight has always been a Spanish player, a different one every day. On the 1st day, it was Xabi, on the second, it was Torres, on the 3rd, that's today... well it was Pepe.

OMG... I just love Pepe hahaha. He's so damn funny. I had a message written for Pepe on a new red board yesterday, but of course he didn't see it, so today I wrote the same thing again, this time on a white board again (I realised it's too hard to see silver words on a red background). Simple message, similar to Torres' one on the 1st day, "Pepe: Me gusta tu cabello tambien!" which meant of course "I love your hair too!" On the other side of the board was a simpler message, just "THANK U FOR COMING!"

Writing the message on the board, boarding the bus towards Clarke Quay, getting down at the wrong stop and ending up in Chinatown, having to cross a bridge and find a right bus to Clarke Quay again didn't put me in a good mood. Moreover, everyone just seemed to "pangseh" me today. Stupid Kenneth suddenly said he went to the hotel in the morning, got photos with Xabi & Sammy Lee and was tired to go to the river. Smsed some others who didn't seem too interested either. One of my non-LFC friends almost turned up because she worked nearby, but in the end she decided she didn't want to wait. So for once, it seemed like I was going 'friendless'. I met up with some of the fan club people, but they seemed to be busy with the setting up of the banners, I didn't know how to help and was too moody and tired to offer anything too, so I just trudged along for a while. I met this fan club guy whom I never really spoke to before, but he started talking to me and I was a bit confused when he said something about how he saw my facebook saying I was tired. I didn't think of it too much, thought maybe he's just a friend of a friend.

I ended up sitting next to him on the steps on the riverbank in front of Central, and so just like that, he became the friend of the hour. Haha, I later found out he was Alan Ong, and actually, he was my friend in facebook... It helped that he was a freelance photographer, because frankly, I haven't been taking many photographs these few days (and I'm sure you already noticed all my posts so far are all text, no pics) and am just relying on people to upload the photos. So anyway, having a friend of the hour eased the loneliness a little, although I did spot the Katong Convent girls (Honami - the diehard Agger fan - with her best friend) a little further down from us later on.

Btw, speaking of Honami, she had a great story to tell when we met her at the National Stadium last night. After leaving almost in tears on Thurs night, she said she followed my advice to write a message on a board that went something like "Daniel Agger please collect your gift here" and when she turned up on Friday morning at the stadium, the security officer promised to try and help her. So when Agger came out from training and had already walked past her to the bus, the guy tapped him on the shoulder and pointed her out to him. And so... she finally managed to give her present to Dan, Dan thanked her, smiled at her, and of course she went over the moon after that. Then I think later she had a letter for Insua as well, and Insua wanted her to go up the bus and give it to him, but the security didn't allow it so Insua came down to get it from her. Or something like that. When she told me the story, she was still too excited and was blabbering away I couldn't really make total sense of the entire story. Anyway, like I said on the first day, perseverance pays off! You just gotta believe!

Luckily I had the riverbank steps to sit on, because seriously, I wouldn't have been able to endure standing under the scorching hot afternoon sun. The almost carnival-like mood also slowly started getting to me, and I was rather amused whenever the bumboats containing tourists passed by the huge crowds. It was just rather funny, to wonder whether these tourists knew what the hell was going on. If the tourists were friendly and waved, I would sometimes wave back too, as well as show my "Thank U for coming" message at them. I suppose when they see the banners at the bridge they'd have gotten some idea of what's going on, but all I can say is they chose a wonderful time to visit Singapore. Normally we're just really unfriendly people. Haha, just kidding. But I remember this blond kid whose boat came pretty near us, and he was just saying hello to everyone on the riverbank. Of course I said hello back too.

But among all the "tourist boats" there was only just that one which really stood out. This boat, as it approached us, the tour guide started explaining into her mic to her group who we were, that we were waiting for Liverpool FC, and she then turned to us and said that they were nearby, only 2 minutes away, before everyone started cheering. And so she went down the river, exclaiming to everyone along the way how they were only 2 minutes away, and sure enough, the boats we were waiting for appeared soon after, sparking off mass hysteria.

The first boat of players didn't contain Pepe, but some of the Spanish-speaking players, I remember there was Insua, saw my message for Pepe anyway, because I saw them pointing, looking this way, squinting their eyes a little and started laughing their heads off. The next one had Pepe on it, and sure enough, he saw my message and hahaha, I don't know how to really describe his reaction, but it was just so damn hilarious. Probably you could liken the initial look to like exclaiming "WTF!?" and he looked so excited he was almost jumping up and down the boat. He just kept touching his head, pointing straight at me (not sure if it's "OMG! It's you! I remember you!" point or "You cheeky little..." point) and some of the non-Spanish speaking players looked a bit confused and I think Pepe tried to explain to them or something. He just looked really funny. Hahaha. And yes, I was feeling happy too.

I realised today I didn't do much screaming anymore, I was just waving at them, flashing my message (either one, but more often, just the thank u one once Pepe saw his message), and soaking it all up. The river cruise went better than I thought, because the boats came so near us we could see the players clearly. In fact, I'd say this was probably even better than the autograph sessions yesterday, because I think the players were really enjoying themselves, the only way they would tire their hands was by waving, and even though some of them looked hot (as in Torres I think he felt so hot he had to roll up one of his sleeve a little- nice biceps), it must have been pretty relaxing for them nevertheless. And the fans were also close enough such that we could see the players clearly, we didn't even have to fight for front row seats since the crowd was all pretty spread out (initially), and if anyone shouted loud enough, the players were close enough to hear it.

It was really cool to see the players looking so relaxed, Sammy Lee probably looked most right at home sitting on the edge of the boat at the front! Hahaha, in fact I think if Sammy had put on other clothes, he'd probably look just like a fisherman. Hahaha. And then some of the players, especially Kuyt and Riera were really at it, they just kept egging the fans to jump into the water! Initially I did wonder if anyone was crazy enough to jump into the river, because frankly speaking, if you can swim it's not too much of a risk. The boats were so near, and surely they'd save you anyway. Hahaha. They'll also definitely pull you up their boat, the players would all admire your guts and you'll be in tomorrow's headlines. Imagine what it could have been!Unfortunately, I can't swim too well, and I'm not crazy enough. As it turned out, nobody was crazy enough as well. But Riera was trying really hard to get someone to do it, I saw him taking a shirt from Kuyt or somewhere and held out the shirt for anyone who would jump in. Tempting offer huh?

After the boats made their U-turn and Pepe passed by us again, I blew him a kiss and he smiled and waved at me. Haha. I really love him now lah. Hahaha. Then people started getting up to chase after the boats, and I thought hell, why not, and got up to follow as well. It didn't really involve much running, just walking really, because the boats didn't go too fast anyway. Of course the crowd grew thicker and thicker, so it was difficult to see the players later, but it didn't matter really. I remember passing by one of the pubs or something where they were blasting YNWA through the speakers, there was even someone doing commentary through the mic... lol. And I saw Carra asking some of the fans on the riverbank to pose while he took out his own digital camera to take a photo of them. It was a bizarre sight, but lucky, lucky fans. Claire was on one of the boats as well, she also filmed us while men continue yelling at her, "Claire, marry me!" It wasn't the 1st time I'd heard that.

So all in all, I think it was really good fun for the fans and players alike. Even though we weren't as close as during the autograph sessions, this event was able to give more fans access to the players, and there was probably even more "interaction" involved. While I didn't exactly shout my message to the players like most of the others did, I must say I think I got my message across pretty well too huh. Hahaha.

While I was "on the chase", I lost Alan in the crowd, but then I met some other people along the way. It was a funny sight really, as we kept going and going, hundreds of fans crossing the lobby of the Fullerton hotel (we wanted to get to the other side), cheering and running across the road (when the light turned green for us), and then slowing down as we started climbing down the stairs to the Merlion area. I don't even know where that was. The Merlion near the Fullerton hotel area. There were some tourists taking photos there and they must have wondered what the hell was going on when this mob of fans just suddenly came down there and looked around confused, because there was no sight of the boats! As in turned out, we'd overtaken the boats by quite a bit, and it took a while before the boats reappeared, and after a final wave, they went off, beyond where we could reach as we had no more land ahead of us. By this time, I was with Chin Kiat (I saw him at the Fullerton or somewhere along the way), a man I met at the hotel on the 1st day, and who claimed he's amongst the pioneer fan club members. Registration number 600+, while mine's in the 5000s. He was commenting how I was like a sprinter as I ran across the road earlier, and just always seemed to be so happy. Well, he didn't see me two hours ago when I was looking half-dead and gloomy.

Yeah, somehow I just got caught up in all the excitement I forgot about my aches and cramps. We took a few photos at the Merlion, and then random people just kept coming up to me, wanting to take a photo with me or something. I was wondering what the hell was going on at first, because they all wanted to take a photo with me and my "thank u for coming" board. So I asked:
"Where are you from?"
"Jakarta."
"Oh. Are you a Liverpool fan?"
"Of course!"

Ok, at least this wasn't just a weird tourist wanting to take a picture with me because he thought I just so happened to have a board thanking him for coming to Singapore or something. But he wasn't the only one... I'll just assume that they were all Liverpool fans though. Some of the photos had Chin Kiat and Billy (another guy we met earlier) with me too, and I'll choose to think there weren't clueless tourists who thought we looked like some strange Singaporean icons!

By the time we started going back to Raffles Place MRT, the streets were almost deserted. It was such a strange sight! The crowd just disappeared in such a short amount of time! There were only the few random foreigners who passed by and greeted us or something. I remember this bunch of Indonesian fans, they passed by, saw my board, bowed and said "You're welcome." or something. Hahaha.

Btw, Alan did take some good shots of Pepe's reaction... I'll try and get them from him and upload them here some other time...

In the meantime, I've decided this is it already. Next up for me is only the match, and I'll be there at about 4 tomorrow. It has been a fun adventure, but I seriously just don't have the stamina to continue. Moreover I often don't seem to feel the normal body signals when I'm excited and while it's good that I can lose some weight (I didn't have my normal appetite in the past few days too), I hate the "hangover" feeling when your excitement drains away and all the aches and fatigue kick in. I need a good rest, get myself geared up for tomorrow's match, and then start work on Monday.

Chasing Liverpool in SG diary - Day 2: Nora Torres' shoes

2009-07-25T08:05:00.004+08:00

NOTE FOR TODAY'S PLANS:
Today I should be going to the Singapore River... should be only that I think, given my physical condition right now! I can't confirm this yet, but I should be joining up with the LFC fan club people at Starbucks at Central's Starbucks at 12.30pm. If anyone has no kaki and wants to join us, just find us there... even if I later change my mind and go elsewhere, the fan club people should be there and more than welcome you. Basically, they welcome anyone who's friendly, enthusiastic and can SINGGGGG! :)

-----------------------

Yes, it's as though I'm suffering from a hangover now. The headache's there, but to add on to that, my whole body aches (especially my legs are suffering from cramps), I can barely walk, barely talk...

This sucks. I suppose I should have seen that this was coming. Yesterday's "high" came in the middle of the day, so once I had time to come down from that high, the exhaustion started kicking in, I found myself no longer having the voice and strength to continue screaming and singing, and I was cutting a despondent figure as I limped my way back home after 12 hours out.

I must be getting old. I just can't stand out there for 10 hours on Thursday, 12 hours on Friday, screaming and singing and not feel an adrenalin overdose later on. And once you come down from the high, you don't just feel physically exhausted, the emotional exhaustion's there as well.

Yesterday night I was just too tired to recount the day's events. And even though I don't seem to feel any better when I woke up today, I'll still try and recount what happened here. This time, remember, the day's high somewhere in the [strong]middle[/strong] of this post.

I couldn't sleep the previous night, I spent hours in bed thinking back on Xabi blowing kisses at me and wondering what I should say to Nando the next day at the Velocity session. In the end, I got in only about 2 hours of sleep.

I spent the morning adding some of the new friends we'd met on Thursday onto Facebook, uploading some pics, and arranging the time to meet Kenneth and stuff later.

I'd my mind set on giving Nora Torres, Nando's baby daughter, a present later. In my mind, it'd be either be some baby LFC stuff or those sort of anklet, bracelet or pendant where you can engrave her name on one side, and "YNWA" on the other side. Nice huh, but I wasn't sure how to get that with the short amount of time I had.

Of course, most shops didn't open that early, and so I arrived at Velocity at 11am first. Already had a queue of 20-30 people then, and standing in line gave me the first indication that I really wasn't up to standing and queuing too much again today. Back was starting to ache after queuing for half an hour.

Remember how excited I was to get the photography pass for this session? Well, as it turned out, photographs were to be taken in groups of 10, some of the LFC fan club guys were with us, so we agreed to take the photo together if we could. But upon registration, when the lady asked if anyone wanted to "change over" from photograph to autograph as they had 20 more spaces on the autograph slots, I had only a few seconds to ponder that option, but it was only in the very last second did I finally opt to make that switch.

After registration, I immediately wanted to go out to start finding that Nora gift. Kenneth wanted to eat, but later I realised I didn't have much appetite. In fact I don't know whether it's due to the excitement or what, I just didn't have much appetite in the past 2 days.

I was really anxious to get that gift, so I went on my own to find it by 12.30pm. By then I only had 1 hour left, because they wouldn't allow anyone else to enter the event venue after 1.30pm. But in the half hour that followed, I really covered quite a lot of shops and still couldn't find anything suitable. And bloody hell, I also realised jewellery was way too expensive. No way I could afford a $300++ baby bracelet!

It was probably at around 1pm did the perfect gift idea popped into my mind. The lady at the customer service counter at Square 2 then advised me to go United Square, and so I practically ran all the way there. When I reached, I was sweating like a pig and all flustered. I went into 2-3 shops asking for baby shoes, and ok, here's an embarrassing incident.

I was looking at these bears and then there were these small, round shoes, and I wondered to myself, do babies have feet like that? Maybe, I'm not too familiar with babies' feet anyway. So I asked the salesgirl, did they have shoes suitable for a baby girl when she starts walking? She gave me a look, before practically exclaiming, "Baby girl? These shoes are for bears!"

It then dawned on me that I was looking at the Build-a-Bear stuff. OMG.... I was like, sorry sorry, I really blur already, and she just laughed, said it was ok and told me to go further into the mall to find what I wanted.

In the end I found what I wanted at Mums & Babes. Not exactly what I had in mind, cos honestly, the pink shoes didn't look that fanciful and eye-catching to me. But I really had no other choice already, so I bought the size the lady indicated were suitable for 8-12months, just about when a baby starts to learn how to walk...

I waited for Fabius (ex-TNP intern) just outside the entrance to the event, as I agreed to help his cousin get his scarf signed by Torres. See I so kind! Ok lah, actually I didn't want to help at first, cos it's somebody else's cousin, not even on immediate "friends" relation to me... but since Garfield already helped me get Torres' autograph on my jersey the other day, I didn't want to be greedy and get one more, so I'd "pass it on" and help someone else instead.

While waiting for Fabius, I started writing on the bottom of the shoes, "Nora" on one shoe, and "You'll Never Walk Alone" on the other. Crap, it was hard writing on the soles though, and my handwriting turned out awful too. Zzzzzz. I then put them back into the transparent plastic package, and wrote on the front "For Nora Torres". That's all, I didn't think there was any point in leaving my name then.

By the time I got in, the emcee was already making a hell of a noise, and there were so many people everywhere. I felt like one of the lucky ones to have that pass and to go straight into the event venue, while everyone else was crowding around in the shopping mall and on the pavements.

Btw I didn't really like the emcee Justin. And I really suspect he's gay with all the gay remarks he made. And all he could keep saying was how lousy (we weren't singing loud enough) we were and how Carlsberg is great. Ok, if an emcee says we weren't loud enough for a few times it's ok, just to get the crowd all up for it and to sing louder... but it's like, we were just never loud enough for him! And he'd go on to say things like he's sick of us Singaporeans, we really throw face, after Torres and Carragher came and went away for a private interview he said our welcome was pathetic. Blah blah. He even berated us in front of the two stars, and that really got on my nerves.

Sometimes, I also hate feeling short. I always can't see a dang thing. But then again, I'm not really bothered about taking photos. My camera's lousy and I don't have a videocam, but then I believe I can rely on seeing the photos and videos taken by others! I don't even take many pictures of myself using my own camera really. It's too much of a hassle and I rather just put the camera aside and soak in the moment.

And true enough, over the past 2 days, the best moments I've experienced aren't captured on film and instead, are just etched in my memories. Which is also why, writing this blog is so important, lest my memory starts failing me, I can still recall back something later when I read this.

Anyway, I was number 14 (I believe that's a lucky omen!) for the autograph session. I tried to help Kenneth take photos since he was ahead of me, but the security people were blocking any good shot...

The autograph and photograph sessions passed by so quickly. In a way, Nando and Torres were like autograph machines or something. You put your stuff down on the table, and they immediately move their markers towards it. If you place a jersey or a single item between them, they take either side and sign on it at the same time. I hated the feeling of being rushed, and I just so wish now that my moment could have lasted just a bit longer.

As it was, when it was my turn, I put down the scarf for Torres, and Carra's book for Carra to sign. I just stood there, and when they were done, I picked up the stuff, started to walk off but I suddenly turned back and put the gift on the table in front of Torres and blurted, "This is for Nora." The last thing I remember was his stunned and surprised look and I just quickly hurried off the stage before he could even thank me I think. Yes yes, now I wished I could have lingered around maybe just that bit longer for the thanks, but I just felt like I was being made to hurry then!

When I got off the stage, immediately one journo from Wanbao wanted to interview me. Initially I thought she saw me give the gift to Torres, but no, she didn't. She asked her questions in English, but I was just so excited then I just kept babbling stuff I don't remember now. At the end when she asked me to write my name in Chinese, my hands were still shaking and I just scribbled it. Then I went round to the back where I saw some other people I met and kept babbling about how I gave Torres the baby shoes. I didn't even hear the irritating MC suddenly mention about the baby shoes and asking who was the one who gave the cute shoes to Torres until one of the guys I was talking to told me. They called me to quickly go and tell the MC I was the one, but by the time I ran to the front, he'd already changed topic..... sigh.

Not that I'm after that moment of fame, but who knows what could have turned out from that... and yeah, just like how it wasn't about getting my name on the present, but I just wished I could have done something to make that moment last a bit longer....

Yesterday, I came to admire Fernando Torres a lot. Of all the players, he has to be the one who's done the most autographs, taken the most photographs, and yet throughout it all, he's always all smiles. I remember how a few years back when I met Harry and got his autograph and a photo with him, he didn't look very happy really, but he still obliged and while feeling a little disappointed by his reaction, I chose to put that down to the fatigue he must be feeling and at least he was nice enough to still attend to my requests. So this time, whenever players didn't smile or didn't stop for autographs, I'm pretty much more understanding and don't really expect much. I just don't read too much into it anymore. But with Nando, hahaha, he's really just like an autograph and smiling machine! To call him a robot sounds offensive I know, and all his smiles always seem so genuine, but I just wonder how he does it really. Later on, after the training session, the players went over to the small group of VIPs whom I dubbed the "Profitable Family" to do autographs, and again, Nando was amongst the last few to leave.

Ok, my fatigue is really getting to me now, I must speed up writing this post, so I'll just leave some details out for the moment and quickly finish my post.

After Torres and Carra left (at around 3pm, way before the earlier indicated 4pm, so really don't know what the whole rush was all about!), I met the Cat High boy Tzai Wei with his friend, and another new friend they just seemed to have "picked up" along the way, this Bangladeshi worker. Yah, I found it quite strange, but he started telling me a story about how some ang moh guy win training passes then don't want, give a Malay guy, Malay guy also cant make it then give the Bangladeshi guy who gave him 1 pass also. Or something like that.

We went to eat again, although I just had a drink after I went and find Fabius. Fabius told me a story about the Indonesian journo at the press conference the previous day, who turned out to be the really weird woman who went on and on about the MTV Torres did a few years ago, and was later all over him as he autographed something for her later. AND I TELL YOU, SHE WAS REALLY ALL OVER HIM! I saw a video clip, a few seconds only, she had her arms all around him, carressing his back in fact... up... and down to his butt... zzz crazy woman.

Anyway, we later went to Popular bookstore at Toa Payoh to buy some things before heading straight to the stadium. At the stadium, Tzai Wei put his LFC towel over the front railing, and it took only a few seconds before it fell over onto the ground below. LOL, and after that, we just waited for the right person to come along to throw it back to us... There were a lot of banners and boards there, mostly about Xabi, some for Torres, some for Agger. In fact, there was this cute group of people who had the words "Xabi por favor no te vayas" which meant "Xabi please don't go". The shirts looked cute, and they were selling each shirt (each shirt had a letter and Alonso 14 on the back as well as the full phrase in smaller size in front) for $16, but I only had $4 with me then so I didn't buy.. =/

I was suffering from severe dehydration after a while, with the last drink I had at 3+pm. In fact I think I only had like 3 cups of water the entire day, and I think that's partly why after a few songs.. I started to drop off a little.

The training session itself was okay, but I think I was a bit out of sorts after a while. My spirits were still rather high as I joined in the mini-Kallang wave, listen to them sing a song for Claire Rourke (she's pretty popular now, and she was later the one who threw the towel up for us), laughed at Carra's team as they kept bowing to us after coming out tops amongst the 3 makeshift teams in their mini-contests. It was good fun actually.

Later on, when it was all over, we were all feeling pretty indignated seeing the players go over to do autographs for the "Profitable Family". After some autographs, some of the players started walking off the pitch when Sammy Lee, bless him! appeared to call them back. And so the few players who had already started walking off to the dressing room obediently trudged back and walked towards us and applauded us to recognise our support. Ahhhh, they didn't walk all the way towards our section, but still, love Sammy Lee for that small thought.

We later went round to the back of the stadium to wait for the players' bus. It was a pretty long wait, think Torres really did a lot of autographs for the "Profitable Family", and the security people were irritating again. Some people did shout for them to stop blocking our view, but of course they didn't make a move. And when some players (think Lucas or Kuyt, I couldn't see really) came out to do some autographs, the security people kept wanting them to go back in. zzzz.

K, that's all for now. I'll see if there's anyway I can charge up on my energy level later...

Chasing Liverpool in SG diary - Day 1: Xabi blowing kisses

2009-07-23T23:52:00.004+08:00

Yes yes, read the title of this post. XABI BLEW KISSES AT ME!!!!! I've been repeating that on all my smses, facebook status, forums, hahaha, but this post shall be the whole long story! And it shall begin right at the start of today... (scroll to the end to read about the biggest highlight if you want)

K, today morning, damn excited. Flip open the ST at 6+am, and got some precious info. Stupid ST had to go and announce to everyone where the team would be staying, which I knew all the while, but was foolishly hoping no one else did. It also mentioned that Skrtel and Carra would be our players at Velocity, and frankly, I preferred JP's lineup of Agger and Pepe, cos Skrtel and Carra... a bit too fierce lah.

I've been smsing quite a lot lately to make all the arrangements to meet up with so-and-so at whatever event, but in the end I only arranged to meet Huda and Kenneth at City Hall MRT at 1.30pm. Kenneth and I went to the hotel first, and while there weren't many people (less than 50), the security was damn tight.

Two barricades confined us to the side of the hotel, and only cabs and guests could go into the hotel it seemed. Kenneth was at it from that early, trying to talk up the security people, shouting at everyone who went in (media and hotel guests) if they could bring him in or help him get an autograph. He was relentless really, but great entertainment.

Of course, with him at it, it was only a matter of time before he became the media's favourite, as everyone came and interview him (and this girl from Shanghai who brought a Holland flag and Kuyt banner), take photos, etc etc. He continued to try and get the media people to get him an autograph, before this guy from TODAY, agreed to try and help. We were all quite amazed when he threw his Spain No. 9 jersey over the two barricades, as well as his marker. The TODAY guy got his name and contact number before he went off, but somehow Kenneth didn't get his in return! Hahaha.

The players arrived at close to 4pm, but our glimpse of the players lasted all but a few seconds, as the bus went past us and stopped at the main entrance where the media all were (blocking us). A second bus of the coaching and medical staff, as well as LFC TV people followed, and we waved at the bus too, and this bus of people were friendlier than the tired-looking players.

After the players went in, we started singing YNWA, and instantly, all of the media guys with their cameras started rushing over to us. LOL. And then there was Claire Rourke, Miss LFC TV. She's DAMN HOT! Even I've to admit that. Hahaha. Kenneth was there asking her to exchange shirts, and she pointed at her top with a question mark look on her face.... not sure if she got it, lol.

Now, the 2nd best part of the day after Xabi blowing kisses were the number of friends we made. Like I said, I only met Kenneth on Sunday, but I didn't find it weird, because really, Liverpool fans just seem to click very easily. There were some ego-boosting moments when two people asked me the "Are you Lala?" question, but overall we made a lot of new friends at the hotel and later on at the stadium. Okok, let me tell you about the 1st "Are you Lala" moment.

I retreated from the barricade, into the shade, for a while when I was getting tired of waiting in the searing hot sun, and this guy just suddenly popped up that question. I was pretty stunned lah. Turns out that he's from STOMP, saw my pic way back, and because he read this blog about Kenneth, and of course, Kenneth by then was becoming really famous, so he was surer that I was Lala since Kenneth was with me.

2nd guy was later on, after we went and buy a drink from Marina Square after the players arrived, and we went back to the hotel to see these 4 Catholic High guys in their uniform being escorted out of the hotel to our side. Everyone started asking how they snuck in (by taking a cab in), and of course, they were asked what they were doing after 5 mins in the lobby and said they were waiting for a friend. Needless to say, the security told them to wait outside, hahaha. Silly kids, wear school uniform of course lah! I read one of the kids nametag, which was Phua Tzai Wei, and found that name awfully familiar, so I asked him if he wrote into TNP. He said yah, and straight away he asked, "You're ladylala right?" I was like wow, I'm more famous than you. Haha!!

Those Cat High kids and another 15-year-old China girl went with us to Yoshinoya after that, where some of us got food, while I started writing messages on a board I bought at Popular on both sides. On one side was a message for Xabi, which read "Xabi, Te queremos (we love you!) PLEASE STAY!" Other side read "Fernando, me gusta tu cabello" Later on, the message for Fernando got particular attention from everyone. For the record, it means "I love your hair" in Spanish. And I googled up the translations, so I was scared I'd get them wrong initially.

I also met some of the people I used to work with at TNP, and while I envied the fact that they had media passes to go in, frankly, being on the other side of the barricade also had its own fun in making friends amongst fellow fans.

Later on, the TODAY photographer did ring Kenneth up, but he couldn't get the shirt signed, and told us to go to the stadium instead, as it was hard at the hotel where they would immediately board the bus without passing by us. So Kenneth, the China-girl Jiaming and I then took a cab to Jalan Besar Stadium.

At the stadium, again tight security, although again, less than 50 of us. The 2-3 lines of security blocking us from reaching the players worked better than any barricade though. I couldn't even see a dang thing, except for the top of Torres' golden hair.

We found out some of the fan club people could go into the stadium, so Kenneth and I deposited jerseys with Garfield (funny, great guy) who already had a shopping bag full of stuff to sign. This ST photographer then went with us to a nearby block to try and catch the training. It was quite funny really, to see us "bonding" even with the ST photographer! Hahaha. There, we met two more pairs of girls. VJC girls, and Katong Convent girls. The Katong Convent girls were pretty close to us by the end, one of them was a hardcore Daniel Agger fan, and wanted to give Dan a present... She even skipped school today, and while the teacherly side wanted to tell her off, I gave her a break seeing how dedicated she was. Showed me a pic of Dan in her wallet, her school shoes had his name on it as well, etc etc. Her mum's Japanese btw, so yah, she's quite a looker, and she had that kind of vulnerable look even I couldn't bear to say anything against her. Her best friend wasn't a Liverpool fan, just following her... Good friend huh!

Only thing was, she gave me an Amaths question to do after I boasted I was good in Maths despite not teaching Maths... tried to solve it to no avail... damn. I was quite gutted with myself for that. Anyway, it wasn't really very interesting up there after a while haha. Sometimes we could make out certain players like Torres (from the way he stand, very sexy) or Voronin (his ponytail). But when the girl said she could see Daniel Pacheco from 21 stories high and across the road, is she for real? Haha.

When the players started to come out, again the same thing, the stupid security line that is. I got fed up with being pushed backwards after a while, so I went around to the other side of the bus and started waving my board. Reina saw the Torres' message, and started pointing to his bald head and gestured he had no hair. So darn funny lah he! LOL, I just shook my head and turned the board over to the other side for the Xabi message. I couldn't see Xabi initially, so I guessed he was on the other side of the bus, but my perseverance paid off as I think some of the other players saw it and called him over, cos suddenly...

Xabi came over to our side of the bus, smiled, waved, looked at my signboard and BLEW KISSES in my direction!!!!!!!!!!!

OMG!!!!! I TELL YOU, THAT'S FOR ME OK!!!!!!!!! OK, for my message. But whatever, Xabi blew kisses at me!!!!!!!!

Later on, I forgot if Torres read my message too, as I was completely dazed by that moment, but I figured he must have since he sat next to Pepe.

Of course, holding up the board meant I had no free hands to video anything. But regardless, that'll be a moment I treasure... especially in the event that he stays. That chance still seems slim by the news we keep reading everyday, and even HH later said that's a goodbye kiss (walao!).

When Rafa and the coaching staff came out after the 1st bus left, people started shouting "Don't sell Xabi!" while I shouted "Don't sell Xabi and Masch!" Some people said Rafa just nodded his head... Well... let us hope and continue to read into every positive sign! Hahaha.

K, upon returning home, and checking the official site, I think we have Torres to replace Skrtel at the Velocity session tomorrow! YESH!!!!!!!!!! Oh yah, and Garfield got our shirts signed as well, I still haven't matched all 7 autographs on my shirt, but I think Torres' and Carra's already there. Stupid rumour is that photos are to be taken in groups of 10, and I hope not, or else, I hope we get autographs for all as well! Ahhhh...

Only sorry sight was of the Katong Convent girl sitting on the pavement later, trying to hold her tears back. Agger didn't stop to take her gift, all the players didn't stop anyway, but she's just so desperate to give her present to Dan... She's underaged for tomorrow's Carlsberg event at JP too, but we told her to just continue trying... perseverance will pay off!