The World Cup Fever’s caught me too !!

Inscribed by Hariharan

The World Cup fever is here … and strangely its caught me too !!

I was never a soccer fan, but strangely I have been following each and every match since the start of the Soccer World Cup … I can probably say since there is nothing else to do … but its not that only … its strangely feeling nice seeing those exciting matches … Wondering why it never attracted me before.

I guess the earlier world cup matches used to normally at odd hours, which added to my disinterest. And this time around seeing the event happen in normal time and experiencing the mania right in front of my eyes has probably made the difference.

Year 2006: Just around my marriage time the soccer world cup was going on. I was, as I have said before, in a crazy state of mind because of my mom’s health issues. But even then I remember I had seen a little Soccer … See this post … The German - Klose scoring … :) … So I must give the game some credit.

From the games that I have seen till now … Lots of Draws .. but some very interesting matches. Like the opening match – Mexico vs South Africa. I have to say that it was quite a challenge for South Africa (which is Ranked 83) to take on Mexico (Ranked within the top 10 or 15 and who defeated Germany Italy [Sorry ... Correcting the error] in the friendly match). All that SA was banking on was the wishes of the local crowd. It was struggling in the first half, somehow surviving after a Mexico goal – which was negated because of an offside – managing to keep the score at 0-0. I don’t know what the hell happened during the break, the Bafana Bafana team was a different team when they came back after the break. They scored an awesome first goal against Mexico and kept attacking them throughout the second half of the game. A defence error resulted in an equalizer by the Mexicans. Even after that there were couple of really close chances, which if had converted to goals, SA would have won the match. But it was not to be … but even with a 1-1 score at the end, I feel that the SA team did have a great start. If they keep up their form they could still have a chance in the top 16 to move ahead to the next round. Best of Luck to the Bafana Bafana Boys.

The next wonderful game was the one I saw last night at the Montecasino Fan Park. It was Germany vs Australia. It was a match where Germany sent out a loud and clear message across to all teams. It was not going to look like any weaker because of the absence of its “star player” and Captain Michael Ballack. Phillip Lahm took change of a team in Ballack’s absence. The world got to know what he meant when he said that “He has the Best German Team that he has ever played in” – when they annihilated Australia in a thumping 4-0 victory. Australians struggled and showed signs of desperation as the Germans went on an “impossible task” of satisfying their appetite for goals. Had they converted the missed chances they would have made much more goals than just 4!! It was a pleasure to see goals from the Germans including the excellent one from Klose (again). This German team is according to me the best team so far in the world cup.

Another good game was the Argentina vs Nigeria. It was a good game where I was able to see the Argentinean Living Legend Maradona. The Argentina is looking good but not as good as the Germans. The star player Lionel Messi missed quite a few changes that was expected of a player of his calibre. Hope he does better in the further matches. The Argentineans settled for a 1-0 victory much to dismay of the many Nigerian fans here.

I plan to frequent the Fan Parks to enjoy the game along with the many fans in the electrifying environment that I enjoyed yesterday. Enjoy some pictures.

Cheers !!