World Cup.

On and off I have been watching quite a few World Cup games, and to be honest, this particular World Cup really isn’t that fascinating. The good thing is perhaps that the standards between the teams are really close, but the bad thing is because so much is at stake, teams are all becoming very cautious for one mistake could be fatal.

So far a few big teams have gone out, France and Italy, finalists 4 years ago, were knocked out in the group stages, now England have joined them. To be honest I was happy to see these three teams knocked out – especially England. The prima donnas of the Premiership have shown that they lack discipline, and they absolutely did not show any of the class that they could boast of in the qualifying campaign. Fabio Capello isn’t a bad manager, just that he’s got a bunch of players whom they think are too good for him.

But for me, the World Cup ended last night when South Korea got knocked out by Uruguay – in fact I think if it had been South Korea vs England in the second round it could well have been the Taeguk Warriors who would go through. But this is the World Cup, teams that play well don’t necessarily win, but teams that play badly will most likely get stumped!

Pissed.

The past week hasn’t been a good week for me because I was rather upset with certain things that happened during the day. It’s like, I believe some people are good at pissing others off, and I absolutely hate it when people make simple things difficult, and conjure to make life difficult for everyone around them.

Anyway I was in Macau today for a short trip – basically I was there to watch Macau vs Hong Kong in this annual match between the two SARs. The match wasn’t pretty, the weather was very hot, and it definitely wasn’t a very comfortable day at all. But since Hong Kong won 5-1 without breaking too much of a sweat, I guess things are OK.

It’s the start of a new working week tomorrow – not something that I’m particularly looking forward to. What’s worse is that the weather now is getting so hot it’s almost unbearable, and it’s not even August yet! I wonder how terrible this summer is going to be. Hot weathers make people get irritated easier, and I think I’m a victim of that.

World Cup.

The World Cup has started for 5 days. At the time of me penning this, 13 matches have been played, and we have a grand total of 6 draws and 20 goals scored in total – that amounts to about 1.54 goals per game. Can’t say that we are having a very exciting tournament so far.

As I mentioned before, I don’t have Cable TV at home, which means the I could either watch the matches at those big shopping malls or at somebody else’s home. As a result, I have only watched 4 matches so far out of the 13, and I guess the number is not going to dramatically increase.

The only thing that’s really been a high for me in this World Cup is that we are experiencing a bit of a renaissance of the Asian Spirit. South Korea played Greece out of the game and won 2-0 (with Park Ji-sung scoring for the Taeguk Warriors), while Japan put up a good show against Cameroon and won 1-0. It was only a few years ago that people perceive that Asians can’t pit against the European and African teams – I hope those people are eating their words now. Of course it might be hard for Korea to come up with a win against Argentina, or to see Japan beat Holland, but I believe these Asian players are going to play with their heads held up high and do us Asians proud!

Pilseung Korea! Vamos Nippon!

Football.

Yesterday evening I was out playing football with my friends, and I must say for someone who hardly touches the ball during my free time, I did fairly OK. The game was really end-to-end stuff, and it was a 12-goal thriller. In the end the match finished 6:6, and I chipped in a goal and an assist myself – with the assist coming in the last minute of the game!

I think I actually play better upfront as a striker than a defender, though during the period I　played yesterday, I spent most of the time playing behind the two strikers. I guess it’s not so much about me being a good player or anything like that, but as someone who has neither the stamina nor the skills, to have two good players playing in front of me give me pretty good confidence, knowing that when the ball reaches any one of the two we would be in with a chance. The goal I scored came from that, as I came in from behind to receive a pass from one of them, took one touch, and then went for the far post with the keeper rooted to the near post. As for my assist, I got a pass from midfield and then did a first-time pass with my right heel that found a teammate, who took one touch to bring it round the defender before coolly slots the ball home. I guess that didn’t sound too bad!

Hopefully I would get more chances to sharpen up my skills – I still remember the times back in secondary school and JC when I could actually play quite a bit!

June.

I mentioned a few days ago that the weather is acting up strange. True enough – the temperature was at 20 degrees today. And we’re in June right now! I’ve once heard someone say that “you don’t keep the winter clothes in the closet until after you’ve eaten the dumplings for the Tuen Ng Festival” – suddenly that seems like very wise words to me. I wouldn’t say the weather is cold, but it was definitely quite cool, and I believe weather like this would make people fall sick very easily.

Anyway we are already in June, which means half of 2010 is almost gone. I think I need to revist those new year resolutions that I’ve set earlier in the year and see what are some of the things I need to be working on, so that when the year ends in six months’ time, I could perhaps hit a success rate of 70% and above.

World Cup is beginning in a week’s time, but I’m really not excited by it at all. Well, I think I need to be prepared for life without watching football on the telly, especially now that PCCW has lost the broadcast rights of the Premiership to Cable TV. That means the only occasions that I could watch United would probably be heading out to somewhere. That’ll be a 3-season hiatus – certainly not fun.