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dan jendela pun berbisik...
"Life is not about what you've gained, but what you've done" - Wong Ka Kui (1962 - 1993)
"I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it" - The Friends of Voltaire, 1906
"A dirty mind is a terrible thing to waste" - Anonymous
"If you read, you will judge" - Kurt Cobain
last modified Mar 17, 2005 at 0:17
italy vs australia
in my humble opinion, the italy-australia game was much more than the need to qualify for the second round. it went deeper for the team and the fans. there was so much at stake for the azzurri compared to the aussies who got nothing to lose, really. so the pressure was all on them. if the azzurri won, they would be able to exorcise the ghost that had been haunting them since WC2002 - Guus Hiddink and of course to get to the quarter final.
i was not happy that the azzurri had to meet australia in the second round because the team was an unknown factor. i have to admit that i didnt watch any of the game involving australia except when they met japan. but i could sense that italy would be in trouble because the aussies coach is one very talented Dutch who has managed to turn underdogs into something special.
much as i hate to admit it, the italian team was not that spectacular. i really dreaded this meeting and i almost didnt watch the game because i couldnt bare to watch italy being knocked out of the championship so early. but still my finger refused to press the button on the remote control.
i watched the italian line-up with such a heavy heart. materazzi was in instead of nesta. i know it's not his fault that he was injured but he had been injured during WC2002 too when the team needed him the most. he was injured when he made his debut in the WC98 if you want to go a long way back in the history of Nesta' s world cup experience. sheesh! i sounded so cynical, sorry nesta. but materazzi wasnt the best choice because he had more brawn than brain and bound to do stupid mistakes. and he proved his critics right when he made that stupid lunged that could have hurt both the australian player and zambrotta. stupid man!
i watched with horror when del piero made the first eleven when inzaghi did not. i sighed with relief when i see no sign of zaccardo on the pitch. i've started to hate luca toni and gilardino and that's dangerous. i hate lippi for his so bloody arrogant attitude for refusing to bring in inzaghi and preferring iacquinta instead. my only saviour was cannavarro, pirlo, zambrotta and gattuso.
between gilardino and toni, they could have easily scored three or four goals but the fact that they squandered chances after chances after chances made me really furious. no doubt the close man marking by the australian defenders didnt help any but that was no excuse. i f they are really talented, they would find ways to score. sorry, im not in a forgiving mood right now, not even for my beloved azzurri.
the aussies had more possession in the first half but fine, i dont really care about posession but it was cannavarro who was the unsunghero. if it wasnt for him, the aussies would have scored a few goals. he has been brilliant in all three games. u know, when the azzurri first made him captain, i was sceptical but he had proven that he is great enough to be the azzurri's Il Capitano.
i tell you if it wasnt for the defence, italy would have been forced to go back early with their tails between their legs. but at times, the australian defenders were far more skillful than the azzurris except for canna that is. that guy, chipperfield and neill were really impressived, babe. i am totally impressed with them. they could teach the italian defenders a few tricks too. that blocked by chipperfiled was a beauty. if i were a team manager, i would have wanted these two defenders in my team, hello, benitez, ancelotti, took notice please.
i think the azzurri was lucky that kewell wasnt in the team because he was the ultimate creator, the playmaker. actually, the azzurri's midfields were outplayed, outwitted and outrun by the australian and they had even managed to pass through the italian defenders several times but then there was always buffon as the last man standing. IMHO, buffon is still the best goalies in the world and not peter chech but hey what do i know. if FIFA said chech is the best keeper in the world, well than, let's just say that one man's meat is another man's poison.
i dont understand why lippi gave del piero the most important role. i can understand that totti wasnt fit enough to play the full 90 minutes against such strong physical team like the australian but i prefer you play camoranesi than alex cause he was useless and invisibled most of the time and slow. camoranesi may not be elegant but he can run really fast and could have at least create some kind of chaos in the opponent's penalty area.
as for gilardino, one would have thought that with his size, it would be tough for defenders to take him down but he really has jelly feet. he should know that diving was such an ugly trick and it was something that would follow you forever. just ask inzaghi, it took football fans a long time to forgive him for being such "prolific" diver. my sympathy went to both inzaghi and lippi, inzaghi for having such an ass coach and to lippi for not recognising how valuable or influential inzaghi is to the team.
i could go on and on about the game but i dont have enough time to write long review anymore not like the old days where i can take my sweet time reviewing about lots of teams' performances.
anyway, cannavarro was definitely my man of the match. he was the rock. his unhurried poise generally suffices to smooth over the deficiency of the rest of the italian defenders. a defender with extraordinary skills. and just imagine if he and a fit nesta combined, the defence would be out of this world man! like i told mr azman, catenaccio rules!
i guess, lady luck was smiling on the italian players. grosso fall may or may not be legitimate but to the fans (who the hell cares!) hahaha. to the australian players, it is a lesson to learn: dont play-play, ok. i mean, it was obvious that the australians came into the game looking for extra times and penalty. i guess the mighty guy (hiddink) had fallen. never-never underestimate the italians. the italians were used to playing with 10 men. remember euro2004 (italy vs holland). to the azzurri, if all else fails, there is always the catenaccio to fall back to.
ok, totti may have not done much but that was a cracking penalty shot, beautifully executed. u could say that the italians were lucky but football is about luck, dont you think so? if you dont believe me, asked johann cruyff - the Holland legend.
forza azzurri! forza nesta!
errr, mr azman, surely now mr van basten would realise that defence are part of football, ok. and perhaps he would realise that at a crucial game like that, maybe an experience clarence seedorf would make a difference. u can use young players yes but never forget the old one. they may be useful to the team. eh!
to unsunghero, thanks for asking about the review. i never thought that anybody cares to read them. hehehe...
argentina vs serbia & montenegro
when i watched argentina beat serbia & montenegro 6-0, i almost wished i was their fan. i have never support other team in the world cup other than italy, since 1990 that is. argentina much like holland and brazil has star players in all department which is why they are difficult to defeat especially by the underdogs.
serbia & montenegro wasnt a weak team, they have a few quality players that are well-known like stankovic, milosevic and kezman but to compare them to the argentinians who have players the like of riquelme, tevez, messi, sorin, cambiasso and the list goes on at their disposal, well what more can u say.
there were a few unforgettable football games in my list over the last 15 years and the argentina vs s&m will be added to my list that's for sure. the game will be up there with the italy vs nigeria (94), italy vs holland (2000) and a few others that i treasured the most.
i was almost half in love with tevez after that brilliant goal of his beating two defenders making his every move look easy when in reality it wasnt. that was really some skill man! it was such a fluid game that before you could catch your breath, the argentinians were back in the serbia & m penalty area. the passings were all perfect, it was like the players were dancing. and those countless hours spent on perfecting their back flick had not gone to waste. what a beautiful and entertaining performance the argentinians have shown us. the solidarity and the understanding between players were really wonderful. i do miss javier zanetti at the centre of the argentinian's defence. he was one of the most solid defenders i have ever seen. it's a joy to watch little messi playing for the first time in the world cup, i hope he will steal the show from rooney. im tired of hearing how good rooney is bla..bla..bla..beautiful game yes but not enough to convince me to support them. ;-)
italy vs usa
i have to admit that the us of a team that met italy last night was a different team from the czech rep game. the team look more impressive, very fast and far more determine than italy to win the game. i have said so many times that the azzurri shouldnt underestimate their opponent and i would put the blame on lippi for not studying his opponent. just because czech rep beat them 3-0 didnt mean the team was rubbish, they wouldnt make it to the final of world cup if they didnt have something up in their sleeves.
i was reading the newspaper last saturday while waiting for my guitar class to start and the news i read about the italians had really pissed me off, big time. can u imagine, only one out of the three italian players took the time to study the us team members and that was pirlo, the rest didnt even know who reyna and mcbride were. i was so disappointed with the italian camp for not taking the us team seriously.
and zaccardo's own goal was really like a bitter pill to swallow. i dont think i can recall the last time an italian defender scored an own goal. hell! what the bloody hell was de rossi thinking. this loose cannon player kan, memang main ganas masa kat roma and i dont really like him, he reminded me of matterazzi. no flair, no sportmanship, no nothing. elbowing an opponent was really low man! dont be a mafia on the pitch yah! we didnt need anymore scandal.
oh god! lippi why didnt you play inzaghi instead of del piero? aku tak suka del piero. in 1998, cesare maldini and the rest of the world thought del piero would be the azzurri's hero and baggio's succesor but he didnt live up to that expectation. baggio spent most of the 98 wc on the bench because maldini thought del piero was the better player and he was wrong, dead wrong. he wasnt that great in 2002 either but why was he in this squad, i dont know.
it's just like the azzurri to make life difficult for themselves and the fans too. what happen if you failed to beat czech rep next week and ghana won, what then? u dont have a referee to blame but yourselves. lately, luca toni reminded me a lot of viera, all the big hurrah but choked in front of the goal. the italians better start thinking of ways to score goals man! what good would it do when beautiful crosses couldnt be met with accurate target because the strikers were firing blank. the usa team wasnt deadly by the world cup standard but why couldnt the azzurri beat the 9-men team? why? i dont understand this anymore. sometimes, i felt really tired supporting this italian team. seriously.
well good luck to them this coming thursday! i'll probably watch the game with the rest of the milanmalaysia members and azzurri fans at bangsar shopping village. see u there. forza azzurri! forza nesta!
p/s: u sms-ed me right after the italy vs us game ended just to taunt me, oh, that's very bad of you, mister! ;-) takpe ada ubi ada batas babe!
beberapa bulan yang lepas aku belajar main lagu Ayah, lagu indonesia yang popular masa zaman 70-an dulu. sekarang lagu ni famous balik sebab ariel peter pan nyanyi balik tapi ayah ditukar menjadi aceh.
untuk arwah bapakku, selain doa, ini lagu yang aku mainkan untukmu:-
Ayah
Dimana aku mencari
Aku menangis seorang diri
Hatiku selalu ingin bertemu
Untukmu aku bernyanyi
Untuk Ayah tercinta
Aku ingin bernyanyi
Walau air mata di pipiku
Ayah dengarkanlah
Aku ingin bertemu
Walau hanya dalam mimpi
Lihatlah hari berganti
Namun tiada seindah dulu
Datanglah aku ingin bertemu
Denganmu aku bernyanyi
piala dunia aku bermula lambat dari semua orang gara-gara tuntutan kerja yang tak kenal masa dan ketika ni. lima hari empat malam aku habiskan di kelantan jauh dari kemeriahan sambutan piala dunia di kuala lumpur.
aku hanya sempat menonton perlawanan pembukaan jerman vs costa rica aje bersama-sama beberapa kerat wakil media yang turut serta dalam lawatan tu. terima kasih banyak2 pada pok cik pa yang baik hati kerana membantu mempermudahkan kami menonton beramai-ramai game tu di skrin besar kat coffee house perdana beach resort. tv kat bilik tu kecik sangat, apa pun tak nampak. hehehe...nasib baik game pukul 12 malam, kalau tak ganggu orang nak makan malam lak.
siang tu aku siap beli rambutan kat pengkalan kubor untuk makan masa tengok bola. hahaa...lepas habis game aku terus tidur sebab sabtu nak bangun awal, jadi aku missed game pukul 3 pagi. masa football fans seluruh dunia sibuk menonton game england - paraguay, aku dan yg lain2 dibuai keasyikan menonton wayang kulit, menora dan persembahan joget kelantan di gelanggang seni kota bharu sehingga lewat malam. tapi aku ada tipu2 sikit sebab dah mintak liza sms bagi tau result from time to time. hehehe...
balik resort, konon nak tengok game argentina tapi pengsan kepenatan sampai lambat bangun menyebabkan semua orang kena tunggu aku. ampun! mesti dia orang cakap officer tak guna aku ni.
ahad malam, ketika semua orang leka menonton game belanda vs serbia, kita orang meredah hutan malam2 buta tu untuk acara night walking sambil disambut dengan penuh mesra oleh pacat-pacat di kuala koh tu. tangga kat pejabat perhilitan kuala koh tu dah macam casualty ward dah penuh dengan darah yang berjejeran. masing-masing membawa balik empat lima ekor pacat sorang. aku cuma dikeronyok oleh tiga ekor pacat aje. nasib baik.
akhirnya, hari isnin dari kota bharu aku tak terus balik kl tapi balik seremban untuk ambil kereta. lagi pun hari selasa aku cuti. game yang betul2 aku tengok ialah australia vs jepun. kecewa aku dgn permainan jepun yang entah apa2 entah.
germany vs costa rica
it's like a clash between david and goliath. i dont think costa rica was ready for such big tournament like the wc final. on the other hand, i was surprised at how well germany played. their passings were accurate and beautiful to look at unlike their usual robotic and mechanical style of attacking. torsten may have an ugly hairstyle but his shot was superb man! one thing for sure, if a certain team has a former striker for manager, the team will have a leak in the heart of its defence. and what a huge leak the germans had in their defence. if costa rica were a better team and great at counter attacking, germany will be in a lot of trouble babe! anyway, the game was entertaining enough for an opening game. costa rica wasnt a weak opponent really, they gave as good as they got but didnt have enough experience i guess.
italy vs ghana
hey did u guys manage to look at what nesta did while defending the azzurri's half line? with a beautiful back flick that worth watching over and over again. i was very impressed with his performances, very solid at the heart of the italian defense. back in 2002, the combination of cannavaro and nesta werent as solid as during euro 2000 but during the ghana's game, they were almost impenetrable. i just love watching cannavaro did the covering on essien if i wasnt mistakenlah kan. the italian style of defending never failed to excite me. i didnt know how the italians made defending so stylish to watch during a football game. if u could only remember franco baresi's style of defending, you'll be drooling on the mouth man! i love baresi.
the difference between iacquinto and gilardino was iacquinto used his brain when he was in front of the goal but gilardino acted purely on instinct. oh god! if only gilardino would twist and turn a little bit instead of kicking the ball straight to the goalkeeper, italy would have been on top of the table but now they were in the 2nd place because czech had scored one goal more than the azzurri. i do think that lippi should put inzaghi together with either one of the younger strikers. inzaghi - gilardino or inzaghi-luca toni. pirlo was like a breath of fresh air. after giving below-par performances throughout the whole season in the serie a, he suddenly became a change man. this rich kid from brescia who is so wealthy that he didnt need to work for life has shown the performance that set the azzurri tifosi's pulses racing. his role is simply pivotal in the central midfield area. PIRLO is the consumate deep-lying playmaker. and that goal of his was really breathtaking i tell you.
anyway, i do believe fabio grosso makes a good fullback. the man from palermo has something special that made me noticed him during last tuesday's game. maybe not as good as zambrotta but he has potential except for his pace. he was a little slow, IMHO. hey i couldnt wait for gattuso and zambrotta to join the game. if italy play their card right, they will be able to make a mincemeat out of the US of A. Forza Azzurri!
england vs trinidad & tobago
england struggled for 85 minutes to break the deadlock in the trinidad and tobago's defensive line. gosh! i do think im the ultimate paradox because i love jamie carragher and steven gerrard only when they play for liverpool but i couldnt force my self to like them when they don the national team jersey. sorry mate! i just hate england very very much. as for trinidad & tobago, apart from dwight yorke and hislop, i didnt know much about the rest of the players. but i do think that if u based your team fully on the defensive mechanism, you'll ended up like trinidad & tobago. when u dont have at least a single prolific striker at your beck and call, dont dream on doing a counter attack on experience and good defenders like terry and ferdinand.
it was a pity to watch T&T beaten in the dying minutes like that. i was so sure they could hold england for a draw and shut the hell of the fans mouth once and for all but it wasnt meant to be.
p/s: terima kasih kepada kulat2, vovin, wahyu, the muse, abang man, liza and a few others for the world cup message. we may support a different team but like the world cup motto : it's A Time To Make Friends. hehehe...errr, team aku jgnlah kalah, nanti aku kena belanja seorang kawan lama cum mentor makan. haha..aku masih simpan faks gambar pemain bola yang dia hantar 10 tahun dulu dengan soalan siapa pemain tu? silap lah babe, itu gambar franco baresi, defender agung. senang2 ajelah aku jawab.
Leave it to the Italian men to break women's heart. well, my heart had been broken and shredded into pieces by a bunch of stupid italian men recently. how could they do that to me? i've wasted the last nine months of my life for nothing. all those sleepless nights, endless arguements and for what?
so much for tactical superiority, beautiful defending, artistic crossing and endless goals. nine months of hard work had gone down the drain when the italian press decided to hang their serie A's dirty linen in public. at first, i thought, it was only juventus but then milan along with lazio were also being investigated. what was that? FOLIE A DEUX????? Wow! i've always wanted to use that french word ever since i heard agent scully said that to mulder in one of the x-files episodes. now, i finally got the chance to use it, who cares if it's not sesuai. hahaha.
anyway, did milan and lazio had a delusion that if juventus could get away with match fixing all season so could they. it was such an embarassing and degrading scandal. no matter what happened after this, the serie A reputation would be forever marred by the scandal. they might as well stamped the letter C for corrupt on the foreheads of the football officials in serie A.
As for milan, they started slow, probably still smarting from the defeat in istanbul but they played consistently though not beautifully all through mid-season. i dont know, i felt like the team was lacking of something as if it has no soul. it's hard to pin-point what's missing because most of them were the same players from the last two seasons, or perhaps that was the reason, or maybe it's the manager, oh hell, i dont know. i was angry all the time at carlo ancelotti for being complacent and his tactic and formation was yesterday news already. other opponents could easily read milan games.
the partnership of pirlo and gattuso didnt seem to work anymore. pirlo's performances all season were a nighmare. for such an elegant player, he did lose the ball rather easily. towards the end of the season, his free kicks were horrendous. gattuso in my opinion had lost his steam a long time ago when he gave a hint about leaving milan for the epl even before the season started.
kaka too had a disappointing season. he arrived with a bang but has slowly become complacent. however, i can appreciate his talent, the kid is a genius. i think inzaghi is the only player that look really hungry to win whenever he played. i guess it's not fair to say that the rest of the players didnt have the drive to win but sometimes actions speak louder than words.
dida was something else, i tell you. i wasnt sure what had happened to him. what made him lost his confidence last season. some of the blunders he made were really unthinkable for a goalie of his calibre. my theory was he had lost his confidence because he has no longer belief that his defenders could protect him. just look at how many goals milan conceded last season and i felt like weeping.
milan has a weakness that is hard to cure. the team sufferred from the superiority complex and has no respect whatsoever for the minnows. they really underestimated some of the lower teams which was why they were beaten by them once or twice. and this time around, they cost milan the scudetto.
i wish milan officials have the guts to change their manager cause i dont think ancelotti has any fresh ideas left in his bulky form judging by his new buy. seriously, i have nothing against favalli and i respect him on and off the field. he was nesta's friend and mentor during the latter's lazio days. however, it was ridiculous of milan to buy aging defender to cover for another few aging defenders. where's the logic in that? shouldnt you buy a young and skillful defender to complement the more senior and experience defenders. arghh! sometimes, i really dont understand the way their minds work? what kind of football scout do they have?
hey, i just realised that i've been using this nickname for almost six years now, which is a record really. nesta must have been some player. i have used lots of italian players' name for my nick. i think from 1990 to 1998, my nickname was sitibaggio and sometimes i used siti baresi or costacurta or del piero or inzaghi. funny eh!
it's really difficult for me to admit that i've enjoyed alessandro nesta's performances more when he was with lazio compared to milan. back then, he was like a fierce gladiator trying to defend his ceasar and rome with his stylish defending and smart tackle and he performed the sliding tackle so beautifully, it was as if he invented it. but in milan, he has become a bit sluggish in his defending, more temperamental, in short not the nesta i knew a few years ago. to the uninitiated, he may have look like a great defender but to me, (one of his greatest fans, surely) he still is but he isnt so invincible anymore. maybe age has finally caught up with him. i have never questioned his loyalty to milan even though as a roman, he remains loyal to lazio, deep in his heart that is. i wish nesta all the best and hopefully he will bounce back in the coming season.
as for inter, it was the same old story. they have all the stars but still failed to shine. i dont even want to talk about juventus. however, i do think zlatan was wasting his time playing with the club. fiorentina's performance with the help of top scorer luca toni had improved a lot though they were no way near the old great fiorentina when batistuta and rui costa were in it. lazio proved that without stars they too can shine. but it was sad to see that the lower teams remain the same because of the lack of finance and other internal problems. i was glad to see that totti has finally grown up but at the same time sad to see talented player like cassano left the italian soil for the glitter in madrid.
serie A is still in deep turmoil even though the season has ended months ago. oh before i forgot, shevchenko has finally succumbed to the russian's web. all those money and friendship with a billionaire was too hard to resist eh! even though berlusconi was your son's godfather, he was no longer the prime minister, so there's no point in staying right! yeah, i have an evil mind but it's a little hard to forgive such decision after you've announced that you want to retire in milan. however, you've given everything you've got to milan for the past seven years and entertained the fans a lot with your football flair and for that i thanked you from the bottom of my heart. goodbye sheva, the ukrainian bullet.
hopefully the 07/08 season will be a fruitful one. maybe the milan' scout should look harder for new players during the world cup cause WC is the biggest market to look for a new signing. and the profit they made by selling shevchenko was quite a fortune.
arriverdeci 05/06. till we meet again..
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