Sunday, July 09, 2006

World Cup Soccer 2006 : Did it live up to our expectations?

It's Written in the SandIndian sand artist Sudarshan Patnaik adds the finishing touches to his sand sculptures of Italian captain Fabio Cannavaro (R) and French captain, Zinedine Zidane at the Golden beach in Puri, east of the Indian city of Orissa, July 8, 2006.

World Cup will finish tonight. There were some spectacular goals scored in the tournament. But all in all this World Cup will have fewer memorable moments than its previous editions. Records were created, though mostly on negative note. Apart from goals scored from maximum no. of passes (Argentina did it first & then it was improved upon by Brazil) the other things which I can remember about this cup are...

  • A player hyped as best in the game miserably fails to stamp his authority on the World Cup.
  • A team crashed out in last 16 stage without conceding a goal in the tournament.
  • A match in which record nos. of red & yellow cards were showered by the referee.
  • A team now on verge of winning the World Cup got a controversial penalty in its favour against Aussies in dying seconds of the match.

If that was not enough, Asian teams especially Korea & Japan performed below par. With their elimination in earlier rounds thise time, one can conclude that home advantage in World Cup means assistance from referee. With so many controversies happening in every world cup why can't FIFA use Ultra slow motions to decide off-sides & infringement inside the penalty area to start with?

The only bright side was good showing by African countries such as Ghana & Ivory Coast. Hope with experience they can challenge hegemony of European & Latin American countries in years to come.

As for the question where our own country stands viz to viz qualification for the World Cup, I have this post लो जी मन्ने कर दिया गोल ! to offer which I wrote on my Hindi Blog.

8 comments:

KL said...

And Zidane created another record today :(:(. Me too heartbroken to write anything more :(:(:(:(:(......

Dawn said...

I guess all points that I considered you have covered and that says a lot ! Similar thought process were going in my mind too...after such a big event...!
I didnt see any celebration or even talk of it @ work....
Good post
Cheers

Keshi said...

I hope u and ur friends r SAFE.

Keshi.

Manish Kumar said...

KL Hope u come out of this spell soon!


DON Great mind think alike :p :)


Keshi Its a heavy price to pay for those who live in Metros. Thx god none of my frens bore the brunt of the tragedy.

Urvashi said...

I didn't really follow the World Cup. The only match that I saw in it's entirity was the one between the US and Czech Republic, and a few highlights from other matches.
But I was as shocked as most people were when Brazil got knocked out of the competition!
I have been seeing the ads on Zee TV about India playing in the next World Cup. I wonder if that will ever happen!

Keshi said...

good to hear ur safe. yep it was a senseless tragedy..what a waste of so many lives.


Manish the only thing that got me watching WC for was the hunks :)

Keshi.

Dawn said...

;) cool !!!

Manish Kumar said...

PR I was happy to see Brazil out becoz the way they played thru out they didn't deserved it.

Keshi Who was ur fav hunk from the tournament :) ?