FA Cup Champions 2009!!
( for the first time, a reasonable post title 😀 )
The last game of the season, the FA Cup final between Chelsea and Everton, was underway on Saturday afternoon (evening in India obviously 😛 ) at the new Wembley Stadium in London. Chelsea was looking to finish a some what topsy-turvy season on a high, while Everton, were looking to play spoilsport.This also happened to be Guus Hiddink’s last match as Chelsea manager, so as Lampard said before the game, the Blues were looking to give him a parting gift.
So, on the hot Wembley pitch (at 41 Cº mind you) the oldest football cup final was underway. I barely settled on my seat with some snacks that Everton scored straight after kick-off. In what was a sloppy piece of defending, Pienaar ran through Bosingwa, curled the ball in towards Chelsea’s box, eventually headed away by Alex, but straight to Fellaini who passed the ball to ex-ManU player Saha, who smashed the ball past Petr Cech.
Boom. Not even a minute on the pitch. 1-0 to Everton. 😦
This, as I’ve noticed is what Chelsea should be wary of. It always takes a good 10-15 mins for the Blues (or should I saw, the Yellows) to switch on and start attacking. It happenned against Arsenal (both in the semis and in the league) and Barca ( check out the first 10 mins in both halfs of the game at SB, not Camp Nou). But anyway, we were behind. No excuses this time. Credit to Everton for making the most of the ball (quite literally). For the next 20 mins, though there was some defensive errors, Chelsea looked to remain calm and composed as Everton piled the pressure.
Ashley Cole and Malouda kept causing problems for the Everton defence all this while as Everton’s right-back Tony Hibbert looked undecided. The Lampard-Malouda combination proved very fruitful for Chelsea under Hiddink, and it was this combo that set up Drogba, who was dormant all this while, to tear through Everton’s defence and head Malouda’s cross (passed on from midfield by Lampard) into the Everton goal. 1-1 in 20 mins. Joy! 😀
The rest of the first half remained un-eventful (atleast IMO) 1-1 at halftime. 2 goals in 45 mins between teams who couldn’t score in the 180 mins they played each other in the league 😀 . David Moyes made the only change as he removed Hibbert and brought on Jacobson.
The second half was a bit more eventful, though both teams kept losing the ball in midfield or at the death. Goalkeepers were kept busy, shots went off target, ferocious tackles came in, but no real threat posed by either team. The match looked set to go into extra time if it continued at this rate.
Cue Lampard. With 19 goals this season (and looking for the 20th) took responsibilty on himself, changing his mind in the last second as he was about to take the shot, slipped, yet gathered himself quickly to shoot the ball the other way and past Howard’s fingertips. 2-1 to Chelsea at 72 mins as Lampard scores 20 goals in the season for the 4th time.
Needless to say, that was enough. Everton became nervous as they kept shooting wide and fouling in an effort to win possession. An error was made by the ref as Malouda tore through the defence, etching to score a goal and shot the ball straight past Howard and into the post, with the ball bouncing inside the goal-line, yet adjudged by the linesmen as “no goal”. My heart throbbed as I didnt want a repeat of what happened at SB against Barca. Again, at 84 mins, Lampard was fouled by Pienaar in the box, yet the ref (who I must admit, was in no position to see the ball) adjudged Lampard guilty for diving and booked him. Though I was now used to penalty decisions not going our way, I was a nervous wreck. 😐
But there was nothing to worry about. Despite the massive 4 mins of stoppage time, Everton didnt pose much of a threat and joy erupted as the ref blew the final whistle. Chelsea have won the FA cup, have gained some silverware this season (in your face Liverfool and Le Arse 😛 ) and have said good-bye to arguably the best managers of the clubs history.
A wierd season. We got one of the world’s best manager Scolari to make brilliant start at the beginning of the season, then made a fool of himself, got fired, were in 4th position halfway, lost all hope of gaining any trophy as ManU and Pool ran away with the game, enter Hiddink, and now we finish 3rd in the league (so direct qualification to next year’s CL), have got the best of confidence in Drogba, Malouda and the team as a whole, were in touching distance of winning the CL this year (if it wasn’t for that ref 😐 ) and now, have won the FA cup. Hiddink will be missed sorely, and with his aura and impact he has (now “had” 😦 ) on the field, he is the special one now. 😉
If he ever does decide to come back (and I hope he does ) no doubt he will be recieved with open arms. 🙂
(PS, I know, I’ve posted a lot about football, but you’ll not here about this much now atleast till August 😐 )
Meh!…..
It’s official now. Barca have won the Champions League. 😐
I wasn’t all that keen on watching the final, considering that I hated ManU, and that Barca cheated us at Stamford Bridge (read this post). But still, being a football buff got the better of me, so I decided to watch the game as a neutral 😀 .
The game (highly overhyped in ManU’s favour) began in typical fassion, with ManU starting off with a bang, having as much as 5-7 shots on goal in the first 10 mins, with “baayla” hello-madrid Ronaldo selfishly wasting most of the chances.
As I said earlier, ManU were overhyped, and in that one moment when ManU lost the ball for the first time (in the 11th minute of course) , Eto’o took full advantage and shot the ball past Buddha -der-Sar after a brilliant run to open the scoreline. 1-0 to Barca.
ManU totally lost the plot there after. Iniesta kept piling the pressure on the defence. Messi clever came to the centre of the field, leaving Eto-o to eat Nani for dinner time and again. Henry kept making chances (and made a mess of them at the death). But Henry, Iniesta, Messi and with overlap by Xavi kept charging at the ManU defence, which, (in what is a grossly unthinkable sentence) had the better defence line-up (read on to see why I said that 😉 ). Something had to give as the players entered half time with that 1 goal between them.
The second half started with SAF removing Anderson from the pitcg for a lacklustre performance, by bringing on Tevez. The latter did try to force the issue, tying up with Rooney to make runs into the Barca defence, and the Catalans were in danger of conceding their lead.
In comes Messi. The shortest player on the pitch, the player who has a bad record against English clubs and yet, the player who has the most no. of goals this season, suddenly broke loose, and directed Xavi’s cross (with his head mind you) into the back of the net, leaving Nani, Ferdinand and Buddha-der-Sar ball watching. 😀 2-0 to the Catalans.
ManU, now visibly shaken, did whatever they could to get back into the game. Most no. of offences were created by them in the last 20 mins, with Ronaldo (who turned out to be the “popat” of the match) kept making a mess of things, while the Catalans kept attacking at the other end, leaving Vidic ashen-faced (I must add that it was Vidic who was doing the working of baby-sitting all four defenders too)
So, the ref (who had a reasonable game, surprisingly 😐 ) blew the final whistle and catapulted Barca into the first Spanish team to win the treble. This now throws up an interesting observation.
Chelsea had completely shut down Barca’s goal factory and ensured that the Catalans would not get the better of them. This did work, until the 95th minute at SB, when for the first time in as much as 190 mins of football, Barca managed to score, that too, with Iniesta’s last ditch effort being the only shot that Barca could ever take in that match. Hiddink had divised the best strategy to break Barca’s defence (and offence I must add 😀 ), by playing like “anti-barca”. Chelsea only took that odd chance to take a shot at goal and did not take the attack to them, but still made their life hell. And it did work, till the 95th min. 😐
ManU, however, with all their over-confidence (or should I say misplaced confidence) in their style of play, decided to play like themselves and Barca took full advantage of ManU throwing everyone forward and scored 2 goals in 90 mins. (as opposed to 1 goal in 190 mins against Chelsea)
So, in conclusion, Chelsea have now been established as the team with the better defence than any other club in Europe (at least in my opinion). Sure, we conceded 4 goals against the ‘Pools in the quarters, but I guess that was due to the fact that we already won at Anfield, that too by a healthy margin, thus leading too a bit of complacency.
So congrats to Barca (who were better than ManU), but also, a hearty congrats to Chelsea, for proving that thy can be the best defence there is. 🙂
A look back….
My B’day made me introspect on what I’ve done so far, what lies ahead, not for me alone, but even for the world around me, in general.
It’s difficult to put into words what I’ve seen/experienced so far, which, truth be told has been a sine wave of sorts.(If you dont know what a sine wave is YOU should introspect your own life first 😛 )
A new govt. , a hypocritical society, crumbling infra (stuff I dont really care about, but worth mentioning), 3G (finally,though it comes at a time when the world is looking to 4G 😕 ), water/power cuts, quotas, reservations(a GC student’s nightmare), college, SMSs, jam sessions (ahhh..this is teh life 😉 ) this pretty much sums up what I’ve seen in the past couple of years, which is not great, but not bad either. 🙂
But life was never this complicated AFAIK (sounds all cliched, but still )I just thought of what life might have been just a decade or 2 ago, and boy, I envy that gen.
No pressure, all the free time in the world , coaching classes were meant for dumbasses, no “bhaag dhod” to get things done, people actually had the time to stand and stare, and talked to each other in person 😐 (instead of wasting it on crap called “social networking sites”, more on this later 😉 )
Tendulkar, Gavaskar, Kapil Dev and Bollywood music ruled. The Indian hockey team was actually consistent. I vaguely remember people dancing to “Venga boys” and “Brazil” ( I dont envy them for that LOL 😀 ).
Then again, there were only 2 channels on TV, no Pepsi, no Coke, no Internet, heck, no computers as well. No mobile phones (closest you could get to that was a PCO 😕 ). No metal music (ahh..torture 😦 , but I doubt people would miss something they never heard about). No gaming, no “hang-out” joints (not that I do)
As you can see, this gen is more materialistic (look at all the points I’ve noted that the previous gen doesnt have, and vice versa). But it doenst hurt to be this way, right?
This gen has witnessed teh “tech boom” , globalisation, greater freedom of speech.
And metal music, for crying out loud. 😉 m/
So in conclusion, to all those who say “This life is fast paced and bad compared to yester-years”, they dont know what they are missing 😀
Through ScribeFire
I’m trying to post through ScribeFire.
If I’m successful, you should be able to read this post 😉
EDIT My exploits with ScribeFire seem to be successful
However, I cant tag my post 😕 I can tag my posts now, how n00bish of me 😐
Unity in diversity?
I read an interesting article about a few months back. Apparently, India is one of the few countries in the world which does not have a national language. Yeah, you heard me, hindi is NOT the national language of India, as it was thought of by the masses, including me.
A little bit of googling helped me find that article 343 of the Indian constitution states that Hindi and English are the Official languages of India; the article also further states that Hindi cannot be termed as a national language, despite it’s popularity, since it is not unanimously spoken throughout India.
Come to think of it, Bengali is common in the East, the South have a myriad of languages based on Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada (along with their dialects), Gujarati and Marathi are spoken in the west, while Hindi is predominantly spoken in the north. While it is logical to understand that just 1 language cannot be used to define the whole of India, which is good in a way (making India a “potboiler” of cultures), this diversity also happens to be a drawback.
Every person is proud to be speaking their mother tongue (of course, they have every right to be) and thus, a sense of “my language is supreme” emerges. There is no point in denying that. India happened to be broken down into states precisely because each “lingual community” wanted to have a “place of their own”. Thus, the sense of unity, how much ever one tries show it, is left to be desired.
A sense of “Me Marathi” or “Naan Tamilran” overtakes the feeling of “I’m an Indian” in more cases than one. 😐
It’s not that “we need a national language” or “Unity is threatened” or any crap like that. It’s just that unless we speak to each other keeping our country and not our languages in mind, it might lead to a case of “disparity in diversity” 😦
PS. Article 343 quoted from here
This article is just my 2 paisa. It is not meant to offend any community 🙂
Sigh…
My B’day is coming up. 🙂
What more can I ask for than flattering myself with a poem (written by me of course 😛 )
The final chapter of childhood unfolds,
as I walk into the future thats never been told.
My last year of kiddish-ness, my last year of freedom,
The last year I cant be liable for what crap I have done.
It’s been fun to still be a juvenile,
Although I’ve been etching to grow up all this while
To become an adult, to grow up is all I wanted to do,
As I realise now that childhood is fun too.
Voting, driving, boozing are a year away,
So are “hard-work” and “responsibilty” also in the fray
I’ve almost exitted the era of fun.
But heck, I’m not an adult yet, just give me this one 😀
(wierd poem I know, but makes me feel good about myelf 😉 )
Cheated…in the blink of an eye
In what looks like my first post in about 3 weeks, I feel cheated after what happened last night. 😦
In case any of you were wondering, the Chelsea vs Barca at the Bridge ended in a 1-1 draw, with Barca going into the finals with the “away” goal rule.
In what turned out to one of the talking points of the match, Referee <insert random obscene innuendo here> Tom Henning refused to give 3 crucial penalties in our favour, something which even the blind would have seen and awarded Chelsea with a penalty. Whether it was Malouda being dragged down by b!tch Alves, Pique’s hand-ball or the late-late-late hand ball from Eto’o, that nut for a referee got all three decisions wrong, and ultimately did cost us the game. We were robbed, robbed in front of a 44000 crowd by the ref. 😦
What turned out to be a great goal for Essien (in the 9th minute that too) ended up in heart-break as Iniesta equalised in the last minute of stoppage time. I was singing along with the crowd as we headed into the 90th minute and cried like a two year old with a broken TV remote after the 94th. To be outplayed is one thing, to be cheated is another. Luck completely deserted us last night. In the words of Calvin, from “Calvin and Hobbes” :
Life’s Unfair. But it’s never unfair in your favour.
Truth be told, however, Chelsea were reduced to a piece of underperforming and an “out-of sorts” lot by Scholari and looked nothing like the side they were last year. Again, the owner Abromovich steps in, fires Scholari and gives Guus Hiddink the most challenging task of rebuilding the demoralised side. His only objective was to ensure Chelsea’s place in the top 4 in the league, with Villa/Everton/Arsenal hot on our tail. Anything else that came with it was considered as a “bonus”.
Hiddink, with a wave of god alone knows what, led Chelsea and gave them the confidence and belief to win. ( Just 1 2 losses and 2 draws in the 19 odd matched he has managed speaks volumes for itself 🙂 ) Also, an FA Cup final in our hands, from a side that looked too demoralised to win to a side that is brimming with confidence (with the chance of getting some silverware this season 😀 ) Hiddink has done what nobody thought was possible.
Thus, although I feel cheated, and I hope that ManU beats the scum and shit and everything that Barcelona has got, we were lucky to get this far. 😐
When Hiddink leaves Chelsea at the end of the season, Chelsea will be missing and remembering one of the humblest and best managers to have graced the manager’s chair (perhaps better than The Special One, I dont know… 😉 )
This is K.K.'s World 