Tag: world cup

World Cup 2011

Finally after 28 years of waiting, India has won the World Cup. With celebrations heard all around, every city, state, in every nook & corner of India, one can easily imagine how much the Indians expected this trophy to come back in India.
Indian team did fallout against South Africa in the group stages, but after rising from that hiccup, they never turned their back at the challenges. Qualifying for the knockout stages was expected to be a walk in the park for them, and they didn’t seem to be very much concerned about it. Then came the real fight for survival, first theKangaroos, and then the mighty rivals Pakistan. After getting win in these 2 games, the confidence returned to the team, and it showed in their body languages, in terms of their fielding and much improved bowling.
I was in Allahabad at the time of WC, and saw an immense excitement in the locals. They used to colour their faces in tricolors, and take the TV sets in the open and watch the entire match with enthuse and dancing at every possible chance. And every awesome show of an Indian win would increase their hopes, anticipation & vigour manifolds. As we all know, cricket is more like a religion than a game in India, so it was not a surprising to see them showing off their emotions at the opponents.Talking of the finale, the toss was won by Sri Lanka, and they put India to field first. On papers, a 6-wicket win may look like a comfortable chase, but it wasn’t like that; India, especially Gambhir & Dhoni chased up the game to show the door to the Lankans.

This WC win becomes more pronounced due to the fact that it was the last WC for Sachin, and he hadn’t had any WC wins in his account, so the WC also puts an end to his WC drought.
After the match, the team took a winning lap, with Sachin on the shoulders to show him gratitude for his services to the Indian team.
I wish all the good luck for the Indian team for their future round of matches, wish they continue their consistent run.

Well done team INDIA!!!!

For the World Cup 2010

While I was writing this, the two teams in the World Cup finale were getting prepared for the showdown (I took a fair time in posting the blog). Well, I have been the fan of this game for over 3 years now. You may find it a very short period, but I became fan of this game after I played the FIFA 07 in my PC, that’s when it all begun. And now from ‘I know nothing about soccer’, I am suffering from 24×7 soccer mania.

Now returning to the topic, this World Cup has been a success, nevertheless of the failures of some big names, the biggest upset being the departure of two giant finalists from last World Cup, the French & the Italians from the group stages. Nonetheless, we saw some great matches, individual plays, long shootings, skillful plays, great team efforts. Apart from these, we experienced some great predictions from ‘Octopus Paul’ too, he has been judging correctly (breaking hearts & inviting unwanted attention on the way) till the finals & moreover it has chosen Spain to be its favorite team. Let’s see if it gets this one right. (I came to know afterwards that it judged it correctly too).

I had been supporting Argentina, to be more precise, Messi was my reason for supporting Argentina. Which team would not be the favorites if it has the FIFA World Player of the year in its squad? Even though he couldn’t score a single goal, he was there’s best players & he played his part pretty well.
Now, the major surprise was some great actions shown from the senior players viz. Wesley Schneider(NED), Diego Forlan(URU), Iniesta(ESP), Landon Donovan(USA). These really showed us the meaning of ‘Old is Gold’, stealing the attention from a lot of players that were expected to shine in the WC.
Thomas Muller getting the prestigious ‘Golden boot’ was a slap in the face of Maradona, who thought of him as a ballboy at their first meeting.
The closing ceremony was breathtaking too. With every anticipating a ‘Waka Waka’ from Shakira, the performers were brilliant too.

With this, I close my first blog. Thank you friends for reading my blog, & forgive me for any grammatical or spelling mistakes. I would love to get suggestions &  comments from you.