Manchester United Domination is Back!

Since the departure of Jose Mourinho, it looks like Manchester United is all but set to be the sole dominant force in English football once more, pretty much like the 1990s. What is the reason? Is it because of an influx of fresh young blood into Manchester United’s already star-studded team? Is it because of Chelsea weakening due to Jose Mourinho’s departure?

The answer is actually closer to the second question compared to the first one. Why? All of us knew that Sir Alex Ferguson is a wily old manager with the reputation of winning matches days before the match-day itself with his notorious mind-games skills. Since Jose Mourinho’s infamous departure from Chelsea, Fergie is once again free as there is no one else to inhibit his mind-gaming forays within English Premier League. (Just for information, Jose Mourinho seems to be the only one in the world who is able to equal if not beat Fergie’s mind games, and with all due respects, Arsene Wenger is far from equaling Fergie’s mind games, in case you ask me about him).

The sign of this was very clear in the 2006-2007 season in which Manchester United were crowned English Champions for the first time since 2003. In this particular season, Mourinho’s influence in English football had already diminished due to the fact that his relations with Roman Abramovich was deteriorating fast. Ferguson was able to capitalize on this situation and go on with the championship winning season.

The sign became clear this season, or if you have been reading football news intently everyday like me, you would have already noticed Ferguson’s latest mind-games scheme, in lieu to Sepp Blatter’s latest proposal (refer to the previous posting on this proposal to know more about this). The very first victim to taste Ferguson’s regained dominance in English football is none other than Arsene Wenger, the person who has been bullied by Ferguson’s mind games for almost a decade.

Ferguson stated before their encounter in the Emirates Stadium, in the scintillating match which was ended 2-2 due to William Gallas’ heroics late in the game, that if Sepp Blatter is to go on with his proposal soon, Arsenal would be the ones who are protesting the loudest.

On the surface, it seems to be one simple comment blurted out by an old man. However, we have to recognize the fact that it came from one of the greatest managers in the world and that the comment came just before their match against Arsenal. What more can one ask for a proof that this was intended to stir up Arsenal’s morale prior to their match?

The effect of this little mind-game to the match is up to each fan to judge whether it was a success or even a failure as Manchester United did not win the match.

One thing for sure, however, is for the fans of EPL clubs other than Manchester United to endure a prolonged period of Manchester United domination in English football again…

Football Manager 2008

A nice football game. Decided to take over Chelsea in this game. Not because of their fame and fortunes, but because I like their shirts .




This is the result of my first ever competitive match in Football Manager 2008. As you could see in the picture above, my Chelsea side won the Community Shield against Manchester United 4-2 in a scintillating fashion.

Sepp Blatter's latest proposal

FIFA President Sepp Blatter has proposed for a new rule in which European Union clubs are no longer allowed to field more than 5 non-local players. (For example, Arsenal FC is only allowed to field at most 5 non-English players). This proposal has shaken the European Union footballing world, and this proposal is expected to make as huge if not bigger impact on football as the famous “Bosman” ruling.

Let us take one league, the English Premier League. Upon hearing about this proposal, many young English players would be delighted as they would be having more opportunities to grace the field week in week out with their teams and possibly getting into the limelight and be a superstar. The England National Team manager will also be delighted as more talents will mean more choices of players to choose from.

Meanwhile, top clubs in the league, especially Arsenal will lament on this rule as they have little or no English players in their squads. One notable example here is of course Arsenal. Their first team and even their reserves squad has very little number of English players. To compound this, the few English players in Arsenal’s team are actually fringe players with little or no potential to be world class players competent enough to compete in the highest level.

In my personal opinion, this proposal will not materialize, at least in the short run due to fierce challenges by the top clubs, and especially if G-14, the organization of 18 top clubs in Europe are already come into the fray, it will be a draggy and long legal battle.

However, we don’t know what might happen in the long run. Perhaps this will still materialize, albeit to the expense of the popularity of Sepp Blatter among Europe’s top clubs. All of us know that the charismatic and colorful president has taken such stances before, most notably in the introduction of “Home-grown rule” in the Champions League squads two years ago (in which this rule was also lamented upon by top clubs).

In any case, football fans like us can only keep our fingers crossed so that whatever policies or proposals are implemented into the beautiful game, the entertainment value and fair play elements won’t be eroded.

Viva la Futbol!

Football's funny moments

May I present, a compilation of various funny and exhilarating moments in football!

For Chinese (hokkien) music fans, enjoy the music. For those who can't stand listening to Hokkien songs, just turn the volume all the way down and enjoy the video.

Thanks!

Man Utd 1-0 AS Roma

It is very sad to say that AS Roma has been defeated by Manchester United at Old Trafford by a single goal to nil.

It has been known all along that Old Trafford is a very tough cauldron to win matches in due to the intimidating atmosphere that the stadium brings, even when the stadium is empty, the intimidating elements are still there.

This intimidating atmosphere was proven just before the match when Alexandre Doni, AS Roma’s first choice goalkeeper was “taken ill” prior to the match and had to be replaced by Gianluca Curci, a young goalkeeper who is dubbed as the next Gianluigi Buffon. Doni was ill perhaps due to his traumatic experience in the same stadium five months ago when he let in no lesser than seven goals.

Actually, as a fan, I always prefer Curci to be the first choice goalkeeper for Roma. The quality he possesses is obvious for all to see and putting him on the bench for every match is not doing anything good to his development and he might even lose his potential to be the next Gianluigi Buffon. It is very sad to see the number of young goalkeeper with immense potential being left to rot on the bench. Two other examples are Libis Andres Arenas who is rotting in Lazio as well as Oscar Ustari who is warming the bench in Getafe.

For the match of Man Utd vs Roma itself, the winning goal was scored by Wayne Rooney at the 70^th minute to prevent Roma from taking back anything from their visit to Manchester.

Even if Roma is defeated, this does not mean that their chance of progressing to the next round of the competition is hampered. There are many other matches to be played in the group stage of the Chsmpions League.

Forza Roma!

Man Utd vs Roma

Manchester United will be hosting AS Roma on Tuesday (European time) in their Champions League group stage match. This is the rematch of last season’s quarter final of the same competition. To be specific, this match is the rematch of the second leg of that quarter final in which AS Roma were trounced a whopping 7-1 and effectively knocked them out of the competition despite defeating Manchester United in the first leg which was played in Rome.

If all of you are thinking that I am posting this entry to express my support for Manchester United, like the majority would do, you are dead wrong here. I am not a football fan mercenary who is hopping from one team or another. I reckon there are way too many football fan mercenaries in this world. One great example is when Jose Mourinho left Chelsea and when Juventus were stripped of their two league titles and demoted to Serie B. Many of the fans of those two clubs left the club and decided to support other teams. Back to the main point, I am supporting and will still be supporting Roma no matter what.

In my opinion, there’s a chance Roma could stage a revenge against Manchester United at Old Trafford and brining back all 3 points to Rome. This is so despite the recent departures of some stars like Cristian Chivu and more recently, due to the fact that Roma were just thrashed 4-1 by the incumbent champions of Serie A, Inter Milan.

Many people would dismiss Roma’s chance to even get a point from this match based on tha latter fact alone. However, as a football analyst, we have to read scorelines between the lines. Which means, the 4-1 scoreline is actually does not reflect anything much. Think about this, it was a build up to the Manchester United match and Roma must choose to prioritize between these matches. Roma rightfully chose to sacrifice the Serie A clash with Inter as the Champions League clash is more crucial and this is compounded with the revenge effect. Also, focusing on Serie A would be pointless as Inter is predicted to run Serie A ragged and dominate again. In short, Serie A has been decided right from the start of the new season.

I am hoping that Roma could give Manchester United a run of their money and get all 3 points. I also hope to see Francesco Totti lifting the much coveted UEFA Champions League trophy in Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow in May 2008!

Feng Shui is a reality

For those of us who do not believe or are underestimating the power of Feng Shui, it would be good if all of you could revamp your images on Feng Shui.

For many people, especially non-Chinese and Westerners alike, Feng Shui might be thought as a ridiculous superstitious belief which serves only in making those who believe become a fool.

However, let me share with everyone my wonderful and perhaps scary experience with Feng Shui.

It happened a few days ago when I decided to remove the mirror in my bathroom to be put in my room instead. Just 2-3 days after the removal of the mirror, I had a terrible splitting headache. The pain was really unbearable, it is reminiscence to migraine in which one point on the head feels like being impaled by a knife.

Two days after the terrible headache started, I remembered about the mirror and decided to return the mirror to its original position, which is in the bathroom. The miracle happened right at this point of time. Just merely a few seconds after putting the mirror back in the bathroom, the headache suddenly subsided. The pain did not go away and as this entry is being written, the pain is still there, however, it has subsided considerably compared to when the mirror was still outside of the bathroom.

Based on this incident, it is important to respect Feng Shui and put things in their rightful place. This is because, putting things like mirrors in the wrong place could distract the flow of Chi energy by either inhibiting it or reflecting it to another place, resulting in jeopardy for those who live in the house.

The message is clear. Feng Shui has been tried and tested and the whole mechanism itself had been set with extreme scientific accuracy and precision by the wisemen of China in the past. Think about it, of Feng Shui is not true, why do people rake out millions of dollars just to hire a Feng Shui master to look into their houses and listen to their advices?

Ketoconazole

The oral medication used to treat tinea capitis or yeast infections (candidiasis) is the administering of Ketoconazole.

This chemical works more or less in the same way as the creams. It basically interferes with the enzyme that helps to synthesize ergosterol in the fungal cells.

Even though ketoconazole is an essential drug used to treat fungal infections, some patients may find the treatment process painful due to the side effects that are brought by this drug. Some of the side effects include nausea, dizziness, fatigue, and some sensitive patients even develop new rashes and itchiness.

Road to recovery is never easy and the recovery itself comes with a rather heavy price to pay sometimes.

Tinea Capitis

Tinea Capitis is one of the several types of tinea which affects the scalp of a person. Tinea is an infection caused by fungus. Other types of tinea includes Tinea Corporis, which affects body parts like arms or legs and tinea cruris, which affects the groin area.

Due to the fact that everything about tinea can be found either in wikipedia or by typing “tinea” in the search box of google, I shall not delve into the fine details to prevent unnecessary duplication of efforts.

This disease is very resistant to treatment and the treatment itself is very costly and consisting of oral antifungal medicine and antifungal creams. The medicines are working by basically destroying as well as inhibiting the synthesis of ergosterol, an essential component of the fungus’ cell membrane. Ergosterol is mainly used in the synthesis of Vitamin D as well as to make the membrane partially permeable. Ergosterol is actually the equivalent of cholesterol, which is found on animal’s (including human’s) cell membrane.

When ergosterol is no longer present due to the action of the medicines, the permeability of the cell membrane of the fungus will be affected such that ions in the fungus cell such as K+ and H+ will rapidly leak out of the cell resulting in the necrosis of the cells (death).

Tinea capitis is perhaps a common disease. However, take it lightly at your own peril…

Old Lady is smiling in Italy

There’s something strange in the Italian Serie A matchday this week. The strange thing is the “Old Lady” is smiling throughout Italy at that time. In case you are wondering what on earth I am talking about or wondering whether my sanity is still within me, what I meant by Old Lady is simply Juventus FC. (Again, as per the previous entry, no prize for guessing the correct answer…)

To cut the long story short, all old boys of Juventus were shining for their respective clubs in all the matches.

First and foremost, Inter Milan, the incumbent champions of Serie A. Ibrahimovic, who is a former Juventus player netted 2 goals in their 3-0 victory over Sampdoria. Secondly, Adrian Mutu, another former Juventus player who was there for 2 years scored a goal to equalize the score to 2-2 for his club Fiorentina against my beloved AS Roma and thus earning Fiorentina a point from that match. The last one is perhaps the most significant one. Fabrizio Miccoli, former Juventus striker scored the winning goal at the very last minute to give his club, Palermo a 2-1 victory over AC Milan.

Besides the Serie A, there are similar phenomena in Serie B. A former Juventus defensive midfield Alessio Tacchinardi scored the opening goal for his club, Brescia in their 2-2 draw against Bologna.

By looking at all these, we could clearly see that Juventus is the team of the week. Everyone who is associated or at one point connected to Juventus was smiling.

Let us hope that in the next matchday of the UEFA Champions League, the lady-luck will be on AS Roma’s side in their match against Manchester United in the “Theatre of Dreams” which is the Old Trafford Stadium. In this match, AS Roma will require luck if they are to get their revenge for the 7-1 drubbing against the same opponent in the same venue as well as the same competition last season.

Hull City vs Chelsea.

I have decided to support Hull City in their upcoming match against Chelsea in the Third Round of the Carling Cup (formerly and better known as League Cup) and the match will be played in the Kingston Communications Stadium, or KC Stadium in short, which is the home ground of Hull City.

I have decided to root for the extreme underdogs mainly because of the Special One’s departure. In case you are wondering who the Special One is, the answer is Jose Mourinho (no prizes for guessing it correctly, even if you are an old lady who has limited knowledge on football). Chelsea’s current situation is just like one of the Malay proverbs “Patah Kemudi Perahu Hanyut”. If this is translated to English, it literally means when the ship’s steer is broken, the ship will be lost in oblivion. Chelsea has just lost a guiding light, a great leader. Another proverb that could be used to describe Chelsea is they are just like “chickens that have just lost their hen”. This situation is appalling. To add to all these, the current replacement of Jose Mourinho is someone who does not even have a proper UEFA coaching license. Yes, perhaps his license is pretty good or even very good in his native Israel. However, we are talking about managing a top club in one of the best leagues in the world.

Actually, the root of all these problems that have been hitting Chelsea is none other than Roman Abramovich. The Russian is reminiscence to Florentino Perez, the former Real Madrid chairman who infamously sacked Vicente del Bosque and Fernando Hierro for not agreeing in his decision to purchase Beckham. At the first place, it is already very wrong for a chairman to meddle in the first team affairs of a football team, let alone purchasing players and demanding the poor manager to play the player in the first team week in week out. Think about it, put yourself in Jose Mourinho’s shoes. You have successfully assembled a cohesive teams in which the players are all put in place properly and you are ready to dominate the world of football just to realize a little while ago that your chairman has just bought a certain Andrei Shevchenko and Michael Ballack who are clearly not suited to be in the team and they are also not suited with the style of English Premier League. I am sure anyone would be fed up with that kind of board of management.

Back to the Third Round match of Hull City against Chelsea. I just hope that Hull City could pull a big upset against Chelsea and knock them out of the League Cup. This will be the battle of a tiger against a lion. (Hull City’s nickname is “The tigers” while Chelsea has a lion on their logo).

I believe an upset is in store for all of us because firstly, Hull will be playing on front of their own fans in their own full house stadium and secondly, their attack will be led by Henrik Pedersen and Augustine “Jay-Jay” Okocha. They may not be the greatest due to their age nowadays. However, I have a feeling that both of them will be the ones who deliver the sucker punch to Chelsea.

Go TIGERS GO!

Gearing up for the big battle!

I am currently assembling all my available troops in the process of gearing up to brace arguably the war of my life at the moment. The outcome of this battle will decide where I might be at 1^st January 2008.

At the moment, I am heavily outnumbered. Compared to the 100000 troops that the enemy have at their disposals, my troops can hardly be considered an army. However, I have to win this battle with all my might.

If I win this battle, I will have my foot firmly stepping on this piece of land where I am in now. If I lose, I may have to move on to other areas, which will be harsher and perhaps send my city-state into jeopardy. At the moment, the chances of coming out victors in this battle is quite slim, 40% chance of winning can be considered a very generous and lenient estimation by any standards….

Mourinho left Chelsea (Elaboration pending)

My favorite manager Jose Mourinho has left Chelsea FC in “Mutual Agreement”.

My verdict on this would be that Mourinho might end up in FC Barcelona this coming January if things do not go well and Frank Rijkaard gets the sack.

Perhaps, a manager swap with Arsenal may occur if the takeover by Usmanov, a Russian businessman is materialized. However, I do not think Mourinho will relish this opportunity as I believe Mourinho has developed a degree of phobia to wealthy Russian chairmen.

Trying time

Progress in Suikoden has not been good due to time constraints at the moment. However, starting from next month onwards, there will be PLENTY of playing time for me, and the playing time that will be available is in fact comes in excess. It is scary to think that I have an approximate of 3 hours of playing day at least everyday. Even more so on the weekend, I keep my fingers crossed that I will have a sufficient number of games to sustain me until November, but I doubt that will happen considering the amount of playing time I will be having from October to the end of November.

Many people would congratulate me and some people have even urged me to be thankful for the “luck” that I have for having plenty of playing time. However, I am far from happy as instead of blessing in disguise, in this particular case, there’s actually a curse in disguise. On the surface, it seems really awesome to be having plenty of playing time to boot, but it is actually not that great after all.

First and foremost, those three hours or more each day designated for playing is actually not a leisure time. Those hours are actually the waiting time between two demanding activities of the day. Secondly, on these days for the two months period (from October to November) I must wake up before the rooster even gets to the REM sleep, which is in the unholy hour of 5am and from that time onwards, I will be kept really busy like a prisoner in a concentration camp until at least 8pm before I could feel the comfort of my home. Even then, nothing could be done as it would be so late to do anything and the next day, the cycle starts again. Thirdly, during the long hours of waiting, it is not that as if I will be getting a very comfortable place to play Suikoden or any other games I might be playing. Instead, I will be playing in the worst of all places with so many disturbances and irritants alike constantly bugging me. This is compounded with the fact that I would not be at 100% due to the early time I have to wake up at and the demanding and sometimes ridiculous activities that I have to go through on the day.

So I am just praying to God, god, goddess, deity, Zeus or whoever is up there listening that I will get through this trying time in one piece. The whole struggle will start from 8^th October 2007 and will stretch all the way until 25^th October 2007 if I am lucky or if I am unlucky, it will last until 22^nd November 2007.

A weapons peddler and a wise man

Once upon time, there was a weapons peddler selling his goods in the streets. On that particular day, he was selling his best shields and swords. In an attempt to grab the attention of the public in the bustling streets, he promoted his weapons by shouting out loud the best features that his shields and swords possessed.

“My swords are the best! It is able to slice through anything in this world!” He went on promoting about the greatness of his swords.

“My shields are second to none! It is able to withstand any weapons in this world!” He continued to promote his shields.

A wise man happened to walk by him at that time. The wise man turned to the peddler and asked, “Young man, if I may, I would like to ask you just one question regarding your fine weapons.”

The peddler, visibly happy as he managed to secure the attention of somebody replied, “Hohoho, go ahead, sir. My weapons are the best! You won’t regret purchasing them!”

The wise man then went on to ask his question, “Young man, what would happen if you use your sword to slice your shield, since your sword is able to slice through anything while your shield is impervious to any attacks?”

The peddler’s face turned pale as he was at a loss for words. Furthermore, the question was asked in front of a very large crowd…

What is the moral of the story? Post your answers!

Chinese undead

Have you ever wondered why Chinese undead are all wearing that particular type of dress while moving about by hopping around with their arms stretched out in front of them?

The reason dates back to when the Japanese started to invade China. During this time, the Japanese slaughtered so many Chinese military officers (The dress is actually that of a military officer of China at that era) that there are too many corpses all around in the cities of China for the people to handle. To be efficient, the people devised a special method to clean up these corpses perhaps for identification purposes or just a part of the ceremony being held to treat these corpses as they should be treated. The method to line up these corpses was to tie their hands onto the trees by using ropes in standing position. This explains why the hands of these corpses are positioned as such.

On why they are moving around in hops, it is because of one very simple reason. All of us know that corpses are stiff in nature, and thus, they are not able to move swiftly and with relative ease like what we living people are doing. This is why they are moving about that way.

If any of you readers are wondering why I am suddenly bringing up this topic, this is because a friend of mine was talking about this in his website and I would also like to convey this message across.

Suikoden V

Progress in Suikoden so far

The current game being played by me is Suikoden 1. Suikoden, the very first installment of the Suikoden series can be considered as a very short and simple game. Many gamers are saying that Suikoden is a merely a warming up compared to playing other RPG games such as the Final Fantasy series or even Xenogears. Nevertheless, Suikoden is one of the best games around despite its 2D nature. In terms of audio, it boasts one of the best sound systems and the quality of the audio in the game can be compared to some of not most of the modern games.

To cut the long story short, I am currently approaching the half-way point of the game, and for those who have played the game, I am now at the Scarleticia Castle, right after the Liberation Army failed miserably in attacking Milich Oppenheimer’s Scarleticia Castle due to the giant and poisonous rose pollen which protects the castle.

2008 Olympics Qualifier AFC Region standings

This is the latest standing of the 2008 Olympic qualifiers for AFC region as of the posting is written.

Group A

Iraq 4pts 2games

Australia 4pts 2games

Lebanon 3pts 2games

North Korea 0pt 2games

Group B

South Korea 6pts 2games

Bahrain 3pts 2games

Syria 1pt 2games

Uzbekistan 1pt 2games

Group C

Qatar 4pts 2games

Japan 4pts 2games

Vietnam 1pt 2games

Saudi Arabia 1pt 2games

There are three vacancies left for AFC in the 2008 summer Olympics. By looking at the tables, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that only the teams which come out on top of their respective groups will join China, the host country and qualify for the actual tournament next year.


On paper, and based on the current standings, many people would have predicted that Australia, South Korea, and Japan will qualify for the actual tournament. However, as it has always been, anything can happen in the world of football and teams that are languishing at the bottom of their groups can even rise in the remaining 4 games and come out top. All eyes will particularly be fixed to Vietnam, which is the only South East Asian country in this round of qualification as well as North Korea, which is an isolated country and is the only communist country left in this world. It would be a major shock if both teams can qualify from their respective groups. Keep your fingers crossed. Anything can happen in football and we could even see Vietnam or North Korea hogging the medals next year!

England 3-0 Israel

Many wouldn’t have guessed an injury-ravaged England team with morale at an all-time low would have beaten Israel 3-0 with relative ease. This is true even when it is taken into account the fact that Israel did not play to win but they simply defended like there is no tomorrow to grind out a goalless draw, a feat which they were able to pull off in the earlier encounter with England at home in Israel.

The goals came from Shaun Wright Phillips, Michael Owen, and Micah Richards. This victory is significant to England as firstly, it saved Steve McClaren’s job as England manager, for now at least. Secondly, it boosted the morale of the English team significantly and they couldn’t ask for more prior to another vital home game against Russia next Wednesday. Last but not least, a victory means that England obtained another 3 points and a step closer towards qualification to Euro 2008 which will be co-hosted in Switzerland and Austria. Also, this victory was also meaningful as it is the first victory of England in the new Wembley Stadium.