Footballers and Thumbs

Manchester United warming up. In all their thumbs' glory.

So, while going through (stealing) pics for compiling my various 'Celeb Look Alikes' post, I was reminded of a quaint little habit amongst the world's footballers. Viz. jogging with their thumbs up. So cute.
This is especially noticeable on match nights when after a ferocious offense, the players then fall back, jogging or backtracking slowly to their side of the pitch.
See, here you will find some photographic evidences, which I unearthed during my research.









Wayne Rooney



















Fernando Torres























Michael Ballack
And many others. Please keep your eyes open for this behaviour henceforth. Highly amusing. Sports is filled with wonder.

Oooh. Speaking of thumbs up. Couldn't resist: AKKI. Coming soon Khatron Ke Khiladi - Season 2.
What can I say? I like the guy.
I. Kid. You. Not.

And they did it!

ManU took home the UEFA Cup last night/this morning. A double with the EPL and CL cups in the bag. But a shame that the game came down to penalties, which I find unbelievably unfair and inappropriate as a means of deciding a final.

Congratulations to Sir Alex Ferguson. A fitting end to the old Scot's season, where he had made it his goal (look, Ma, a pun) to win the UEFA Cup in memory of the Busy Babes of the Munich tragedy of 1958.

And so to last night.

Twinkletoes Ronaldo was in the thick of things again. A brilliant header to start things off, and then a ridiculous miss at the end of all things, when the match went to penalty shootout. Felt terrible for John Terry who slipped while taking his shot and missed the goal that would have won his side the Cup. Poor sod was inconsolable. Even Avram Grant's sweetly available shoulder couldn't alleviate the Chelsea champion's pain.

Since we are talking penalties and goalies, let's be honest and point out that Edwin van der Sar is a far, far superior goalie than the clumsy Cech. He is too. Only fitting that he turned out to be the hero at the end of the drama-filled night. I mean dripping with drama.

Right from some very interesting spats between the players, to blood-spurting collisions, almost-but-not-quite on target shots, and the usual spills-and-thrills overacting that soccer brings, this was a match to remember.

The match started off very well, with ManU uncharacteristically trading in short, quick passes (lessons from Barca?) and dominating ball possession in the first half. It always looked like ManU would penetrate eventually and score first, which is exactly what happened in the 26th minute. Ronaldo sent home his 42nd goal of the season and the match got an added burst of life. The Chelsea Blues immediately raised their game and an equaliser was imminent. Chelsea had a few great shots on target which Luck alone deflected on to the woodwork, keeping ManU a nose ahead for a while. But Chelsea were always on the hunt. Enter Frank Lampard (who else?) as always, present in the box when time came to get things done. In a heart-wrenching moment, Lampard managed a skiddy nudge past van der Sar and Chelsea pulled out a fabulous equaliser from its hat.

The second half came and went in a goalless frenzy, ditto extra time, and then it was down to to what is every fotball player's/viewer's/fan's worst nightmare: Penalty shootout.

Gaaaaaah. (I am passing over stupid, arrogant Drogba's behaviour and sending off because everyone else in the world will write about it. New nick: 'Did-yer Have To?' Drogba)

As if the match itself didn't have enough drama, the penalty shootout was a notch higher. Ronaldo missed after doing a strange dance before taking his kick. It was alllllll over, but but but. Poor Terry slipped on his run up and MISSED. Ye gods! We were into suddent death.

ManU's sub Anderson stepped up to the mark and slipped his shot in. So did Chelsea's sub Kalou. Scores even at 5-5. (Scene at home: The Elder Haji sibling, second Haji sibling and youngest [fourth] but tallest Haji sibling, sitting in a row biting fingernails, followed by toenails).

ManU veteran Giggs stepped in.... and goal! Chelsea sent in their experienced striker, Nicolas Anelka, to do his thing. Monsiuer Anelka walked up looking nonchalant. Lazy kick (or so it seemed) and VAN DER SAR dove and what a save!!!!!!!! It was all over! ManU crowned UEFA champs!

Thank God it ended when it did, though. At one point I was all ready to take after Cousin Bob's example and develop ulcers. Sudden death was turning into slow, teasing death for everyone watching the match. I imagined the sudden death stalemate would go on till break of dawn at least, when Mama and Abba would walk into the TV room and discover three dead Haji sibling bodies with heart in mouths. (See the word play? Notice how I managed to intersperse 'sudden' with 'slow, teasing' and thus change the meaning of the phrase, almost as if by magic? Vaav.)

Anyway. Manchester United won in the end, and it doesn't matter how, they did win. Tough luck to Chelsea, good game throughout. My point is it was worth it. Even dragging Self to Orifice today and maintaining a semblance of professional normalcy. (Which really isn't saying much.)

Important points to make:

1. Ronaldo may well be the young cutie-pie of the team, but Rrrrio Ferdinand. Vaav! Whatte.

2. Penalty shootouts are a lottery.

3. This is the only Red team I support.

Also, while reading through various websites, came across this article on the Sky Sports site which had nice comments from readers. Surprisingly no venom-spewing diatribes from miffed fans and no chest-beating gloating from the victors.

In other news.

Good Gawde has just reminded me that I haven't been keeping my vast readership up to date with various developments in my life and my very important opinions on events transpiring across the world. I thank him. All four of my readers also thank him. Especially Ma. And Pa. ;)

First things first. Get well soon, BB. That stomach trouble you've been having is causing trepidation across the globe. Your legion of admirers is on tenterhooks, biting their finger and toe-nails in an atmosphere of uncertainty and anxiety. Bu chuss yehai dapan ki tsu gess gasun jald nish jald theek. Booz-thha? Shaabaash.

And now on to more public topics. The Turkish GP yesterday. What a fantastic race! Finally a really exciting watch after oh-so-many races.We've had few and far between. The Brazilian GP to wind things up last season in October was a thriller. Then the season-opener in Melbourne this year was entertainng. And after a couple of boring months, yesterday's great race in Istanbul. Well done, little Massa. And Hammie, just when I had lost all hope in you, you took it up one notch and drove a damn good race. The 'Surpise!' three-pit-stop strategy almost worked. Very well done. Kimi stormed in third, close on Hammie's heels. Poor Heikki. Had an unlucky race but some nice overtaking moves all along after his 'flat' start. And Alonso.... *sigh*... Let us take a moment to daydream about this wonderful Spaniard. He was tres bien as usual. And coming up next is the wonderful Monaco GP. Woo hooooo!

On to the IPL now. Started off with a bang in Bangalore, and the tempo's been good ever since. Bangalore's team is by far the biggest joke this tournament's thrown up. Mmmppfhfhppphhhh. *That's muffled laughter*. Tired and Test-ed, is what the Royal Challengers are all about. The Saab is gunning for Dhoni's Chennai Superkings and Delhi's Daredevils (a lot of which has to do with Akshay 'hubba-hubba' Kumar being their posterboy.... I am not ashamed of this fact. I can't help it.) Other teams that look good are of course Warne's Jaipur lads. And Kolkata has a few very bright sparks in the form of Saurav Da and an impressive bowling line-up: Ishant Sharma, Umar Gul, Dinda and possibly, Shoaib Actor, no, no!, Akhtar. (Thanks to Sir Khurram Abbas in the Amreeka for this moniker.)

And then! Soccer. ManuU have romped home with the Barclays English Premier League cup. Whatte! Waiting for Moscow where they'll hopefully make it a double and win the Champions League as well. Chelsea were kicking up a happy storm last night when they saw a faint light at the end of the tunnel with their goal against Bolton. If Man U drew, that would be it. As it turned out though, the Wanderers pulled out a gorgeous equaliser themselves and Chelsea was left undone. Ronaldo had a foot in this winning match as well, and thanks to Rooney, Giggsy pulled off a nice second goal towards the end of the match. And that wrapped it up for the Reds.

In other news, looks like Barack Obama's going to be it. Unless the law suddenly changes and it turns out Dubya can run for another term. In which case it's probable that America will reinstate him as Prez. Ho hum.

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

It was a Sunday I had waited for, for a very, very long time. Two days almost. I woke up at the crack of dawn, around 12:30pm, buzzing with excitement at the impending high-action drama that was to follow. High-action on the part of my favourite sports persons, not me - I was only going to be adjusting the body into a comfortable supine position most conducive to telly-watching.
Cooked a quickie pasta lunch for the Sister since she has strange food cravings every fortnight or so and simple daal-chawal just doesn't cut it. Finished Facebooking for a bit and got down to business.
I had a packed schedule to adhere to. Beginning with the Bahrain GP.Expectations ran high and there was a palpable tension in the air of the Haji household as various family members seated themselves in accordance with their F1 loyalties. Self assumed comfy left corner slot in the McLaren stand. Cousin Suhail and Br Ozz occupied opposite right corner slot, being the Ferrari faction. Sister and mother looked disgusted and left because we made them turn off 'Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani' and switched to Raceday.
Feeling glad that BMW did so well in qualifying, I put my faith in ze Germans thinking McLaren and BMW would sweep the podium. After all, two little red spots on the radar could be overcome, non? NO! Goddammit.
Lights on, lights off, Go, Go, GO! Except Mr Hamilton remained stationary, while the rest of the field whizzed past. Massa took over P1 right from the first turn and so it remained till he came home with the top podium place. Iceman Kimi made it a comfy Ferrari 1-2. Sigh. Hamilton added to his already incredible start by trying to mount Alonso's Renault from behind (see pic)! What was this? Delayed vengeance for last year? Gadzooks! Ferrari had a thumping victory, BMW walked in tall and proud to take the lead in the Constructor's and all of a sudden Self was feeling very hard done by. Good on you, Heikki, but McLaren's been looking dodgy in these past two races.
Moments of the race:
1. The start that ended it all.
2. Impressive BMW driving and speed throughout.
3. Hamilton's screw-up with Alonso. ("Racing incident" indeed. Hmmph.)
4. Superb driving from Fisichella in the Force India team, and the great battle between him and Hamilton for three or four laps before Hammy finally managed to over take him. And really, Lewis, there was no need for your juvenile hand gesture to Fisi. Why the hell should he have moved? You were racing.
5. The Button and Coulthard tussle.
6. Fisi finishing one place ahead of Hamilton. Haw haw.
7. Superb racing by Alonso, again.

Other exciting occurrences during that evening were extraneous to the actual race. A sudden shriek from the materfamilias jerked our attention to the fact that the inverter was spontaneously combusting and that disturbing smell of burning wires was spreading through the domestic territory. In addition to this, and for dramatic effect, thin wisps of evil, black smoke were emanating from said inverter. In a frenzied manner, all of us family members started yelling our opinions on the matter and speculating on the best method to combat this hazardous phenomenon of flaming electronic devices. For a longish time nothing of any actual use was proposed until better sense prevailed and it was decided to nip the problem in the bud. Or plug. We used our 'kaanoon ka lamba haath' personified by Ozz, who stood on tiptoe on a chair, grappled with the main switch and finally managed to kill the inverter. With the result that all the power in the house was also killed. Hence ending our mouth-agape-viewing of the Bahrain GP. Truth be told, I didn't give a bloody damn any more. I learnt soon, from various taunting texts and jibes that Ferrari had reigned supreme and McLaren indeed 'had gone red in the face'.
*Shakes head*
Cut to an hour later, helpful electrician had restored power and semblance of sanity to household and the TV was ready to entertain us again.
Onwards to Hyderabad where the second of three ICL finals was taking place. With great enthusiasm, the entire Haji family plus Cousin Suhail forgot past divisions and sat down as one to cheer on the Lahore Badshahs. The Lahore Badshahs had to win, 'and of course they will today!' was the general consensus.
Nyet. Nothing doing. Scores level in the last over. Both teams at 130, and the match was to be decided by a bowl-out. Ha ha, say the Hajis. The Pakis are so good at bowling, it's a cinch. (I myself was having internal, horrified flashback of T20 India-Pak bowl-out...) And so it went. The Hyderbad Heroes kept their heads at a time they needed to. Their bowlers did what presumably all bowlers across the world, from indoor drawing-room cricket, to gully-cricket, to net-practice to international level cricket bowlers are supposed to do, viz. hit the stumps. The Lahore Badshahs screwed it all up in the end. Zero out of three hits. The Heroes got a healthy three out of four hits and it was all over. Poor Inzy, having to apologize over and over and over for his team's infuriating performances. Ah, well, still can't help loving them. 'Hai jazbaa-e-junoon toh himmat na haar' etc.
Saving grace: Abdul Razzaq won Man of the Series, a trophy woth Rs 1 crore and a cheque of Rs 40 lacs.
In the meanwhile I learnt that ManU had just barely drawn with Middlesborough, giving Chelsea a very good chance to take the top spot of the EPL. Grrr. Rooney came in with a late equaliser or else it was another huge upset in keeping with the day's events thus far. So now Man United are only three points ahead on the table at 77.

Later on in the night (the damn Sunday just wasn't getting over), I managed to catch Rafael Nadal lose the Sony Ericsson final, 6-2, 6-4, to Davydenko. I mean, I like Nikolay, but I wanted Rafa to win, okay???
A few hours later, in the middle of the night, Sister, Ozz, Suhail and self were playing spades. Girls versus boys. We drew at one game all after a sensational landslide victory in the first round. It was not a good feeling.

All in all, this Sunday was a write off. As Skinny rightly mentioned, I was in a 'talk to me and I'll kill you' mood.

Pics stolen off: formula1.com, EPL site, ICL site, espn