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Thursday, August 30, 2007

Chak Diya India Ne

In a rarest of rarest delight for Indian football fans India lifted the Nehru cup after defeating Syria a very high ranked team 39 places to be precise (another rare for India). This is the first time India has lifted the Nehru cup in total 13 attempts.



All are saying that the face of Indian football will change with this, I don't think this even in my dreams.

Era of Indian football when it came 4th in Olympics in 1956 will never come back in the coming 60-70 years I am damn sure about it. But all kudos to the coach Bob Houghten for doing such good work for Indian football.




p.s This is the 200th post though posts in the past month has decreased considerably as all are busy but still we have crossed the 200 barrier in less than a year time

Thursday, August 16, 2007

60 Years in 60 Words

All about Indian Sports , last 6 decades

  1. P.T. Usha ,
  2. Jeev Milkha Singh,
  3. Bishen Singh Bedi,
  4. Gundappa Vishwanath,
  5. Baichung Bhutia,
  6. Kapil Dev,
  7. Mohinder Amarnath ,
  8. Geet Sethi,
  9. Pankaj Advani,
  10. Sachin Tendulkar,
  11. Saurav Ganguly,
  12. Anil Kumble,
  13. Rahul Dravid,
  14. Sandip Patil ,
  15. Leander Paes,
  16. Mahesh Bhupati,
  17. Karnam Malleshwari,
  18. Sunil Gavaskar,
  19. Prakash Padukone,
  20. Viswanathan Anand,
  21. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore,
  22. Vijay Amritraj,
  23. Dhanraj Pillay,
  24. Pargat Singh,
  25. Naryan Kartikeyan,
  26. Abhinav Bindra,
  27. Anjali Bhagwat,
  28. Samresh Jung,
  29. Dinko Singh,
  30. Hawa Singh,
  31. Jyoti Randhawa
  32. Arjun Atwal,
  33. Limba Ram,
  34. Anju Bobby George
  35. Jyotirmoyee Sikdar
  36. T. C. Yohannan
  37. Gagan Ajit Singh
  38. Chetan Baboor
  39. Saina Nehwal
  40. Aparna Popat
  41. Pullela Gopichand
  42. Sania Mirza
  43. Koneru Humpi
  44. Dola Banerjee
  45. Khazan Singh
  46. Pataudi
  47. Vijay Hazare
  48. Erapalli Anatharao Prasanna
  49. Javagal Srinath
  50. Dilip Vengsarkar
  51. Kris Shrikant
  52. Kabaddi Team
  53. Jaspal Rana
  54. Mihir Sen
  55. K. Kunjarani Devi
  56. Saurav Ghoshal
  57. Khali (WWE :) )
  58. All Politicians who head the various Committees
  59. Indian Fans specially of cricket
  60. Coaches and Trainers
If i missed someone do tell me :)

As commented by saurabh I missed some important players

Azhar
Ramesh Krishnan
Ramanathan Krishnan



To adjust these 3 players we have to strike out the football player and other 2 could be Saina Nehwal and Pargat Singh

Thanks saurabh :)





Wednesday, August 8, 2007

2 days to go!!

We are almost there.......Its the 8th of August and in a couple of days, when referee Graham Poll, puts his whistle to mouth, Tottenham and Sunderland will set the ball rolling to start off one of the most eagerly awaited English Premier League ever.



Yes, every time it looks like--"This" time is the most awaited EPL. But, to me there have never been as many contenders to the EPL. Well, speaking from my brain, I would say Chelsea are favorites--simply because of the depth in their squad. There have
been very few notable exclusions apart from Robben(Has his transfer to Madrid finalised?), and yet they have signed Florent Malouda, Sidwell, Telal Ben Haim. And I wont be surprised if Ballack and Sheva have a bigger impact this time round.




Generally, the foreign players take an year or two to settle down in the EPL. Everyone do their normal business. Terry will be a rock, Cech will be reliable as ever, Dargar,oh sorry Drogba will continue from where he left last season.....etc etc. But, to me, what puts them ahead of Man Utd is, the one year of English football experiance that Ballack and Sheva will carry. No one ever doubted the quality that these two possessed. I think these 2 are too good players to perform badly for two season in a row. (Lots of 'to's eh!!)

Manchester United to me, are second favorites, marginally behind Chelsea. While they will welcome with open arms, the Paul Collingwood of English football--Owen Hargreaves





and the highly talented Nani(I assume he is highly talented since he is from Portugal and the Brazilians speak Portugese right!!) and Pederson(was that the other guy's name?), they will be praying that their solid back four of Vidic, Fedinand, Evra and Neville carry on from where they left last season. I thought, the form and more importantly, the injury free'ness of these four was a reason often overlooked because of the huhaha behind Cristiano Ronaldo.






No doubt, Mr.Basu had a great season, but defence is such a non-glamorous part of football, that I wont blame people if they forgot the United back four.

Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that it is very very unlikely that these four will be as injury free as last season and hence the defence might just struggle.

Liverpool......well I thought I would leave this for Raja or Abhishek to complete. Anyway, I will make an honest attempt to assess their chances. On first sight, it looks like they are too much dependent on Gerrard. But they have made a couple of decent signings, in Babel and Benayoun. While Babel brings some fresh legs into the Liverpool strike force, Benayoun's experiance of playing in England and the





creativity he posesses might just be what Liverpool may be looking for. Solid defence and disciplined football has always been their forte, and i dont expect that to change. Like Shave and Ballack, I expect Kuyt(probably Liverpool's best player last season) to improve and the arrival of fellow dutchman, Rayen Babel, might just make him feel better. I think Torres will be a flop. Big statement?? May be. But, anyway.....lets see.


Totenham look good, with the ever improving Berbatov threatening to replace Henry as premiership's best striker. They have been improving consistently over the past few years. This might be the season, where they might break into the top four.

Last season's surprise package was Portsmouth. Remember, they were second in the league for a couple of monhts into the season. And to finish in the top 10 after almost being relegated the previous season was a commendable achievemnt. This season's surprise package could be West Ham. Yes, they have lost Tevez. But a look at their strike force of -- Bobby Zamora, Dean Ashton and Carlton Cole and the midfield of Freddie Ljungberg and Scott Parker tells me that they could be a force to reckon with. Dont be surprised if they make a top 8 finish


I will come to MY team in another post!!!

Monday, August 6, 2007

Van Der Sar – Man, U did it!!

Nobody was sent out, No serious injuries, No physical combats and performances at par, and thus there was dawn of the football season. Manchester United and Chelsea met at the Wembley to fight for the Community shield and the so much celebrated rivalry was revisited in a nonetheless dramatic fashion.

Chelsea was weakened by absence of the in-form-of-his-life striker Drogba and skipper Terry. And Ballack and Shevy couldn’t be spotted as well, giving chance to a lot many players to play a full length game against their famous rivals. Man U drew first blood, when in the 35th skipper Ryan Giggs put one behind the net on a Patrick Evra assist.

Chelsea came back in the game as Malouda did some exceptional work to take the ball past Van Der Sar with a left foot flick causing him a sprain in his thigh. Later he was substituted by Claudio Pizzaro.

The game went to the penalties and Van Der Sar rocked. He saved consecutive penalties shot by Claudio Pizarro, Frank Lampard and Shaun Wright-Philips while Peter Cech wasn’t able to wall out the hits of Rio Ferdinand, Michael Carrick and Wayne Rooney.

The victorious goal keeper told in an interview "It's a little revenge for the cup final and also gives us a boost before the start of the league. I've never saved three penalties in a row. I was 5-2 down on penalty shootouts during my career, so this makes it 5-3.”

Sunday, August 5, 2007

Rhain : The Wonder Kid

He is Nine.

His shots are compared to Rooney's.

His tricks are compared to C.Ronaldo's.

He is Rhain Davis.

This Brisbane born, Australian wonder kid has been signed by Manchester United.

His grandfather sent a DVD of the youngster in action to the Premiership Champions. Sir Alex Ferguson was impressed enough to invite him to move to England and train with the club.

He is required to earn a full-time scholarship with United, which is awrded to promising 12-year old football geniuses.

Have a look at why United was impressed.