The same old story

2014 world cup, for me, has been pretty much only about goals, attractive attacking moves and beautiful finishes.
Speaking of beautiful finishes, I can not stop thinking about Luis Suarez at the moment. Whether in general or particularly against England, he is apparently a player with immense intelligence. I mean, what can I say, having that kind of composure and steadiness in front of goal, seriously, genius! Not to mention his bite against Italy doesn't really help the point that I'm trying to make here but just for the sake of it lets keep discipline aside for a second.
Now I really want to talk about the team that was on the receiving end of those two amazing goals from Suarez, England. Well, they had quite some hype before coming into this world cup. In-fact I believe they went into this tournament as one of the favorites for reaching the knockout stages. I was talking to a friend of mine this morning and i noticed that he persisted on the fact that England were just a victim of bad luck and nothing was wrong with the way the played. I believe its not just him, but a lot of people out there believe that. However I have strongly mixed feelings.
No doubt, England had a good squad on paper. It was definitely not a crazy idea to believe that they could go all the way.
But the truth is England are out yet again. Things seem to work very little for them when it comes to big tournaments and pressure situations. Like everyone else, I too wonder why?

I've tried looking for apparent answers in their game play. I do not have any sure data on their team chemistry so talking about that wouldn't be quite fair. Although i have come across a lot of people who believe that team chemistry is the reason for their perpetual failure in such tournaments. I have no comments on that what so ever.

A couple of reasons why I think the England team has had to see an early exit are

1. English football is commonly known to be high paced and direct. Depending only on speed in
a tournament where top quality sides with coaches of advanced tactical game plans and spontaneity participate, apparently doesn't really work out.

2. England's game reminded me of the traditional Spanish bull fighting. English players ran around like mindless bulls trying to play the same quick bang-bang game that they play in the premier league. Strange metaphor i know but an apt one for sure, non-the-less. No doubt premier league is a difficult league, but the problem that we may overlook here is that most teams in the league play the same pacy game, so there is never a new challenge or as I would say same old same old. I'm sure you get the gist of what I'm trying to say.

On a more happy and exciting note, the world cup has reached its last four stage and so far it has been all about surprises. Eagerly waiting for the semifinals to kick off. hope you enjoyed reading my view points, Thanks.

Fall of an empire

Last night, the world witnessed a humble end to an elegant and dominant era, even if I don't exactly agree to it, at-least that is what I am getting to hear every where this morning. Spain are packed up and are being sent home from Brazil after their second group stage loss to Chile. It really is surprising considering how successful La Roja have been for the last half of the decade.Not to mention, their tiki-taka brand of football combined with the number of young technically gifted players that they have up their sleeves apparently promised a long future of Spanish dominance in World football.
However, I refuse to bend towards public opinion and write them off just yet.

Here are a few excuses that may help us understand why they haven't fared that well this time, yes i said "excuses" because after winning three back to back major international trophies you are certainly allowed to mess up one or two of them and earn the rights to give excuses.

1.Okay so, to begin with I think La Roja missed the David villa factor this time. A lethal and versatile finisher, because when we talk about tiki-taka, it is not just about keeping possession of the ball and playing short passes in the middle of the park, you need a responsible, intelligent, efficient striker who can take charge up front and finish off the through balls. Leo Messi in case of Barcelona.
Suppose if you do not have that striker, you can keep possession all day long and i'll keep defending you with a good line and you'll never score in your life. Come on, this is international football for heaven sake! defenders of other teams are world renowned athletes, they aren't going to allow you to score that easily if you don't have anything special for them.
Yes i know that contradictory to my views Spain won the Euro 2012 without David Villa. Let alone him, they won it with a false nine formation(its a formation where there is no striker), its perfectly true, but I would  rather say that it is only so many times in a life time can you say that a football team has won an international trophy with out a striker. My point being, Villa was in a league of his own and Diego Costa is not the villa material. So yes, I think I've made my point. :D

2. The Puyol factor was missed. I think ever since Barcelona burst into the headlines with their innovative tiki-taka format under Pep Guardiola in 2009, there was always a sense of immense security at their back in the form of Puyol that let them keep the ball in the middle of the park with so much comfort and ease. I also feel that he was the reason why Pique and Valdes get a lot of undeserved credit that they have, for the last couple of years. Nothing against the two them but I highly doubt they'd be anywhere nearly as successful as they have been, without the beast.


3. I am not sure but i don't think adapting to the South American climate played a big part in their exit, because teams like Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Croatia, are proving it otherwise.  

To sum it up I believe David Villa was a nightmare to every defender in the world. Carles Puyol was a nightmare to every striker in the world. More over Puyol was like a fearless BEAST and soldier who put his body on the line every time he played football for his club or country. It is very difficult to find such authentic and committed players in today's generation.

To conclude, it is quite apparent that La Roja are a sea of talent and it shouldn't be very difficult for them to find a David Villa version 2.0 and a Carles Puyol version 2.0. :)

I am thoroughly enjoying this world cup, i'm sure its likewise with you too, have fun!
That's it for now, Adios!

BRAZIL 2014

It is a beautiful time of the year, we have the much awaited monsoon here in Mumbai, after the unbearable heat that made life so hard for the last couple of months.
Well, on another note, the world cup is finally back and needless to say, for a football lover like me, its like a carnival, like the happiest two months in the last four years, like the...I don't know, its just wonderful!
So as i enjoy this beautiful tournament for the next month and half, I really want to share my verdicts, views, opinions, dos, don'ts with you. Your opinion is welcome(only just keep it clean please :)).

Alright so, I think Brazil is a good one to begin with.
In their opening match with Croatia, the formation they went for was 4-2-3-1. Back line had Dani Alves, Thiago Silva, David Luiz, Marcelo.
Defensive midfield had Gustavo and Paulinho
Attacking midfield had Hulk, Neymar, Oscar
Fred was the lone Striker.

Now what i have noticed so far is that Dani alves loves to go up front from the right hand side but Marcelo on the other hand is quite reluctant to help with the attack from the left. I reckon more than 90% of the attack was from the right. So teams that want to do well against Brazil must find a way to break the play when Alves is on top, counter attack from that wing before Gustavo fills in for Alves.

I think that's what happened during the Croatia goal. Alves was caught up front and Olic attacked from that wing. Thiago Silva waited too long for Gustavo to come and take his place so that he could go and contain Olic down the wing. i think teams can exploit that little bit of "time" that the brazillian defence takes to adjust on Alves' absence.

Well other than that, I think they have good fire power up front. Brazil should see this tournament through without much problems. Big Contenders!
Alright, that's it for now, I shall be back with more! cheers!

   

10 NEW THINGS TO LEARN

1. One of the biggest machine in the world is the SMEC earth-mover used in opencast mines in Australia. It weighs 180 tonnes and has wheels 3.5 m high.

2. Michael Faraday (1791-1867) was one of the greatest scientist of the 19th century. He started his work as an apprentice bookbinder but became assistant to the great scientist Humphry Davy after taking brilliant notes at one of Davy's lectures.
Faraday is said to be Davy's greatest discovery.
In 1821, Faraday discovered that the magnetism created by an electric current would make a magnet move and so made a very simple version of an electric motor.
In 1831, Faraday showed that when a magnet is moved close to an electric wire, it creates or induces an electric current in the wire.
Michael Faraday was probably the greatest experimenter of all times.

3. The electrical resistance of dry skin is 5,00,000 ohms; wet skin's is just 1000 ohms.

4. Plastics are made by joining carbon and hydrogen atoms. These form ethene molecules which can be joined to make a plastic called "polythene".

5. A force is a push or pull. It can make something start to move, slow down or speed up, change direction or change shape or size. The greater the force, the more effect it has.
The thrust of Saturn V's rocket engines was 33 million newtons.

6. Light takes millions of years to reach us from distant galaxies, so we see them not as they are but as they were a million years ago.

7. Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794) was a brilliant French scientist who is regarded as the founder of modern chemistry.
Lavoisier was the first person to realize that air is essentially a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen.
He discovered that water is a compound of hydrogen and oxygen.

8. Tungsten has the highest melting point of any metal present on earth that is 3410°C

9. Pierre and Marie Curie were the husband and wife scientists who discovered the nature of radioactivity. In 1903 they won a Nobel prize.

10. Phone calls across the ocean go one way by satellite and the other by undersea cable to avoid delays.

10 NEW THINGS TO LEARN

1. To help defend Syracuse against Roman attackers, in 216 b.c, Archimedes invented many war machines.They included an awesome 'claw' a giant grappling crane that could lift galleys from the water and sink them.

2. One of the strongest magnets in the world is at Lawrence Berkeley National       Laboratory, California, USA, Its field is 250,000 times stronger than the Earths!

3. A song can shatter glass if the pitch of a loud note coincides with the natural frequency of the glass.

4. Each year 21 million tonnes of aluminium are made mostly from Bauxite dug up in Brazil and New Guinea.

5. Some types of rubber can be stretched up to 1000 times beyond its original length before it reaches its elastic limit.

6. The oxygen in the air on which your life depends was produced mainly by algae.

7. On August 2, 1939 Albert Einstein wrote a letter to US President Franklin Roosevelt in which he persuaded the president to launch the Manhattan Project to develop the nuclear bomb.

8. If an atom were the size of a sports arena, its nucleus would be the size of a pea!

9. Cosmic rays are not rays but streams of high energy particles from space.

10. The water pressure 10,000 m  below the surface is equivalent to seven elephants standing on a dinner plate!