what a messi

messi scores in the 42nd minute as argentina opens its campaign as defending olympics champions

(photo courtesy of AP)

let him play for his country, barça, growls svelte rogue, backed by the entire defending champion team of argentina.  and to bring home the point more emphatically, check out who scored the only goal in the first half of the argentina-ivory coast football match of the 2008 beijing summer games?  none other than football prodigy lionel, the 21-yr old runner-up to fifa player of the year cristiano ronaldo.

I understand the position of the club because a lot is at stake, … but they also have to understand that it is my dream to play for my national team at the Olympic Games — Lionel Messi

sure, there is the champions league qualifying match to play next week, but nothing compares to playing for your country’s glory in the biggest sporting event on the planet.  nothing.

euro kings after 44 years

24 years ago, in 1984, they had the chance of winning it all when they reached the final of the european football competition but were beaten by michel platini and his les bleus in a heartbreaking match. 

nearly half a century ago, in 1964, they won their first european championship title.  since then, they have struggled to reach the big stage, becoming known as a talented team that chokes when it most matters.  but not anymore.  not last night.  suddenly the world cup 2010 is looking brighter for this young team of under 30 players.

fernando torres is surrounded by his spain teammates after scoring in the euro 2008 final in the 33rd minute against germany

after overturning the curse of june 22 in their quarterfinal victory over italy, spain strode forth on the pitch of vienna against the six-time euro cup finalist germany, hoping to hoist the championship trophy.

on the strength of fernando torres’ speed, determination, and will, spain are delirious.  from madrid to barcelona to valencia to vienna (and even to wimbledon where rafael nadal and his spanish compatriots watched the final together), spanish fans are beside themselves with joy and you can expect them to fiesta long into the night.

rafa, you have a key match tomorrow against mikhail youzhny — please don’t let this sap your strength or lower your focus, ok?

VIVA ESPAÑA!

winning with a capital S!

serb #2 janko tipsarevic 

S is for serbia.  you read it in my previous entry, how andy roddick was upset on day 4 of wimbledon and how.  his conqueror who nearly took him to five sets (which roddick made sure didn’t happen with his horrendous error count) was the same man who took roger federer to five thrilling sets at this year’s australian open, serbian janko tipsarevic.  one day after his friend and compatriot novak djokovic fell to the charismatic russian marat safin, tipsarevic kept serbian hopes alive in his stirring centre court victory.  he has admitted that he brings his best game on the big stage of centre courts but falters when he’s facing lower-ranked opponents on outer courts, an aspect of his mentality and game that he hopes to eliminate. 

a surefire top 10′r in teenage sensation from latvia, ernests gulbis

S is for spanish rafael nadal, mi rafalito, who overcame the brilliant latvian, ernests gulbis, in four sets in a thrilling second round match on court 1 yesterday.  gulbis took the first set on the strength of his killer serves, punishing forehand, and deft dropshots and volleys at the net that had rafa scrambling and tumbling on the grass.  in the second set, however, rafa adjusted court position to better return gulbis’ second serves, moving back a few metres, a tactic that started to pay dividends as he broke the teenager early on and race away with the set.  after the third set tiebreaker, i heaved a sigh of relief — he had weathered the crisis moments of the match and i was confident he would be able to close out the match in the fourth, which he did by 6 games to 4.

after struggling to come to terms with gulbis’ powerful and precise play…

… rafa triumphs after four thrilling sets.  vamos!

S is for spain!  three goals from xavi hernandez, daniel guiza, and david silva were more than enough to prove spain’s brilliance in offence, attractive football, an unbeaten record at the euro 2008 tournament so far, and a fitting titlist — hopefully!!! — after 44 years.  russia could not do much to prevent the spanish squad from moving forward, with amazing passing from cesc fabregas in the last ten minutes of the game to set up silva for the third goal. 

david silva and cesc fabregas following their third goal

didn’t i say rafa had a nose for victory?  in his press conference, he said that a win and only a win is what he expected out of last night’s outcome.   if rafa says so, it will be so, it seems.  now i wish he is thinking the same thing about his wimbledon chances this year.  please, my sweet, wipe out the sad terrible memory of last year’s final?

a taste of their own medicine

for a team as lucky as turkey has been in the euro 2008 tournament thus far, you would have to say that their lucky 3 would have been tonight in their semi-final encounter with germany in basel, switzerland.  down 2-1 in the last 12 minutes of regular time, turkish hero sehmik slotted in the ball past the outstretched arms of a disjointed jens lehman and i thought, ok we’re heading into extra time.

but phillip lahm, defensive nightmare of germany the entire evening, decided to put an end to his dismal performance by putting in the winning goal in the 90th minute, catapulting the less-than-impressive german side into its 6th european final.

personally i had been hoping turkey would pull off yet another magical victory as they had conjured against the czech republic and croatia.  they played brilliant attacking football, confidently handling the ball in the german’s half for most of the 90 minutes.  but this is sport, and anything can happen.  as it did tonight.  looks like lady fate decided that it was germany’s turn to have that magical piece of luck.

if rafa says so… it could happen!

he did tip his national side to win the euro 2008 title last week.  he is a fan of real madrid who won the primera liga title this year.  he was the favourite to win both the french open and queens championships.

cesc fabregas’ winning penalty; spain wins 4-2 after a goalless draw

the guy has winner written all over him!  i do believe spain can go all the way now that they got through the tricky penalty shootout against a team they haven’t beaten since 1920.  add to that the crazy pattern of spain always losing in penalty shootouts of major tournaments scheduled on june 22.  see:  world cup 1986, euro 1996, and world cup 2002.  (rafa’s uncle, the “beast of barcelona”, was one of the ill-fated penalty kickers in that heartbreaking 1996 campaign!)

viva españa!

euro 2008 updates

the first of the four quarterfinal matches kick off tonight with germany vs portugal.  who are you rooting for?  will michael ballack impress his new coach?  and if he does, will his new coach hate his guts for beating the portuguese side of which the new chelsea coach is also national manager?  what to do?

following is an e-mail exchange between my brother and i on the latest sports shake-ups, especially the euro 2008.  (my brother and i are both sports enthusiasts; he’s into american sports, being a sports psychologist while i, well, i’m just a sports lovin’ fanatic through and through)

first, my e-mail to my brother:

for one moment of glory…

…  tiger would sacrifice his health — and season.
 
some people were simply made for high drama!
 
meanwhile, in the warm-ing pitches of austria and switzerland, eight teams continue to vie for football glory second only to the world cup in the quarterfinals of the euro 2008!
 
in two days’ time, the draws for this year’s wimbledon championships will be out.  one of the burning questions in what promises to be one of the most exciting championships in the last three years is: who gets novak djokovic, rafa or roger?  personally, if nole lands in rafa’s half, it just might be the perfect practice match to prepare him to roll over roger, the same pattern at the french open! 
 
it’s hotting up, it’s hotting up…
 
ps: were any of you fans of either the lakers or the celtics in the 80s?  kapanahunan nina magic johnson, larry bird, kevin mchale, kareem abdul jabbar, at robert parrish?  because… i was a celtics fan through and through (we nicked the lakers by one championship for the upper hand in that exciting decade — for some, hindi exciting kasi parati yung dalawa lang ang nasa finals come june pero for a fan, sweet times!) and last night… well, the celtics earned its 17th league title championship!  woohoooooo!
 
summer 2008 is just beginning… and i’m having heart attacks already!  wala pang beijing, wala pang US open, wala pang year end championships!

then my brother’s reply:

yo lara,
 
so what’s the latest with euro 2008?  haven’t been following it. 
 
as chuchi would put it, tiger sold his soul to the devil.  did you see all the drama during the 3rd round?  astig… http://youtube.com/watch?v=p4JI1_iUJRQ
 
and erratum: lakers nicked us by two titles in the 80′s
 
celtics – ’81, ’84, ’86
lakers – ’80, ’82, ’85, ’87, ’88

doesn’t matter though.  celtic banners = 17, lakers = 10

then my reply with the updates:

wtf!!!! shit, i thought we were supreme in the 80s!  tangna! 
 
i got blinded by the 17 titles…  hahaha
 
yep, i think tiger did sell his fucking black asian white soul to the devil.  and for what?  some useless trophy?  he’s still behind nicholson’s record so it’s not like he was going for history… 
 
the guy he’s being compared to in tennis, roger federer, will have just as difficult a time beating pete sampras’ record of 14 grand slams.  you read it here!  bwahahahaha
 
about euro 2008 naman, here are the quarterfinalists (first match is today):
 
1.   portugal vs germany: winner of group A vs runner up group B
2.   croatia vs turkey (you have to read about the come-from-behind dramatic victory of turkey over the czech republic!  peter cech, czech goalkeeper — yeah i know kakalito talaga — fumbled an easy cross in the 87th minute when czech rep was up 2-1, which nikta capitalised on by tying.  two minutes later, in the 89th minute, nikta scored again, bringing turkey to 3-2.  galing diba?  that cech should leave chelsea — malas sa buhay yung team na yon!  let them try their fortunes with scolari but i personally wish chelsea’s big players like drogba and lampard go to inter milan where jose mourinho will be in charge next season!  woohoooo!):  winner of group B vs runner up group A
3.   holland vs russia:  winner of group C vs runner-up group D
4.   spain vs italy:  winner of group D vs runner-up group C

ang saya diba??????  i mean, who do you root for?  i think i’ll be giving the edge to portugal tonight although i don’t mind jogi low and his michael ballack-captained team to move to the semi’s but how can you stop an inspired deco-ronaldo-scolari team up?  i don’t see it, unless podolski sniffs out the goals and fires them all in for the deutschland.
sa croatia vs turkey, man, croatia plays such a clean (aka technical) game that you can’t help but love them.  plus i love their kits.  but turkey, although playing in the euro 2008, is also an asian team!  hehehe and i admire the guts of arda and nikta, the saviours of their team against the czechs… plus their goalkeeper is cute.  how’s that for my assessment of that quarterfinal?  LOL
 
holland vs russia naman, goodness, marc van basten and the oranje are really setting the tournament alight with their beautiful football and goal-fest.  take this:  they beat the two world cup finalists back to back in the last eight days, beating italy 3-0 and france 4-1.  they could have played a reserve side against rumania and risked losing, but they fielded a reserve side that still pipped rumania 2-0, giving them the full 9 points of glory.  russia is managed by the effective, efficient, master tactician guus hiddink, the same dutch dude who brought south korea to the semi-finals of the world cup in 2002 and brought australia (a non-performing bunch of socceroos) some dignity in world cup 2006.  in their match last night against sweden to fight for the last quarterfinals berth, hiddink’s genius was manifest in the way he marshalled his troops into an early offensive attack, which yielded a pavlyuchenko goal early in 24th minute.  hiddink was able to solidify a very young squad against a disorganised, uninspired (read: uninventive!) swedish side that boasted of superstars in ibrahimovic, larsson, and lundgren (sp?).  nakakaaliw ang russians, super young faced talaga.  kaso walang itim, parang sa sweden din.  baaaah.  so again, in this quarterfinal, it is hard to pick one team over the other.
 
in the last quarterfinal, spain vs italy, another conundrum!  i LOVE both teams, both fiery and passionate, and capable of the beautiful game.  drawbacks?  spain is known to peak early in a tournament, doing well in the group stages and then choking in the knockout stages.  world cup 06, anyone?  italy, once ahead, tends to resort to negative football, keeping the ball back, playing solid defense without trying to push forward and create opportunities up front.  advantages?  spain has a stellar line-up in valencia’s david villa (hitherto unheralded but watch his price tag go up after this tournament!  he scored a hat trick for spain in their inspired victory against italy), liverpool’s fernando torres, and the likes of xabi alonso, ramos, and keeper reina.  they play rushing, flowing football, and the linking between midfield and the forwards is pleasure to watch.  italy, on the other hand, has a solid performing squad used to high pressure moments — it’s a pity that canavarro is injured as they have really missed his leadership and solid defense on the pitch, but they still have grosso, the left-footed midfielder who scored the winning penalty against france in 2006, the tall (though not too quick of foot) striker of bayern munich lucas toni, their amazing world-class keeper buffon (he kept italy’s hopes alive in this tournament with a magnificent save off a mutu penalty in their clash with rumania), and who can forget potty-mouthed materazzi?  my favourite athlete, rafa nadal, thinks spain can take the crown this year, and that kiddo has a nose for victory — he is a staunch real madrid supporter and that team has certainly shown its chops by winning the primera liga title this season (three dutch players are in real:  van nistelrooy, robben, and sneijder).  so talagang torn ako!!!!  LOL
 
ok na bang update yon?  i have a life, too, ha, it’s not just all sports.
 
speaking of which….
 
french grand prix this weekend — lewis the hamster idiot has been penalised ten places on the grid along with fellow idiot nico rosberg of williams for their stupid blunder in montreal…  i hope kimi recovers his form and shows felipe massa who the real cutie is.    as for robert kubica, i hope he gets on the podium!  i actually want him to be this year’s world champion…  i have a soft spot for geeky looking guys.
 
the draws for wimbledon come out tomorrow……..  so many permutations but hell, i just hope rafa is triumphant on the second sunday!  down with the swiss babalino!!!
 
lara babes

bad ruudy lights up bern

 

ruud van nistelrooy, stellar striker of real madrid, fired up the pitch tonight with his brilliant play all throughout a highly entertaining and dramatic encounter in their second group match against france.  although he never got on the scoresheet, he was part of the brilliant third goal which he set up for dribbling ace robben who then set up the brilliant cross for van persie, who then struck with enough force to numb france goalkeeper’s arm for goal number 2. to see what i mean, check out the second video HERE.  check out van nistelrooy in the first few seconds and enjoy his slick back-foot pass that sets up the exciting goal.

it doesn’t hurt that all four scorers tonight were just eye candy to this personality-driven football fan:  kuyt (cute blond and blue eyed guy with an adorable daughter who is the spitting image of dad), van persie (sooo cute, love this arsenal forward!), robben (ok, he’s cute in an off-beat way), and schneijder (oooohhh yes, can i just say, droooool).

i am still hoping italy pulls it off next week when they square off against france in a rematch of their world cup 2006 final showdown… ribery gives me heart attacks with his excellent dribbling and precision but his teammates just suck.  i mean, malouda is ok but without support…  but anelka, gomiz (over-rated, anyone??? or is the kid just nervous?), and nearly over the hill henry just don’t quite have the edge that a singular zinedine zidane brought to their side two years ago.  sorry, even your retired captain was nothing but a sick head butt joke!

in other sedate news on the greens of queens, london… rafa is in the semis!  he beat monster server ivo karlovic in three tightly contested serve-fest sets.  he faces roddick tomorrow.  in the other semi, a mouth-watering clash between nole and nalby!  woohoooooo!  it’s all queens and euro 2008 tomorrow, folks!

quarterfinals at RG, inter unveils mourinho!

so much exciting tennis is happening at roland garros and the biggest headline tomorrow will probably be “world number 1* is knocked out by marat’s younger sister“. fantabulous match and interesting articles have already sprouted up about it, notably from the USA today and tennis.com. both are enjoyable reads — chime in with your opinions if you are so inclined.

tomorrow is the beginning of the quarterfinal matches for the bottom half of the draw at the french open. there are many interesting line-ups tomorrow and if i were to choose a match of the day, on the men’s side the gulbis-djokovic match trumps the nadal-almagro match by a hair, and on the women’s side, the jankovic-navarro match might have more surprises, mainly owing to jelena’s penchant for the dramatic in her matches.

the ivanovic-schnyder match could either be a scintillating winner-filled affair or a crazy rollercoaster match reminiscent of last year’s sharapova-schnyder quarterfinal. what is the common denominator? you see, these swiss misses are firecrackers indeed.

with maria’s defeat today at the hands of sizzling dinara safina, the credible women clay-courters remain. it will be three-setters from hereon out. svetlana kuznetsova and victoria azarenka will be completing their fourth round match on court 1, and if sveta takes it in straights, that won’t count since it’s not yet a quarterfinal match. one thing is for certain: the #1 ranking is up for grabs and the chances either serbian or sveta makes it to the final means that come monday, maria’s reign at the top of the roost will come to an end. three’s a charm, they say, so maybe maria’s third time at #1 might actually have her winning a match to get there!

flummoxed

i hated chelsea last september when they got rid of jose mourinho, their charismatic manager. they brought in israeli avram grant to play nursemaid to roman abramovich’s multimillionaire players and he was with them until the friggin’ champions league final in moscow last wednesday. and then, true to speculation, chelsea dismisses avram grant.

i am pretty ticked off by this turn of events and one thing i can say is: good for you, avram! get away from that fleecebag billionaire who doesn’t know how to appreciate your efforts!

chelsea fans, i’m sorry to say, though i count myself among your numbers, that i’m glad our team didn’t win the CL league title, after all. abramovic does not deserve that plum prize, no way.

feeling blue

you would, too, if you saw john terry slip on the turf last night after nervously or confidently snapping the captain band around his arm in the pouring rain.  the ball hit the bar, far away from the tall and gangly van der saar, and cristiano ronaldo’s start-stop miss earlier was eclipsed on the heartbreak scale.

manchester united, however, are rejoicing their third champions league title 50 years after they first clinched the euro title and the disastrous munich air disaster.  sir alex ferguson must be the luckiest man alive to win his two CL titles on the tip of a penalty shootout.