RIP Antonio Puerta

In a world of sports, players and sports people are constantly pushed to the limits in terms of physicality and mentality. It's always surprising to see supposed healthy sportsman getting sickness as we all know that actively doing sports is good for healthy.

But in recent times, more and more sports players seemed to succumb to heart problems and only on Sunday, Sevilla and Spanish wing-back, Antonio Puerta, collapsed midway through the game and after 2 days in the intensive care unit, he sadly passed away.

Condolences to his family members. I've personally never seen him play and his name doesn't ring a bell but it's always sad to see a bright and rising star leaving just like that.




In another case, the death of Rhys Davies, the 11 year old kid from Liverpool, has brought two rival clubs together for the same cause tonight. The boy was shot and died a week ago and as an Everton support since birth, the Blues of course did make their own arrangement for his commemoration.

But the respectable thing Liverpool did will be tonight when the Reds face Toulouse in the Champions League qualifier. Players will wear black armbands in remembrance of him while Everton's theme song, Z-Cars, will be played before 'You'll Never Walk Alone' just before the game.

It's a tragic moment which united the hearts of two different camps. Bitterness and hatred might still dwell within the two teams but ultimately, it was for the cause of their city. Two clubs it might be, it's still one city.

Fair play.

Oh Pleat....

As I was watching the Tottenham vs Sevilla UEFA (Yoofa) Cup game last night, I can't help but laugh at the way David Pleat pronounces the player's name. I mean, you sure he used to be a manager? If he's my manager and he can't pronounce my name properly then it is really saddening!

Anyway, the volume of my TV wasn't very loud but I could so clearly hear all the wrong pronunciation and all. It made me giggle:

• "Good evening, everyone!" - I've NEVER heard a commentator do the opening speech like him, until last...evening :)
• "Yoofa Cup" - You guessed, UEFA Cup
• Shimbomba - Seriously? Chimbonda? (Shim-bon-da)
  
• Tayno - Teemu Tainio (Ta-i-nio)
  
• Malbranck - Steed Malbranque (Mal-Bronk)
• Sevillia - Sevilla (Se-vee-ya)
• Jaynus - Jermaine Jenas
  

This are just some funny pronunciation picked out. I shan't continue on with all the weird things he say like how Spurs should throw everyone up front and let Robinson do the sweeper role when they're 2-0 down.

But here's the big compilation by the F365 people during the World Cup. I beg you, don't drink anything now. If you spill your drink out, I'm not held responsible.

* "Liz Azaru" (Bixente Lizarazu)
* "Kakarrr" (Kaká)
* "Dirk Kurt" (Dirk Kuyt)
* "Drogbarrr" (Didier Drogba)
* "Adrianianho" (Adriano)
* "Mack-cher-arno" (Javier Mascherano)
* "Riqwelme" & "Rick Elm" (Juan Román Riquelme)
* "In-ga-zee" (Filippo Inzaghi)
* "Ronald Deano" (Ronaldinho)
* "Pear-lo" (Andrea Pirlo)
* "Poil" (Carles Puyol)
* "Inn-esta" (Andres Iniesta)
* "Doo-Roy", "Dough-Roy" and "Hoyte" (different player) (Johan Djourou)
* "Rays" (Jose Antonio Reyes)
* "Roque Junior" (Roque Santa Cruz - entirely different nationality and player)
* "Vieira" (Christian Vieri)
* "Sevilia" (Sevilla FC - the club)
* "Yung-berg" (Fredrik Ljungberg)
* "Marcus Da Beasley" (DaMarcus Beasley)
* "Ayorla" (Roberto Ayala)
* "Gilar-dinho", "Gilardini" and "Gilard Dean" - all in the space of 90 minutes (Alberto Gilardino)
* "Marqwez" (Rafael Marquez)
* "Heintzer" (Gabriel Heinze)
* "Shev-shenko" (Andriy Shevchenko)
* "Louie Garcia" (Luis Garcia)
* "Jockin", "Joe-Quinn" "Way-kin" (Joaquin)
* "More Reno" (Jose Mourinho)
* "Cliche" (Gael Clichy)
* "Trazago" (David Trezeguet)
* "Evrice" (Patrice Evra)


1...2...3.. Let's laugh at him.

EDIT: Patrick from SquadGod has listed another few golden lines from Mr. Pleat

"There's a little bit of a South American touch, if that's not Irish, about this European side, Portugal"

"I was inbred into the game by my father"

"There's Thierry Henry, exploding like the French train that he is"

"If there are any managers out there with a bottomless pit, I'm sure that they would be interested in these two Russians"

"At this moment there is not a problem at this moment"

Genius.

Football Turning Into WWE?

As we plow through the websites and newspapers for the latest in the world of football, sometimes you wonder if it's all turning into a huge fracas, or should I say, into WWE. We all know the World Wrestling Entertainment are just there fore entertainment and what you see on TV are all made up for show. Is football in danger of turning into one of those sports where people can no longer be serious about?

Similarities between football and wrestling:
- Constant whining and 'talking big, does little'
- Inept referees. Or, just pure cr*p.
- Divers and actors as the protagonists of the game
- Violence

I'm not the biggest fan or in fact, I stopped watching it after I found Liverpool. Although I was young at that time, perhaps 9 or so. But I wasn't naive. I was adamant that it's just an entertainment show because I don't believe humans that big of a size can be made to look like such an utter buffoon.

One thing that turns me off regarding wrestling is of course the predictability of it. It's so predictable that it's laughable. I don't think I want to bother to write about it because anyone who watches more than an hour of it can tell. It's not rocket scientist's job.

Managers whining. How predictable. Every week you'll get at least 3 managers going to the media slamming the officials and the FA. Then you'll get news of the FA punishing the manager which cost peanuts. Rinse and repeat, that certainly made the job of a football journalist a lot easier.

Wenger did have a point in his argument regarding last night's FA Cup replay, where he saw his Gunners crashed to a 1-0 defeat to a very unaesthetic Blackburn side. But does he really think that by saying all those words will make the referee change his decision or does anything to help the state of football? It's obviously not and it just makes football manager look rather foolish and short sighted.

Then again who can blame him when the referee in the spot light is none other than Mr. Graham 'Three Card' Poll. It's even more apt for me to mention football and wrestling because the similarity between the two are that the referees are rather useless. I'm not saying ALL the football referees are rubbish but the standard of refereeing is really shambolic. Might as well revert back to amateur football where the players themselves are referees.

Mark Hughes did himself proud as well by mentioning that his Blackburn side deserves everything to go through to the next round as they managed to stop Arsenal over 180 minutes. And they say 'Comical Ali' of the former Iraqi regime is gone. I think not, his spirit lies in every manager. Self deluding and often, their quotes are so laughable that it stinks.

Last but not the least, Spanish football is not my forte but I think it's worth a mention because it seriously concerns me when it comes to violence and it seemed like the violence have escalated in the game and something must be done.



Italian football was hit by the death of a policeman and now, someone nearly murdered Sevilla's manager, Juande Ramos, during the Copa Del Rey match between Seville and Betis. After Sevilla took the lead through Freddy Kanoute, someone from the crowd sent a bottle flying into Ramos' head and he went down, unconscious. Good thing to know he's alright now but are football fans still such a rowdy and barbaric bunch despite better education in those countries?

A sad state of affair and nothing done. With this going on, it'll be from football to wrestling and then circus.

Carlos Diogo vs Luis Fabiano

Well, a heated conversation. Then a little head butt....then...



Grown man fighting like 7 year old kids. Disgraceful. To me, it looked like the fighting scene in those Chinese 'wayang' show. Tok tok, CHIANG!