It may have been a remarkable turnaround for Australia and the neutrals, but not for me.
The team from the country of my birth (Ok, ok, so I am supporting three!) got beaten yesterday in a remarkable first round World Cup Soccer match. My country, Japan, scored a lucky goal early on in the first half to go 1-0 up, clearly against the run of play. Despite heavy pressure from the Roos (Socceroos, nickname they have given themselves), Japan maintained this advantage.
That is, until the 84th minute (out of 90), when we conceded a goal.
During the next eight minutes, Japan were put through the wringer and two more goals for Australia were scored. The one in the 93rd minute, however, I have to say, was an absolute cracking long range shot.
Result: Australia 3, Japan 1.
However, we are not downhearted, to use a classic English idiom. We still have to play Croatia and Brazil (gulp!). We may manage a draw against Brazil (Yeah, right!), but we MUST beat Croatia to stand any chance at all of progressing. If we do, we may not "Roo" any of this!
Well, South Korea play Togo tonight, and I will be supporting the Koreans of course.
The bottom line is, though, that Football should be the real winner, not just individual teams.
....and it was last night.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Oh Woe is ME
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
ok, so Japan and South Korea... would UK be your third supported team?
they did at least win, but i don't think they played well at all. that also seems to be the general consensus now, and that's just fine. every team has off days, and especially since they were winning anyway, they did not have to dig too deep to try and shine.
But what bothered me a little was the commentators during the game. Maybe (probably) it was different in other parts of the world, but in the broadcast here in the USA by ESPN, it seemed like the commentators didn't want to fully admit how poorly the UK team was playing during the game. their reverence (duly earned) of the UK blinded them to what they actually saw in front of their eyes. and only after they must have heard the rest of the world's reaction did they start reporting that the UK actually had a pretty bad game. but then again, i guess that's ok. we in the USA are beginners at this so maybe it's better to be on the cautious side for now.
but about the one goal in that game i have an opinion i'm more adamant about. thoughout the broadcast they replayed it a couple times and every time the commentators were like "Oh Wow! What a spectacular kick! David Beckham is awesome!" i didn't think that kick was any good. had it not glanced off that defender's head it would have just harmlessly bounced off the ground in front of the keeper right into his hands. Just because Beckham kicked that ball doesn't make it the best kick ever.
mr antking, why would one want to delete your post when there have been so many other much more worthy-of-deletion posts which came before you? even my above one, since i spoke ill of England's team a bit. wasn't super-impressed with their second game either, but hey, they won, so i guess that means they did what they had to do.
in game 3, the pressure was off and they let loose. or maybe, Mr Rooney came back, and so they let decide to throw a party. or whatever reason, England was looking good. nice. :)
ok, sorry to exemplify how we live in our own world over here in the usa, but when did England's flag turn into just the red plus sign on a white background? what happened to the red multiplication sign? and the blue in the background?
Lancelot, isn't the blue flag you talk about the Scots flag?
England have always had a red "PLUS" on a white background. Look back to Richard the Lionheart!
sorry, i guess my description was off. no, the scot flag was not what i was trying to describe...
but anyway, i've found out that the flag i was describing was actually the UK flag. many people from England just say they are from the UK, and seemed to use the terms "England" and "UK" synonymously. even though i've always known factually that the UK is actually a group of countries, somehow it got drilled into my head that "UK" was just a more modern name for "England", kind of like how "USA" has replaced the name "America". in my confusion, i've always just regarded the UK flag as the English Flag. silly me.
as a consolation for me, it at least seems many are as confused as i am. just do a google image search for "English Flag" and you'll see was i mean.
Sir Lance,
Many people indeed get confused. For Example, the United Kingdom consists of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The flag of both Great Britain and the UK are the same, the red white and blue. Even though, all four "countries" have their own flags (simple crosses on plain backgrounds) YET, in the Olympics, the team is "Great Britain", but in the World Cup, the "countries" enter their own teams under their respective flags.
Seems like the UK cannot decide whether to be 4 "countries" or just one.
Post a Comment