Saturday, June 26, 2010

The Goal of the Century!

Maradona
But for the Argentines, Maradona’s second goal against England in the 1986 World Cup was far more than just a goal. It was the revenge of a nation.






Just four minutes after the infamous ‘Hand of God’ goal in the 1986 World Cup quarter-final match between Argentina and England, when Diego Maradona punched the ball into the English goal, he dribbled past five English players to put the ball in the net again. England were knocked out of the tournament. In a poll conducted by Fifa in 2002, this goal was voted the Goal of the Century by football fans around the world. It is widely considered Maradona’s magnum opus.
But Maradona’s feat was much more than just a goal for the Argentine public. They saw it as revenge for losing the Falklands War in 1982 to Britain. Indeed, the footballing rivalry between the two countries had been equally bitter for 40 years. In a quarter-final of the 1966 World Cup, a game that Argentines refer to as “the theft of the century”, England won 1-0 thanks to a goal by Geoff Hurst which the Argentines thought was an offside. However, things turned really ugly when Argentina captain Antonio Rattín was “unfairly” sent off, and Rattín had to be escorted off the pitch by cops.
In Argentina, there were reports that the German referee said he had sent Rattín off because he disliked the way he had looked at him. British newspapers, meanwhile, cited the referee ascribing the send-off to the player’s ‘violence of the tongue’; but since the German knew no Spanish, this seemed outrageous to Argentines. What did Rattín do? He’d wanted to speak with the German referee on rulings that seemed overly favourable to the English. Rattín made a visible signal, indicating his captain’s armband and need for a translator.
After the match, England manager Alf Ramsey refused to allow his players to swap shirts with the Argentines as is traditional after the conclusion of a football match and later described the South Americans as "animals” in the press.
Maradona wrote in his autobiography: ‘I sometimes think I preferred the one with my hand… It was a bit like stealing the wallet of the English.’ He also wrote that ‘it was as if we had beaten a country, not just a football team… Although we had said before the game that football had nothing to do with the Malvinas war, we knew they had killed a lot of Argentine boys there…And this was revenge.’

So much for Pet Love!

pet love

FIFA world cup 2010--Round 2

Till yesterday all the teams played at-least 3 matches each, that is 25th June,2010 was the last day of round 1 and from today round matches are played in South Africa. 16 teams qualified for round 2 (knock out round) and after this round quarter final round will be there, in which you can see 8 teams will be playing.
Also, till now 48 football matches are completed, that is in round 1 total number of matches played is 48.

The 16 teams which cleared 1st round are as follows,

  1. Uruguay Uruguay
  2. USA USA
  3. Germany Germany
  4. Argentina Argentina
  5. Netherlands Netherlands
  6. Brazil Brazil
  7. Paraguay Paraguay
  8. Spain Spain
  9. Korea Republic, that is South Korea Korea Republic
  10. Ghana Ghana
  11. England England
  12. Mexico Mexico
  13. Slovakia Slovakia
  14. Chile Chile
  15. Japan Japan
  16. Portugal Portugal



The fixtures are as follows (the number is with respect to the numbers which I gave above),
1 v/s 9,   that is Uruguay v/s Korea Republic on 26th June,2010

2 v/s 10, that is USA v/s Ghana on 26th June,2010

3 v/s 11, that is Germany v/s England on 27th June,2010

4 v/s 12, that is Argentina v/s Mexico on 27th June,2010

5 v/s 13, that is Netherlands v/s Slovakia on 28th June,2010

6 v/s 14, that is Brazil v/s Chile on 28th June,2010

7 v/s 15, that is Paraguay v/s Japan on 29th June,2010

8 v/s 16, that is Spain v/s Portugal on 29th June,2010

Now, what happened for the first time in this world cup ?
This is the first time when both the finalist of previous world cup are knocked out in the 1st round itself, that Italy and France failed to qualify for the 2nd round.

We will keep updating you, keep checking this blog !!

Wednesday, June 23, 2010