Chronic football-itis

Yep, that's my current disease. But how can you stay away from such a beautiful sport which comes in the shape of the European Champs? I've been asked by some guys what I love that much about football (after they realized that I'm pretty much a football maniac) but some matches at Euro 2008 gave them a precise answer.

After some insane group matches (see Turkey's matches vs the Czech Rep and Switzerland and Holland's matches), the quarterfinal action looked really promising with some tight clashed between titans or unpedictable appearances.

First came Portugal vs Germany. I am not a fan of the Germans but I kinda dislike the Portuguese team. Apart from Pepe who plays for Real Madrid (yes, I'm biased), I can't name other player I like. I can't stand Cristiano Ronaldo, he's an ugly smug dude who puts a jar of gel on his hair for every match and he can't even play constantly. He tries all sorts of dribblings and dives a lot and sometimes he has brilliant matches. But that doesn't make him the best player in the world and I'm still praying for Sir Alex Ferguson to not let him go so I'm not stuck with him at Real. So between two teams I'm not too fond of, I guess I was glad that Germany won 3-2. But someone needs to tell Schweinsteiger that peroxide blonde is sooooo 1999!

The 2nd quarterfinals can be described with two words: FUCKING DAFT! Croatia vs. Turkey was arguably the craziest match of the last years...After 0-0 in the regular time, the two teams went on to play extra time, with goal occasions on both sides. However, a childish mistake of goalkeeper Rustu provided the Croats with a goal in the 119th minute, just 1 minute before the end of the extra time. They were over the moon of course and considered themselves through, yet the forgot who their opponent was. And of course the Turks miraculously scored a last gasp goal and sent the match to penalties. This was a blow too big for the unexperienced Croats who were too shellshocked to be able to concentrate for the spot kicks. With Modric and Rakitic missing the goal and Klasnic shooting in Rustu, the Turks won the shoot-out and completed their 3rd superb comeback in this Euro.

The Netherlands vs. Russia was the most beautiful match of this stage. The Dutchies had shown a fantastic appetite for victory in the group stage where they swept the floor with their opponents, but the Russians, led by my favorite coach Guus Hiddink who is the god of coaching, proved to be no pushovers. They dominated from start to end, but only scored once because the Dutch goal was guarded by the long-limbed Edwin Van Der Sar. The Oranjes equalised late in the match after a precise free-kick landed on Van Nistelrooy who headed it in so it turned out to be another late night. In the extra-time, the Russians were way better and scored twice to make it 3-1 and send the Dutchies home. The truth is, they were much better overall as Van Basten's team failed to impress. I'm thrilled for Hiddink, Akinfeev (who reminds me of Casillas) and Arshavin (man of the match, no doubt), they fully deserved to go further in the tournament.

Aaaaaaaaand we finally got to the biiiiig match: Spain vs. Italy. The Italians were absolutely embarassing this year. They usually are lucky (see World Cup in 2006) but sometimes they play football. At Euro 2008, they played the best anti-football they could. Toni is probably the least capable attacker they've had in the past years and Cassano is an embarrassment to footballers worldwide and suprisingly, their defence was kinda crappy too. I mean...what wasn't crappy about them this year? Crappy or not, they somehow managed to crawl out of the group stage to face my favorite team, Spain. Aragones, the Spanish coach, is an old bastard who dares to leave Raul at home and bring some newbies like Sergio Garcia and Guiza who barely played for the national team and then has the nerve to start most matches with Xavi and Iniesta in the midfield when they're clearly out of shape! He left Fabregas and Xabi Alonso on the bench! What normal coach does this? Thus, Aragones has a foggy brain. If he has one. But enough with the Aragones hating! Spain were not impressive yesterday mostly because Torres and Villa had a not so good day and the Italians did everything to stop the flow of the game. Ah, and the ref did too. Probably the worst refereeing at this tournament. Fandel, go home!!! Soooo the match went to penalties. I was biting my fingernails like crazy because Buffon is one huge GK, while poor Iker is rather short for a keeper. Villa went first and the ball he'd just kissed obeyed him and entered the goal. Grosso followed for the Italians and in spite of the fact that Iker had guessed the corner, the shot was too strong and it was 1-1. Santi Cazorla scored too, a very confident stroke for a debutant, and then De Rossi was a real sweetheart and heard my plea as his shot was saved by Iker. Senna didn't mess with the penalty and boomed it in the net, but then Guiza (a newbie as I said) shitted in his pants and Buffon saved it. However, Iker's amazing talent resurfaced when he saved di Natale's shot. Cesc Fabregas converted the winning penalty and Spain send Italy home where they should've been for a few days already. To sum it up, I have to quote Spain's left winger Capdevila: "Casillas es Dios!" meaning Casillas is God.

Semis: Germany vs. Turkey and Russia vs. Spain. All I know is that I want Iker to hold that trophy on Sunday and dedicate it to Raul.

Counting down the days....

With 2 more exams to go, I am getting way too excited about what will come at the very beginning of the next month.

As I am sure you know what that is, I will skip the topic and talk about something else. Like me and school. Had 4 exams already and my grades are in descending order: fromn a 10 in the first one to a 7 in the latest one. I can't say I am over the moon with that 7, but I'm pleased that I passed. I guess I'm more delighted not to have any courses with the math teacher next year :) (at last I hope so) Of course I had to have a distraction during this exam session and that is another TV show: House, MD. Luckily I postponed LOST so my addiction was rather mild (I'm unstoppable when watching LOST...can only stop after about 6 or 7 episodes) but strong enough to prevent me from studying too much for Math. And there is the Euro 2008 too. Fortunately, my ol' lucky bastard ass didn't suffer much from that since my subject had 2 problems from the only chapter I studied thoroughly so I was able to pass without much ado.

Enough about my bad grades. I got my results for the LCCI: I got a distinction :D:D:D:D:D:D:D The news received a very warm welcome from my already bruised confidence so yay! (Although my English still under severe threat at uni. thank God for music, movies and TV shows)

The entry stops here cos I have plenty of building materials to study :) and Romania is playing the big match later on. C ya!

Rezi calling!

Lost in a universe of welded joints, shear forces, torques and theorems of funny-named blokes like Jurawski or Saint Venant, the two hours spent in the cinema yesterday were very appropriate for my braincells.

What did I see? A documentary about one of the legends of music: Joe Strummer. The name doesn't ring a bell? Shame on you then because he is the one and only frontman of arguably one of the most influent bands of all time: The Clash. The documentary sketched a rather accurate portrait of the great musician, covering all the stages of his eventful life using information frm his old bandmates and stars like Johnny Depp (the whole audience laughed or whistled when he came on screen haha!), Bono, Matt Dillon, Flea and Anthony Kiedis from RHCP.

Coming from a good social background (his father was a diplomat), he became very rebel as a teen and that eased his way out of the "high-life" straight into the noisy world of punk. His band was quite similar to the Sex Pistols in the beginning but then went on to evolve into a multi-genre group, leaving noisy riffs and hateful screams for musically complex and political-focused songs. Actually, that's the main difference between the Sex Pistols and The Clash. Both dubbed as pioneers of punk, The Clash could actually play and were more than a bunch of angry lads with guitars and drugs. Sure, they were junkies, they were angry, but they had a message, a very left-wing one. They brought about a "Rock Revolution" which changed the face of music forever and their attitude left a footprint in the hearts of many like-minded young (and not only) people.





But now I have to stop worshipping this legendary guy as I have a secret meeting in the basement of my brain with Navier, Jurawski, Poisson, Bernoulli and Saint Venant. Ah, and Cauchy.