The list of nominees for Adidas Best Player is soon to be announced. I’d like to steal a few moments to post my own nominations. That’s all.
1. Most fashionable coach: Joachim Loew
2. Most prepared team: England. They brought a make up artist!
3. Most outstanding team: Netherland. Can’t deny the color.
4. Player with Most Beautiful Hair: Carles Puyol.
5. Player with Strongest Lungs: Iker Casillas.
6. Where were the Japanese Supporters?
Why didn’t Doraemon, Ultraman, Samurai X, Ichigo Kurosaki, Kung Fu Boy, Dragon Ball, Kamen Raider, Pat Morita, Hello Kitty and all the rest of the Japanese superheroes come and support the Blue Samurais?
(The penalty shootout would’ve been so different… sigh.)
Well, apparently they did arrange to come to South Africa but canceled at the last minute because Godzilla insisted on joining and there was no airways willing to accommodate the big monster.
7. What does Waka-waka mean?
Everybody delights at the sight of Shakira dancing and smiling through the song; picking up the spirit as they hum it throughout the day, even updating their Facebook statuses repeatedly with the words. (Naturally prompting friends to hide their updates.)
But do you know that the whole official theme song is actually a hidden, indirect advertisement for Nike? (Note: insert sinister audio file here.) I kid you not. Waka waka means Do It. Coincidence? (Note #2: insert annoying, surprising drum sound here.)
8. Why Did the Three Lions Lose to Germany?
I don't have an editor for my blog so kindly overlook some mistaken illustration
We all know the controversy following Frank Lampard’s disallowed goal. I personally blamed one of the cameramen who must have shot a close up of a pretty fan, causing the linesman to fail observing that it was indeed a goal.
Nevertheless, everybody knows that to find accurate information these days one has only to refer to Twitter and it has been established by the Trending Topic on June 30 that the reason the England team lost was due to Mick Jagger being among the spectators.
9. Why are there flags on the corner of the fields?
Don’t they get in the way of corner kicks? Apparently, those flags are there due to FIFA’s consideration toward the US spectators. It is a long established fact that American people consider football to be boring and that they wish the players to score every minute, or better yet for the match to have more than one balls.
That is why FIFA has retained the service of Tiger Woods to make an occasional appearances at the corner of the field near the flags to revive the sleeping Americans.
10. What on Earth are We All Going to Do about Maradona’s Promise?
No beating around the bush, the guy’s going to run naked if the Argentinian team wins the tournament. I have long been an albiceleste fan but for the love of all that is holy, why oh why does it have to be Maradona?
The Argentinian team has always been one respected by other international teams although their performance from World Cup to World Cup has not been consistent. Nobody knows for sure if the team is going to be good every time the tournament starts.
This World Cup though the albiceleste is doing great so far and the day we might have to watch Maradona runs naked down the streets of Buenos Aires seems to come nearer. May God bless us all.
1. Who Invented the Vuvuzelas?
I know for a fact that 8,407,284,926,448,479,274,927 people in this world have fantasies of what they want to do with this particular person – a fantasy not one entertains say, during one’s puberty years.
So I spend the whole morning Googling doing an extensive research and here’s your culprit, guys.
2. What Does a Captain do?
Due to our weird education system, I know all things football – rules, technical details down to the size of the field. And why the field grass sometimes looks stripy. (You don’t know that? You should’ve gone to school in Indonesia.)
But nowhere during my doubtfully superior education process was anybody taught about the role of the captain. The goalkeeper naturally keeps the goal from being scored against, the defenders help stop the attacks and so on, the coach to plan strategy as well as anticipating opposing team’s strategy.. but what does a captain do?
So far the best answer I got was from my friend Shirley, “They are to shout instructions like Turn left, One, Two, Three..! March on, One, Two, Three.. and Halt! while running during practice.”
3. Who does Carlos Puyol’s hair?
Seriously, that hair has got to take about 3 hours to curl. Now if Puyol played for England I would just assume Beckham help him but as it is I am in the dark.
4. What’s the Deal with The Wave?
You may have noticed it. Sometime during a lull in a match, the camera would pan to the spectators area and you’d see people taking turns standing and then sitting again to create a kind of human wave.
No, it’s not Watch for Bugs drill. It’s not Test the Strength of Your Seat practice either. It all started with some clueless guy coming to a football match with a cup of steaming Starbucks. (Yeah, we all know who the guy is. Or rather where he’s from.)
And as Murphy’s Law says it, of course someone else ended up knocking the hot cuppa on someone else’s head who, of course, jumped up angrily, yelling, “HEY!” which of course prompted everybody else behind him to jump as well, yelling, “SIT DOWN, we can not watch!” and everybody next to them jumped up too, yelling, “QUIET! We want to watch!” and there you have it.
These days of course, there is no cup of hot coffee; it is so everybody gets to be on TV.
5. Why 10 Players plus One Goalkeeper?
It is easier to order jerseys in the tens, not to mention the better discount. You did notice that the goalkeeper never has the same color jersey, didn’t you? Goalkeepers use their chiropractic allowance to buy their own jerseys.
This doesn't illustrate the point, I just want to have Casillas' image here
Which leads us to the next questions.
When I was little, I was given to my grandma to raise so I didn’t grow up with my parents or siblings.
I didn’t know why and didn’t think about asking it but I remember Dad coming once or twice every week, usually taking me to the bookstore. He was eternally taciturn, would nod at me, asking where I’d been and then laughed when I rolled my eyes at his favorite, torn and worn T shirt.
(It was a free T shirt from this brand of packaged, nibbling nuts called Supernut – which was emblazoned prominently across his chest!)
Not an ad, this is the product which gave Dad the free T shirt he loved
And then there was this one time when he came in excitedly, saying, “Check this out,” and then proceeded to pull up his T shirt and show me this ugly scarring from the stitches he got after the appendix removal surgery. And I went, what…?
Dads.
I never lived with him but there were nights when he insisted I came ‘home’ with him, spending the night at the house Mom and Dad and my two siblings lived. I remembered crying and asking to be taken back at midnight because I wanted my Grandma and it was Dad who sang me to sleep.
After I came and lived in Jakarta, I once sent him a passport picture-sized of me so that he could arrange for the renewal of my ID card.
He had always known me with the Dora the Explorer kind of bob hairstyle, so when he got my long haired version in the picture, he immediately texted me. “I’ll send you some money – apparently you’re keeping too tight a fist; not going to the salon and letting your hair grow wild like a criminal.” LOL.
In one of his last texts, he was scandalized. Due to the ongoing riot and cultural clashes back at home, my parents had had to move a couple of times, sometimes leaving belongings like clothes behind.
“I have no more pants to go to church – I had to go wearing jeans last time! Can you please buy me some new ones?”
And I found myself rolling on the floor laughing because my Dad, the one who had been wearing the holey Supernut T shirt, was being beaten by the church.
I didn’t get around to do that until quite some time and what do you know? A week after he received those pants, he died. They said he was just waiting for them so that he could be buried proper.
Damn.
Dad was one of those special people, seemingly devoid of open displays of affection and yet, I never for one second doubt his love.
That’s my kind of security.
Can’t tell you Happy Father’s Day anymore but I love you still, Dad!
I woke up late on Sunday, as usual, to find my Twitter timeline flooded with updates of Thomas Cup.
For those of you who may not know, Thomas Cup is the Wimbledon of badminton – a male only championship; the female version of this Cup is called Uber Cup.
Badminton has long been a heroic tradition among Indonesians as we plowed through hard times hanging on to the game as one of the few things that save our faces before international scrutiny.
It is not at all strange to see enemies unite watching Thomas Cup or strangers animatedly discuss the game as they watch the championship via television in public places.
You get all the adoration you can take if you win the Thomas Cup or Uber Cup, sometimes even the long-sought citizenship.
As corruption and government inaction continue to thrive, it is only natural that Indonesian people look for heroic figures to restore their faith in their fellow citizens.
We lost the Thomas Cup today but people are hailing Markis Kido and Hendra Setiawan, as well as Simon Santoso who fought the last games against China today, to land Indonesia as runner up this year.
Winning may be everything to some people but for now, we are proud of the good fight Indonesian Thomas Cup team gave! Thank you, guys!!!
Mindfield 3.0 