Poetry in Motion

With the World Cup in full swing and with my own resolve to catch most of the action, I guess I might have done a major damage to my ability in enjoying football. Well, Argentina has to be blamed for this. They played such a beautifully mesmerizing game this past Friday against Serbia & Montenegro, beating them 6-0 (remember, this was a team which conceded only a single goal in their 10 qualifying matches and sent Spain to play-offs). I waited for another 2-3 days to see if anyone to could match that performance before I commented on the Argentine performance. I expected Czech Republic or Brazil to come close to that performance, but they both were rather disappointing. Czech lost their match to Ghana 0-2 and Brazil struggled to beat Australia 2-0.

Argentina, on that day, was pure poetry in motion. If you want anyone converted as a football fan, make them watch that match. That has probably been football's best advertisement in this World Cup. Most of the teams in the world would be happy having 1-2 very creative players. Well, this Argentine squad has about 5-6 with the likes of Juan Roman Riquelme, Juan Pablo Sorin, Esteban Cambiasso, Lionel Messi, Javier Saviola, Hernan Crespo etc. Add to this an equally creative defence, and we're talking. I don't know if eventually Argentina will the cup or not, but if that game was going to be an indicator for the way they are going to play throughout the tournament, the others have their task cut out.

Also, people who know me well know that I have a weakness for flashy names, namely African ones. For quite some time, Haile Gebresselasie has been topping that list followed by Oligbinde (Nigerian coach sometime back). In the recent World Cup, I have heard about Gilles Yippi Yappo (guess the spellings are correct). Esteban Cambiasso also sounds really good to me.