AFF Suzuki Cup 2nd Leg Indo 2-1 M’sia 29 Dec 10

The very sight of Malaysia lofting the AFF Suzuki Cup Trophy high into the sky to the tune of Queen’s famous hit “We are the Champions” is sure to bring agonizing pain to any Indonesians with a tinge of patriotism in their hearts. That is what has just happened in admittedly quite a scintillating encounter between bitter rivals Indonesia and Malaysia in Jakarta for the 2nd leg of the AFF Suzuki Cup final. Indonesia were left to chase for no less than four goals after the 3-0 debacle from the first leg in Kuala Lumpur and to be frank, Indonesia had every chance to overturn that deficit but their true performance come a little too late, and had the goals arrived much earlier, especially if Firman Utina’s early penalty had found the net, nobody could rule out a thrashing in store for the Malaysians. However, many things prevented Indonesia from achieving that such as the performance of Khairul Fahmi, the young and amazing Malaysian goalkeeper whom I really admire, the still over-reliant on the “Bule” players, the double edged effects on the fervent and massive support for Indonesia, as well as certain mental thresholds in this match.

Red Devils Reign Supreme, Unless…

After the amazing 4-0 obliteration of a hapless Aston Villa side under the winter sky of Manchester, once again the Manchester City roller coaster is going up. Media, pundits, and fans alike have once again made an extreme U-Turn after labeling the team as a team full of money-minded mercenaries heading to chaos, once again they have labeled Manchester City as a genuine title contenders. There is no way to blame the general public for the seemingly hypocritical assessments of the team as results create the talks not the other way round. However, even though Manchester City were top of the Premier League table for just minutes, they were almost immediately overtaken again by their bitter rivals Manchester United after they have extended their unbeaten run by securing a 1-1 draw against Birmingham City. The Red half of Manchester is precisely the reason why Manchester City is unlikely to win the title despite the re-ignited talks of a genuine title challenge. No matter how many 4-0 or even 10-0 victories they accumulate over the season, they will not win the title unless they are able to totally banish Manchester United, on and off the field. The following will be the reasons why Manchester United will always reign supreme in Manchester unless Manchester City could muster something really meaningful from now onwards until the end of the season.

AFF Suzuki Cup Final 1st Leg Boxing Day

The AFF Suzuki Cup Final has arrived and even though in the whole world generally, this regional (ASEAN) football competition might not be too insignificant compared to certain domestic football competitions such as the Barclays Premier League just to name one. However, I could almost guarantee that people from outside of the football mad region would not understand the importance and the sheer enthusiasm that is emanating from the fans. This is especially true for the countries which are still involved in this competition, Malaysia and Indonesia. The euphoria in both of these countries, especially in the ultra football mad Indonesia is really overwhelming. The AFF Suzuki Cup Final is really anticipated even more so than a World Cup Final. This is especially true since Indonesia has not won this regional competition stretching back all the way from 1991 and now they have a perfectly great chance to go all the way this time with their “Bule” (Pron. Boo-Lay) infused team. “Bule” is a colloquial Indonesian term for Western people in general and anyone with Western blood in their veins and also even for someone who looks Western, and thus in this context, it refers to Christian “El Loco” Gonzales, the naturalized Indonesian striker of Uruguay origin, and Irfan Bachdim, a promising young striker with Dutch heritages.

My Personal Review on Ameba Pico

After having written a lot of pieces about football, it is pertinent that after repeated delays, procrastinations, and other unnecessary hindrances, I should start to write a piece which is totally outside the scope of football. It has almost been a perennial struggle to get off football and write about something else, just once. With every scorn and demoralizing attempts by people, I think this is just the  perfect time to do away with football just once and get myself out of the comfort zone that I have been occupying for far too long by now as a budding writer. Unfortunately, I have chosen a place to start which would still provoke the ire of people around me, mainly my parents as this next topic is simply my pastime in the past which I was not able to get myself off at all when I was a kid, and that is none other than video games. The chosen video game for now would be a review of a special game which I have just started to play recently and this game is so special in a way or another that it has somehow impacted my life as a whole. Simply amazing. Without further ado, the following will be the detailed review of the social game Ameba Pico, and hope people who care to read this piece would enjoy this.

November?

Now I am really scared of time XD

In The Depths of Solitude

Solitude is a word which evokes negative connotations and emotions among most people in this world. It goes directly in opposition with the fact that humans are social creatures and that no human in normal circumstances would be willing to be in the depths of solitude. Everyone wants to be in the company of others no matter what, and that being in the state of solitude can be considered as a form of personal failure as one has not been successful in conforming to the demands of the society in which one is living in. Despite all those negative aspects of the state of solitude, we have to remember that just like anything else in this world, there is another side of the coin, in which solitude cannot be all that bad and there have to be positive sides of the term, which will be explored and explained in the following paragraphs.

The Past is (not) The Past

We have heard many people exclaiming “The past is the past, the present is the present”. What we could safely interpret from that statement is simply that the past and the present are mutually exclusive, and that it would be wise to just subscribe oneself to the present and the present only without any regards whatsoever to the past. While at a glance, it seems to be a credible and even wise advice to never dwell in the past, which cannot be changed anyways unless the time machine is invented (but alas, theories such as the infamous “Grandfather Paradox” has seemingly confined  the invention of this elusive and yet coveted piece of technology in science fiction stories), we have to recognize that the past is not that invalid and that there are reasons for all of us to look back into the past and appreciate what the past has to offer for all of us. Here are five of them.