Searching for Utopia

Moral of the story: never tell your wife that you love Aston Villa!

Click on the picture above for the story.

Calling all Chelsea fans! The new season of the English Premier League kicked off last weekend. Chelsea did well by walloping Portsmouth 4-0, and now they’re on top of the league.

It’s still a long way to go, but with Manchester United is already two points behind, could it be the time to shine again for Chelsea?

Maybe Luiz Felipe Scolari is really better than Avram Grant, but how far can a good manager go without a good squad? Chelsea have started with a bang. While United still have to try to cope with the absence of some key players (Cristiano Ronaldo, Carlos Tevez, Ryan Gigs, Michael Carrick), Chelsea are positively stronger.

The other two members of the Big Four in the Premier League have also fared well with three points each, but none was as impressive as Chelsea. No doubt the upcoming weeks will be very exciting for you.

So book your Chelsea Tickets from TicketSolutions.co.uk. Why there? Because they offer the best deal for you, that’s why. If you happen to find another site offering the same tickets cheaper, hesitate not to tell them — and they will match it. The face value for Chelsea Football Tickets are approx £20-70.

The big match against Manchester United will be next month. Surely you wouldn’t want to miss it. In case you forgot, you still have some time to get your Chelsea Premiership Tickets and many more at TicketSolutions.co.uk.

Another riot tainted Indonesia’s most prestigious soccer competition, Indonesia Super League (ISL). The big match between Persib Bandung and Persija Jakarta was suspended for 20 minutes. And this was only the second week—

More details coming soon!

“Great players are always hounded by great clubs. It’s a normal situation. There are other great players who are in the market who are good and who other clubs want. I have always been hounded, not only this year. It’s not strange for me, to see what happens.”

Cristiano Ronaldo whores his image out in the US.

Hungarian soccer legend Ferenc Puskas died today in Budapest’s Kutvolgyi Hospital following six year suffering from Alzheimer. He was 79.

Born in April 1927, he was the brain of the “Magical Magyars”, Hungary’s wonder team which beat England by 6:3 to be the first ever foreign side to win at Wembley. In six years during the 1950s, the team only suffered one loss—that is at the 1954 World Cup final against Germany.

Ferenc Puskas in action

In 1958, he joined Real Madrid, won six domestic titles and conquering Europe afterwards. In 1960, Real won the European Cup for 7-3 over Eintracht Frankfurt. He scored four goals in the particular match. He retired in 1967, went on to coach clubs in several countries. He led Panathanaikos to the European Cup final in 1971.

In 2000, he was admitted to hospital with arteriosclerosis and was later diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, which left him struggling with financial problems since then. On August 14, 2005, Real Madrid travelled to Budapest to play a testimonial in his honor. The game had supposedly been conceived as a means of helping to pay for his treatment. However, Real Madrid reportedly commanded expenses of £892,000 to play the game And when the sums were done, the Puskas family received just £7,000.

Ferenc Puskas Stadion

The International Federation for Football History and Statistics (IFFHS) classed Puskas as the most successful first-division player of all time, having scored 511 goals in 533 first-division matches. We mourn his death and express our condolences to his loved ones.

It was Sunday, December 26, 2004 in Aceh, Indonesia, when the eight year old Martunis (see the picture of Martunis with FIFA president, Sepp Blatter, on the left) felt that the ground under his feet was shaking badly. The furniture in his house started to fall down, followed by the pantiles. His father grabbed his hand and quickly asked him to go out. Together with his mother, brother and sister, they ran to the grandparents’ house to see whether they were alright. There had been around 30 relatives gathering in the grandparents’ house when they arrived. They hardly discussed anything yet, when shouts were heard from outside a few short minutes later, “Storm! Water…the water comes out!”

All of sudden each of them had to run for their own life, chased by the sea wave of tsunami. But human speed cannot race with the gush of water which soon flooded the whole area. Sarbini, Martunis’ father, was the first to be carried out by the wave, followed by his brother. His mother felt the urge to try to save her oldest son, and trust her youngest daughter to Martunis, who then held her.

But what could a boy do against such a nature’s wrath? A tree fell down and hit his body badly. He could not endure to keep his baby sister on his arms. Soon the three year old girl too got lost within the waves. “I could see mother and Annisa’s hands between the water. But I could not help,” he recalled sadly.

The next wave dragged him right onto a pile of wood floating on the water. Until the wood hit a pick-up truck which carried barrels of fish; then he moved onto it. His mother’s face filled his memory that he tried to see through the water to search for her; but he could see nothing.

The strong waves kept carrying the pick-up until it harshly hit a tree that it was almost turned reversed. Quickly Martunis hugged the tree and stayed there; even when other floating things hit his back repeatedly, including a nail from a ruin which was stuck fast into his waist. “I only let the tree go when the third wave brought a bed close to it,” he said. There were two other people who shared the bed with him, but none survived.

Martunis was never sure how long he was floating before the bed was stuck between mangrove trees in a sacred cemetery for the kings from the former kingdom of Samudera Pasai. He was completely trapped. There was 1 meter deep of water under the trees, surrounded by piles of garbage and ruins. He could not swim. Luckily, he could find a few packages of instant noodles, bread, a can of cookies and chips, and two bottles of mineral water. Ingenuously, the boy also admitted he found a piggy bank contained IDR 43,000 (USD 5). “I ate the instant noodle and drank two sips of water in the morning, and then 2 cookies and 2 sips of water in the afternoon,” he continued his story.

The rain which fell everyday helped him in surviving. On the fifteenth day, when he had run out of water, he refilled his empty bottles with the rain water. “I could still sleep, even when my clothes were wet. In the next day usually they were dried again.”

He said he was not continuously scared, the brave boy, although he saw many dead bodies floating around the tree which became his house for 19 days. “When fear almost occupied my mind; I closed the collar of my t-shirt onto my face; tried to imagine my parents’ face, and went to sleep.”

Days went by so slowly for him. Tsunami had turned the area into a huge swamp. Poor Martunis had no chance to get down. Helicopters which often flew close to his tree could never see him.

Helped came on January 13, when a rag picker came on a boat. He wanted to collect remains from the ruins when he saw Martunis was lying on top of the tree. It took a half day for him to clean the wreck before he could reach the child. Then they had to wait for a car because the rag picker was too tired after working alone.

Shortly after, a car from CBC News (Canadian Broadcast Corporation) came. They took the boy to Save the Children, a Canadian organization which was helping the tsunami victims in Aceh, which then took him to the closest hospital because of his poor condition. A both happy and sad ending for Martunis; when he eventually met his father, Sarbini, and his grandfather; but also found out that only 17 people left among his relatives.

The news was spread to the world when CBC News broadcasted it, showing helpless Martunis wearing a replica of Portuguese national soccer player’s t-shirt; Rui Costa’s. The coach of the Portuguese national soccer team, Luis Felipe Scolari, then bought a house for him and his family. The Portuguese Soccer Federation gave him EUR 40,000. Sarbini said that he saved the money for Martunis’ education in the future.

Rui Costa himself had a word over this, “The saving of the boy has special meaning for us because he was wearing our uniform. It shows that soccer has no boundary. I think such a disaster like tsunami can move everybody’s heart. This boy, just like anybody else who became victims, needs our help.”

Another player, Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo, promised he would take Martunis to his house in England and show him around. For this, Sarbini responded, “If Ronaldo really invited him; I would never let Martunis to go alone to England. He is the only one I have now; I could not lose him.”

The attention toward Martunis has not ended there. On July 4 he’s invited as a special guest in the Stadium of Light in Lisbon, Portugal for the match against Slovakia on the upcoming World Cup qualifying. How was Martunis to receive so many appealing invitations? The boy who has lost his mother, brother and sister during the catastrophe answered, “I only want to see my mother.”

This has been originally posted here on June 27, 2005

Who is the most annoying soccer player alive? It is not Diego Maradona. His “hand of god” goal might be irritating for some, but his individual honors had proven that he was a capable player. Romario could often be a jerk, but it cannot be too bothersome as we do not hear so often from him. The prestigious title would rather go to David Beckham. He is the man who inspired the movie “Bend It Like Beckham” starred by gorgeous Keira Knightley; the man whom you see on different kinds of advertisements featuring sexy celebs like Jennifer Lopez and Beyonce; the one who seems to pose for magazines and newspapers more than playing on the field. You would hear about him everyday on TV, gossip magazines to daily newspapers. I am not really exaggerating when I say he is the man who follows you no matter where you are.

Absolutely not an arch enemy of mine, I simply have enough of seeing him everywhere I turn. I completely know that it is not his fault, as he just earns money for his living. I just cannot understand people’s response towards him. He only needs to make sensational news, which matters not whether it was good or bad, to win people’s heart. His bad temper is well-known, only to make him loved more. In FIFA World Cup 1998, he kicked out at Argentinean midfielder, Diego Simeone for retaliation after Simeone tackled him from behind. He was then sent off, which caused England had to play with ten people and beaten in a penalty shoot-out. People did criticize him, but he survived it. The gift then came from the national coach Sven Goran Eriksson who handed him the captain’s armband in 2001.

Well, he had an impressive track record back then; but surely no more impressive than Zinedine Zidane who was chosen as the FIFA World’s Best Footballer of the year twice, for example. Of course, David Beckham cannot be compared to the world’s most boring player for he has the money, the women, and the fame. The truth is that no other soccer player who could compete with Beckham’s popularity nowadays.

Things have been turned upside down for Beckham and his wife, former Posh Spice Victoria Beckham. Back in 1997, he was just a fledging soccer player at Manchester United while Vic was a member of the most famous group in the world, Spice Girls. Now he’s untouchable. Is it the reason of all his love affairs? The tabloids started to spread the news by putting the blame on those whom they called as temptresses; and even Victoria, the pretty housewife who effortlessly has the whole fortune of money, media attention, and a perfect family, revealing that it was entirely her fault that the affair had ever happened. Apparently the public had the same opinion, and left David to remain not guilty. What is up with him? He’s a good father, as people keep saying. Yes, agreed; a good and smart father who spends his time in front of mirror more than his wife does, and know how to kill his time with other women when his wife was not around. Victoria perhaps deserves some hatred for her fake breasts, bad voice (she was/is a singer, remember?), and greediness, but that does not mean Beckham is the innocent victim. There cannot be smoke without fire.

That was about his personal life. Yet, on the field David is not less annoying than outside. While Liverpool won the UEFA champions league this year after struggling for nine months “only” to receive GBP 50 millions, Real Madrid would get GBP 15 millions during their 14 days tour to the USA, China and Japan starting from July 14. There is only one condition: David must come! It is mentioned on the contract that he must be played during the matches in Los Angeles, Seattle, Beijing and two more matches in Tokyo. “Because Beckham is the biggest selling point in Real Madrid right now,” said an internal source to The Sun.

On June 1, when the England team had a friendly match against Colombia in Giants Stadium, New Jersey, USA, he received a long applause from the viewers, although Michael Owen was the one who scored hat-trick. David was simply famous because the USA has been flooded with advertisements using him as the model. Have soccer fans turned blind? Despite all the title he won in the past, he has not yet had any impressive performance since the UEFA Super Cup 2003 went to Real Madrid. Rumor said that Real Madrid bought him from Manchester United only because of commercial reason. Right or wrong, that is for you to decide. As for me, I’m still wondering which one is prettier between David and Victoria. Would they look different without make-up?

This has been originally posted here on june 13, 2005