04:44: bravo, barcelona!!! thierry henry finally has his champions league title. barça makes history as the first spanish club to win 3 titles in a single year. josep guardiola is in the books as the youngest manager to achieve such success, and on his first year, no less.

barcelona truly was the better team in this match, and i'm not just saying that because i'm a barça fan. between the giving little robert downey, jr. look-alike, xavi, the under-appreciated iniesta, the brilliant striker, eto'o, argentina's hope, messi, the quiet confidence of henry and the big courageous heart of captian carles puyol leading and a host of other brilliant young players, pep guardiola could not hope for a better team. (ok, except maybe to have casillas as a keeper, but valdes does seem to be getting better.) is his success beginner's luck? perhaps. though i highly doubt it. =D



josep guardiola

don't you think pep looks like henry cavill from the tudors?


henry cavill

dang....

Labels: football

 
01:57: here we go, here we go...

i've been waiting all week to watch the champion's league finals. i was hoping to watch it with other fans, but beggars can't be choosers. etoile and i intended to watch at her folks' place, but she remembered that she had to be at someone's birthday party. pfffft... man u fans! such flakes! so i'm watching via streaming instead.

it's barcelona versus manchester united in rome. here's the story:

this is alex ferguson's 35th year coaching and man u's chance to defend their title. they're hoping to get back-to-back titles in the champions league. they've been great all season and they do play really well outside of the premiere league. ronaldo was voted world player of the year. still, however hot (i mean both skilled and yummy) cristiano ronaldo is, he tends to croak under pressure. then there's wayne rooney. i hate that bastard. and rio ferdinand and all the others.

this is josep guardiola's first year as a coach for barça (2nd, if you count last year, coaching barça's b team). so far he has done extremely well, with barça bagging both the copa del rey and the primera liga titles this year. if they win the champions league, they will be the first spanish team to win triple titles. guardiola will be the stuff of legend. and my favorite player still active on the pitch, lionel messi, is with him all the way. messi came in second to ronaldo in the race for player of the year, but he currently leads in this season's champions league goal count. eto'o, who some consider as the best striker in the world, is in the top scorers too, whereas man u has no real major scorer in the champions league this season. then there's xavi and henry and all my usual favorites. but is it enough? dunno.

so who am i cheering for? barça from the very beginning, baby. if they lose, it's cool. pep guardiola has done well and so has the team. but it would be sooooo sweet if they win.

Labels: football

 
17:15: preliminary interview this morning, finally! wanted to go home after. was seriously considering going on e-out when it was offered coz i keep feeling something is ... off? can't explain it. something just doesn't feel right this week.

on the upside, while i was sitting on the xbox live bay at the start of my shift (because outsiders keep occupying our team's bay), i got to play fifa 07. not the full game, though. we only have the demo game from the live marketplace, but that was good enough. i was using barcelona against manchester united. my first time playing, so the guy from live kicked my ass, but it was fun anyway. using ronaldinho is awesome. also, i can't wait till they release guitar hero ii for the 360! i'll be in the game lab on most days after shift, for sure.

Labels: football, gaming, updates

 
19:43: catch mahasa and other bands every thursday at freedom bar, anonas ave., qc! no entrance, good music, affordable rice meals and cheap beer!

beer... i needed a couple of beers to calm my nerves for the football game last night. chelsea just had to lose, huh? barcelona won, at least, so it's not over yet. my favorite moment of the entire night was in the earlier match between spartak moskva and bayern munchen.

allow me describe this classic moment. from a corner kick on the left, the ball comes in good. right on target in the box, and right smack into spartak player, kovac's groin. you see him fold a little and you can almost hear him scream "auuugh!" but the boy has presence of mind. the ball is right there. one touch with his foot, and kaboom! goal number two for spartak. kovac runs off to the side to celebrate, right arm in the air, left hand on his delicates. his team comes to him in celebration and when the last man (freaky, leprechaun boy shishkin) leaves, you find kovac on the ground, doubled over. he stays that way, doubled over and off the field, for another four minutes or so. that was just priceless.

i've been helping my niece with school stuff, trying to get certain people to come to their focus discussion group for her entrepreneurship class. one of the people i got in touch with was an old friend who i love hanging out with, but try not to run into too often coz... well, it's a long story. suffice to say that i always make a big fool of myself when i'm with this friend's older sibling, and i mostly end up wishing the earth would swallow me whole. well, i didn't make a fool of myself this time around, thankfully. ooh. yay! something to be thankful for.

wish i had a yummy stuffed turkey. happy thanksgiving, folks.

Labels: football, gigs, little nothings

 
10:29: i hate being sick. i couldn't even stay up to watch football this weekend because my eyes were so watery and my head hurt so bad. hence, i missed the game between osasuna and madrid. we lost anyway. slaughtered 1 - 4, all of real madrid's goals by ruud.

i miss the internet. i can atually breathe through one nostril now, so i thought i'd get out of my bedroom, check my mail and say "hi, blog!" and "hi, friends!" now my eyes are welling up again (emo without meaning to be??) so i guess i ought to go back to bed and stay away from radiation. sniff. bye.

Labels: football, little nothings

 
07:55: champions league night, so yes, this is a football post.

spartak moskva (0) vs internazionale milan (1)
my thoughts...

the pitch. what is that stuff they use in moscow?? apparently, uefa has allowed the use of synthetic grass and this is the first stadium to use the stuff. it looks like crap. the ball isn't as fast and the bounce is different. i wonder if that's actual soil they use on the pitch? i wonder if it actually feels different from real grass when you fall on it? i wonder if it smells like real grass? yeah, i wonder about these things.

spartak. they're at the bottom of the group and are pretty much out of the competition at this point. it was still a good game, i have to say. they had a couple of scoring chances, the best of which was from their wonder boy, roman shishkin. he is one freaky looking kid. honestly, when i first saw this guy on the pitch, i thought he was an overgrown leprechaun dressed in a moscow uniform for halloween. but man, he's got a great foot! from long range, he struck and hit the bar with an audible bam. an inch lower and inter would have been kicking themselves.

inter. whatever their coach is doing, it's starting to work. they're getting it together now. bayern munchen is already through to the next round; inter is poised to take the other slot in the group. julio cruz has been hauling a lot of arse and getting goals in with the help of figo and ibrahimovic. inter has got a great lineup, even on the bench. it's a shame we don't get to see as much of adriano, samuel, cambiasso, viera, crespo and solari. it's an even bigger shame that with such quality players, they're not getting the results they should be getting, much like real madrid in the past couple of seasons.

fc barcelona (2) vs chelsea fc(2)
my thoughts...



that wasn't a football match. that was a frickin' ice hockey game. the referee gave out 10 yellow cards. there were a lot of dives and a couple of nasty attacks that should have merited a red card. for two teams with such excellent players, that game sucked. they played like children most of the 90+ minutes. admittedly, great goals, specially chelsea's first, but i don't want to even talk about the rest of the match. ptah!

oh, but i hope barça do go through to the next round.

Labels: football

 
18:30: caught the barça vs chelasea match this morning. chelsea won 1-0. i hate chelsea. but really, i was just happy to see messi play. i did some research on him afterwards. although messi holds the record for barcelona's youngest scorer, the record for the youngest to ever play for the team is held by one paulino alcantara, who also once held the record for barca's youngest scorer, among other things.
who??
i did some more research and guess what i found...

paulino alcantara was filipino. well, mestizo, technically. born in iloilo to an ilongga and a spanish soldier way back in 1896. he was the first filipino and the first asian to ever play for a european club. he played for both the spanish national team, the philippine team, and a couple of local clubs, but most of his footballing days were spent at barça, helping to usher in the club's first golden era.
you can read more about him here.

wow. i luv barça more now.

el classico (real madrid vs barcelona) this weekend! i hope solar sports covers it.

Labels: football

 
14:39: i love the fact that my brother toonic not just loves football, but actually has the power to do something about his love for it.

they got rights to the euro cup, but that won't be for another 2 years. right now, they've got lfp. nyahahaha!

cap your weekend off with the spanish primera liga on solar sports, sundays at midnight. perfect for those sunday nights when you don't want your weekend to end just yet.

on other spanish sports heroes... alonso won again. bugger about scuhmi not finishing the race in suzuka. never thought i'd say it and mean it, but i do. i was hoping he'd kick alonso's arse.

Labels: f1, football