Monday 28 February 2011

Fate is cruel....

Arsenal's Trophy wait continues...The Carling cup final today against Birmingham City was another blow to the gunners and to Arsene.We were without Cesc and Theo..but that shouldn't be the excuse. The pressure of no trophies was showing up from the first minute. Szczenny Fouled inside the penalty area. It could have been a penalty and a red card. But the decision was given as the BC player was offside. I thought OK looks like the luck is with us today but alas that was just cruel game played by Fate.

Well played Birmingham..They played good.. but we we didn't played bad to loose..or to loose in this manner. Looks like the things i want desperately to happen are just not meant to happen is it..Arsenal's trophy, Federer's 17th GS,India's WC win..Though nothing is concrete yet and may be all of these three things will come true but I have lost my remaining faith in me. I should start supporting the opposition so may be their luck will run out and my teams will win...

Why it has to come down to this..I am heartbroken...GOD this is killing me :(:(

Sunday 20 February 2011

WC is here again!!!

In 2010, we welcomed the Footie World cup with enthu. I was in India then. And the world cup showed how much Footie has become the second largest sports in terms of Fan following in India. It was fun to support Spain, Admire the new Germany team, shake ur head dissolutely over England's dismal performance and applaud Holland's spirit. And who will forget Paul the octopus. He made the WC as famous as any player in any team.

So we are again welcoming the WC. And this time its Cricket WC......... In India everyone watches Cricket. Its like when you are born you are baptised in this religion. You may have different cricketing Gods but your religion is still same i.e Cricket. I wish I was in India for the built up of WC. Plus the WC is happening in subcontinent. It would be awesome atmosphere. The big screen TVs everywhere. The talk is only about cricket. Every match is analysed so much. Every player admired/criticised by every one. Every century meeting with thunderous cheers.

I wish in this WC also the team I support wins and keep the trend going :). C'on you Men in Blue. Do it for yourselves, do it for India and do it for Sachin...Ohhh how I so miss Paul...

Thursday 17 February 2011

Arsenal Vs Barca - 1st Leg, 2-1 to Arsenal

This was the big big moment in my club's recent history. The club who was always ridiculed for his lack of trophies in last 5 years, the manager who was always ridiculed for his belief in his players, his spending style, his attacking football tactics...What a moment to show what we can do..what a moment for every Gunner fan who has kept faith in their Club, In their Manager, In their Players..In Arsene we trust and that was paid off handsomely on Wednesday 16th Feb 2011.

The Champion' leg campainge kicked off very nicely for us but then we faltered in between and finished runners up in our group. That made us vulnerable to draw one of the top teams like Barcelona, Real Madrid, Baryan Munich or Schalke. Now everyone dreaded seeing Barcelona to the opposite side. Who can forget the last year's CL matches. The first leg's first 20 mins were nerve wrenching. The aesomely the scoreline at the end of First leg was 2-2. We came bk into that game due to Superfast Theo. But the No Camp was a disaster. Messi run riot and we lost y 4-1. Now gunner wanted the reminder of those matches and that included our players and our manager.

After last year's beating, everyone suggested to Arsene that we shold change our playing style and park a bus in front of goal like the way chelsea did in 2009 and Inter did in 2010 against Barca.Arsenal plays wonderful attacking football. Our main strength is the passing. Arsenal is dubbed as Barca Lite as Barca is termed the best team in the world at this moment for its beautiful passing game. Their midfield of Xavi, Iniesta, Basquet, Messi and now the lethal Villa has made a truly amazing side. So everyone has made p their mind that Arsenal is in for beating and this time it would be more severe than last year.

But we still believed and look where we are. The match was pretty one sided most of the time in Barca's favour. Arsenal tried going Toe to Toe for as much time possible but the passing and possesion of Barca made it very difficult for us. Still the main difference between last year's Arsenal side and this year was the fit players and increased self belief. The never say die attitude was visible in each and every Gunner Player. Even when we went down 0-1 by a superb strike by Villa(ofcourse Messi was the architect of that goal even if he missed 2 sitters himself) we never gave up on the game. Our Gollie who will turn 21 in April stood tall before the goalpost (btw it was his CL debut) Lurent Koscielny stood tall in the defence. Containing Barca is very tough task for any team and it was evident in the match stats, but we still held on.

The manager's gamble to sub Song with Arsha and Theo with Bedtner paid off. It showed we meant business and attack is our only chance. Finally the hard work, the self belief paid off. Van persie hit the enar post with a very precise angle and suddenly we were back in the match. It was a very emotional moment for everyone. RVP ran towards Wenger to hug him and beckoned all other players.



 I screamed and jumped and danced in front of my TV set. My roomie was left wondering what got into me..But it was not the end of the game and within 5 minutes on counter Jack, Cesc, Samir got into an exquisite move to slot the ball in Arsha's path who coolly slotted it for the winning goal. Barca was stunned so were the millions watching the game. We have done the one up on our last year's performance.

As all the people who were stunned by Arsenal's maturity have reminded me constantly that Nou Camp will be different. In their words 'Barca will slughetr you'. But if they noticed then neither players, nor our manager or not a gunner fan has predicted that now we are in Q/F. We know the work is half done and beating Barca in their own backyard will be tough but now we have a decent chance, we have the self belief and we know we can beat them.

Cant wait for 8th March. it could happen that by 8th we might have CC so breaking the trophy draught. But in middle we have some tough matches and we should avoid injuries and suspensions.

Go Gunners Go..We love you Arsenal..Ooo to be a Gunner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Monday 14 February 2011

Fairy Tales don't always have a happy endings..Do they?

Yesterday we were watching Tangled...Yeah AGAIN...Last weekend we saw it in O2 in 3D..While taking the ice cream in Ben and Jerry's we missed the starting of the movie. We tend to do that a lot..I mean missing the start by some reason or other..anyways so we finally made it inside and after settling down we were immediately sucked into the Disney magic.. It is such a great movie or I can say cute that I couldn't help it and I downloaded it. So yesterday we watched it again.



The movie is basically the story of Princess Rapunzel. Its based on the German story Rapunzel by Brothers Grim. So this is a princess who doesn't know she is a princess. She is imprisoned (though she doesn't know that either. You really wonder what she really knows but that's aside) in a tall tower.Basically story starts when a drop of sunshine falls off to earth and through it rises a magical flower. Now this flower can heal any wound and a witch name Gothel uses this flower to stay young. The kingdom queen falls ill when she is expecting and she drinks the flower. Rapunzel is born and her hair is magical, They glow when a song is sung and can heal anything.(This totally freaks out Flynn. That scene is hilarious) So Gothel kidnaps her instead when she is just a baby and had kept in the tower ever since. The king and queen are devastated and they send out thousands of lanterns in sky on her birthday and our Rapunzel is fascinated by the sight and wishes to see those in person. When she turns 18 she gets the chance when a thief(who is damn handsome too) Flynn Rider comes to tower to hide his spoils. He is her ticket to adventure. What follows is the ride of ur life with a chameleon Pascal, a horse Maximus, a frying pan, bunch of crooks who have heart of gold and gothel's attempts to get Rapunzel back. The dialogues are witty, the expressions are awesome, landscape is colourful and its a movie which touches and tugs a ur heartstrings.Animation is the next best thing.

So while watching this awesome movie I was thinking that why we don't have fairy tales in real life. From our childhood we keep hearing all those goody goody stories. How the girl is in trouble and how the prince charming comes to her rescue.Its been engraved in our heads and ofcourse hearts that Fairy Tales always have happy endings. But do they? I don't think so. I mean I have seen many stories of many ppl which are similar to the fairy tales. Lots of struggling, lots of hurdles to cross and yes they got married. But our life story doesn't end there. No fairy Tale shows how the prince and princess gets along after marriage. Isn't that suppose to be real test or something? We keep waiting that our Knight in shining Armour will come into our life riding a while horse (silly romanticism though I am sure u all girls feel that don't you?) but most of us are sadly awaken from those dreams by harsh reality. Life isn't a Fairy Tale. Even if it is it won't always have a happy ending. So is it a bad idea to raise ur child's hopes by telling them Fairy Tales? A child's mind is pure and innocent. May be parents must be thinking that why to let the children know the reality so soon and you have to agree that they do have a point.Its really confusing.

Anyways such silly thoughts shouldn't be coming into my mind after watching Tangled. It is a movie to cherish. But I cant seem to get that Line from one of my Favorite songs 'Big Girls Don't Cry' and I haven't gotten a reason to disagree with this line.