Yesterday, Marta wrote that Spain was dreaming of victory in tonight’s World Cup final against The Netherlands. Now, that dream has come true. Congratulations to everybody who is celebrating tonight.
We hope you’ve enjoyed our World Cup 2010 updates. Thanks Carla, Ana, Arwa and Marta for showing us a bit of the World Cup celebrations in different parts of the world. Here’s hoping that in four years time we’ll be bringing updates from even more countries!
Whatever Paul the octopus predicts for the FIFA World Cup final, in Spain, people have faith and want to believe in victory. We face serious political and economic issues. We are not sure of what the future will hold, we don’t know if we can trust our politicians and when and if the economic crisis will end. But we are sure we want to win. There are many mottos in Spain for this final football cup. One of them is “¡Podemos!”, which reminds me of Obama’s “Yes, we can”.
Image Courtesy : Travel Webshots
6th of July, 2010.
Tuesday evening, around 10.20pm Netherlands time.
The whistle blew signalling the end of a thrilling, high adrenaline semi-final encounter between The Netherlands and Uruguay.
And the Oranje fever gripped the nation!!
We were exhilarating. Confidence of a winner. Positive bets. Brazilians had been breathless, now they became speechless. No words will ever describe the faces of dismay I experienced during the fatal game Brazil x the Netherlands. We had it all, great individual talents, guts, a tough coach. We missed it all when the emotional balance came into play. Robinho, our inspired player, scored first. The first half of the game was ours. However, the Netherlands started their moment of glory when Wesley Sneijder’s free kick turned our samba into dramatic, sad tunes of “oh, no”, “I can’t believe it”, “what are they doing?”, plus all the irresistible swearing coming from desperate fans’ mouths.
It seemed two different games, two different Brazilian teams, a haughty, self-confident one in the first half, a totally lost, zombie-like in the other. Hopelessness for us. The Dutch took control, more pragmatic, less emotional, they showed self-control; they deserved to win.
The Hand of God can have many different meanings.
And although soccer is like a religion for some, it has nothing to do with divine intervention in this case. It is, rather, the name of a controversial goal scored by Argentina’s Diego Maradona against the English side in the quarter-finals of the 1986 World Cup at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. Footage shows Maradona touching the ball with his hand; however, the goal was allowed and Argentina went on to win the match 2-1 and eventually the tournament. The name was coined when, during a press conference, Diego Maradona said the goal was scored “un poco con la cabeza de Maradona y otro poco con la mano de Dios” (“a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God”)
Bets made. The awaited game started. We were cautiously optimistic. Though we had been successful in the last encounters with the Chileans, we respected their team and their attack. Not a defensive team at all, one that was not afraid of moving forward.
In the beginning, I was still uneasy. Chile started fast forward and dangerous. However, as we progressed, it seemed our old Brazilian Team was back on track. People say that gradually improving one’s game in the World Cup is part of the deal. However, we are always in the look for a kind of samba soccer, full of dribbles and skillfully played game. (more…)
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