L - Class Eco.

So, its time for yet another El Classico!

For the wrestling illiterate, "El Classico" is used to refer to the wrestling match between two of the finest (read : richest) teams of the world. It is supposedly, the mother of all wrestling matches.

But that's not the point of this post. Allow me to introduce the two teams to you.

Barcelona, or as some call it, Barca, is fairly known for its Humar Rights abuse issues. It is one of the world's worst kept secrets that the owners of Barca are decedents of Hitler himself and have taken torture to a whole new dimension.

Barca's 11 year old Internationals

The 21st century concentration camps, La Masia, is Barca's prized asset. Here, children from all across the world are imported (human trafficking) at the age of 2 or 3 and are tortured and forced to take up wrestling. Over the next 5-6 years, they are modeled into being professional wrestlers. By 11, these kids are ready to play for their countries.

Biscuits caught red-handed!

But, occasionally, Barca also produce world class footballers who are trained for robotic display of dribbling, passing, scoring and diving. Lionel Messi, you should know him, is one such human-converted-into-a-robot. He shows immaculate dribbling ability and pin-point passing. Sergio Biscuits is however, a diving asset. He can dive anywhere and everywhere. Last I checked, a local Barca news agency reported Biscuits having dived outside the ticket counter of the underground and claimed a foul because he had no money to buy a ticket. (What?)

Pinto, doing what he does best.

However, Barca is not just about its flair. They also keep bouncers and drug traffickers in their team. Jose Manuel Pinto is one of Spain's finest bouncers who only appears on such events as the El Classico for the purpose of protecting the teenage players from harm and more importantly, physically assault the opponent team at every opportunity.

Among drug traffickers, Javier Mascherano is the old veteran. Because Barca believe in community service, they also have retired ex-prisoners like Eric Abidal in their team.

Compromising position 1

Ex-convicts brings me to Real Madrid then. Real is an exact opposite of Barca and do not believe in training its players. They thrive on robbing other teams of their star power and their principle is not much different from the pimp next door.

Madrid change players as often as you change your underwear. Needless to say, almost all the players across the world have, at some point or the other, represented Madrid. Madrid believes in hit and trial. And thus, they try out every player and then choose those flashy ones who they find are "absolutely necessary to defeat Barcelona".

Compromising Position 2

Madrid's principle objective in playing football is defeating Barca. And they have a good record against them too, save in the last couple of years when they have been washed out 6-2 and 5-0 in two occasions when they decided to play some football instead of wrestling.

Real have the other best player in the world, Cristiano Ronaldo. Ronaldo, gay by birth, is a class act. He pretends to be an amazing player but all he really does is dive, wink and get pictures with other teammates in compromising positions. Ronaldo is also famous for innumerable dives all across the football field and for his national team at the Olympics.

Marcelo showing off his Russian gold medal

Apart from him, Madrid has Marcelo, who was a member of the Russian Circus where he won plenty of accolades - including the Russian award for the best Circus man.

Casillas playing the Staring game

Kaka is the only footballer in the Madrid team but is mostly injured due to Cristiano's dirty tricks to be the Mr. Headline in the team. The only other respectable member of the team is Iker Casillas who is a brilliant keeper. He is known more for his amazing prowess at the game of "Stare". Oh, he's really good at that!

Besides, Madrid has Xabi Alonso. That guy is so lazy, he has more goals from the center line than anywhere near or inside the opponent's penalty box.

So, that's about all you need to know to watch tonight's El Classsico. Don't worry, its going to be 90 minutes of fun! Barca might probably thrash Madrid, but you never know. O:)







(This post was purely meant for fun. There's no insult intended towards any individual or team. Both Barcelona and Real Madrid are world leaders in the game of football and set high standards. They both have a golden history and culture and are unique.The players mentioned in this post are legends. They deserve the highest accolades and praise. There is no insult intended to them either)

Ricardo Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo fail to impress

Day 5 at the Fifa WC 2010 promised to be an exciting day with Kaka and Ronaldo, the Real Madrid duo set to feature in their opening world cup matches against DPR Korea and Cote d'Ivoire. Excitement levels were, as usual, tremendously high with many expecting them to put on a powerful performance.

However, when Kaka took to the field alongside the Samba mates, with potential hopes of routing the Koreans, they faced a challenge no one expected. The Koreans had a virtual 8-1-1 formation and with all eleven players inside their own half and 8 withing their penalty box itself ( xD ),  they kept the 5 time World Champions at bay and even launched two or three counter attacks during the entire duration of the first forty-five !!

A resilient Korean side kept defending and defending and defending and slowly, frustration levels among the Brazilians were increasing. So much so that, Mr.Kaka actually started mis-passing and the Samba boys resorted to long ranged efforts which were no where near the goal post (viz. Jabulani, I'll cover up Mr Jabulani in some other post ). 

What made matters worse is that the Koreans were apparently not just very satisfied with the things, but they were thanking/shaking/apologizing and even hugging the Brazilians at times almost like it was a dream come true moment for them !! The Brazilians sure didn't think it was all that funny.

And, just when the expectations of half a dozen goals melted into expectations of the biggest surprise, Maicon took things in his own hand when he drived a bullet from almost a zero degree to beat the Korean water tight defense and score the first of the match.

You could understand how important that goal was for the Brazilians from the way Maicon went on his knees and kept crying. Now who would have expected the North Koreans making Maicon cry? Sure, its a funny game !!

Elano scored the second thanks to an excellent through ball by Robinho and the surprises were yet to come when J.Yum Nam became the national hero (and might well get honorary medals back in his country, when he returns) when he broke the Brazilian defense and scored against Julio Cesar ( !!!! )

It was some game !! And even though Brazil inched past the Koreans, the Group of Death is hotting up with Korea potentially capable of thwarting off the Portuguese or the Ivorian challenge !!

In the match preceding that, Portugal and Cote d'Ivoire played out a goal less match and the other stalwart of world football Cristiano Ronaldo came very close to prove his worth as the most expensive player in the world when his quick feet left the Ivorian defense stranded and he drived a powerful shot from 30 yards out only to hit the post !! Pity. 

Didier Drogba came on in the 65th minute and almost got the Ivorians, their first WC 2010 victory, but.. it ended as it began, 0-0.

The other match of the day saw a tremendous come back by the 'All whites', scoring an equalizer in the dying moments of the match to rescue a point against the Slovakians. Kudos Winston Reid !!

However, its day 6 and its time for (imagine drum roll ... .. ... .. ) "Spain !!" 

La Roja, with the dream team that they have, open their campaign today against Switzerland who would probably be missing their captain charismatic, Aleksander Frei, due to injury. Many would predict the Spanish to win easy, but after what I saw yesterday, a 2-0 victory would be convincing. 

Before that, Honduras take on Chile in the first Group H game. Chile are in hot form and would look to take all 3 points to put Spain in a little bit of pressure before going into their match. 

Spain would probably play a 4-1-3-2 with Xabi Alonso as the defensive midfielder (with an offensive knack of scoring long ranged goals.. he is said to have scored a couple from the moon.. oh wait.. was it Mars? .. ) and Xavi being the central creative midfielder. Silva almost guarantees himself on the Left flank which leaves the Right open for Cesc Fabregas or Jesus Navas, in the case of Iniesta's absence, most likely after he picked up a slight injury.

The back four remains same as it was in the match against South Korea and Iker Cassilas dons the captain's armband and the goalie's uniform. Already "whoa"-ing with the talent, class, whoa-ness of the team?

After the Spanish, the attention then shifts back to the host nation, South Africa, who take on Uruguay in the first match of Round 2 (from Group A). Expect a lot of noise pollution in that game. And, maybe the diski dance again.

The Champions defied and Oranje start loose.

Day 4 at the  FIFA World Cup 2010 saw the Netherlands open their cup campaign against the Danes. Following Germany's stupendous performance the day before, expectations were high from the Oranje to demolish the Daring Danish contingency.

However, the match began in a rather, boring way. The goalies had absolutely nothing to do in the first forty-five and Wesley Sneijder failed to convert two free kicks from near about the 30-yard range. Niklas Bendtner lined up alongside Dennis Rommedahl but he also failed to live up to his claim earlier this year to be the highest goal scorer at the World Cup. Optimism anyone?

The Netherlands, as usual, had a powerful line up, even though they missed star player Arjen Robben, who sat out due to his hamstring injury he picked up during the match against Hungary where he smashed 2 goals en route to Netherlands' 6-1 demolition.

van Bronckhorst led his team in his 100th cap for the Oranje. van Bommen played the role of the defensive midfielder with excellent vision and partnership with Nigel De Jong who was terrific too. Right Back van der Wiel was the surprise package as the 22 year old's surprise runs into the Danish defense with the ball created ample space for Dirk Kuyt and van Persie on either flanks to feed van der Vaart, who was in the central offensive role.

The first goal came in the 46th minute when van Persie's intended cross was met my Poulsen's wrongly timed header and he smashed the ball into Daniel Agger who unintentionally flicked it into his own net leaving Sorensen with pretty much nothing to do. Dirk Kuyt tapped an easy sitter later to give the Netherlands a comfortable 2-0 victory. Ellia came on as a substitute in the second half and impressed with sublime skills in the left flank terrorizing the Danish back line.

Japan faced Cameroon in the second match of the day and in a way caused a major upset to the African nation. Cameroon stunned the world in the 1990 world cup finals under Roger Milla but had failed to do much in the finals after that. However, this year, they had come to the Rainbow nation with serious hopes of reaching the last eight at least and their hopes went severely down, courtesy, a brave show by the Asians who clinched a 1-0 scrape through by virtue of Keisuke Honda's goal. 

The last match of the day saw defending champions Italy take on a Paraguayan side which looked young, brave and very attacking. Contrary to their previous world cup performances, Paraguay showed resilience and took the lead in the 39th minute when Antolin Alcaraz headed in a inch perfect free kick by A. Torres leaving Gianluigi Buffon stunned and the Azurri's confidence terribly dented.

However, the Italians came back in the second half after Buffon retired hurt during half time to let Federico Marchetti get his 6th cap for the Squadra Azzuris.

The Paraguayan goalie's mistake allowed Danielle De Rossi to tap in a floated ball from the corner to equalize the score in the second half. Marcello Lippi brought in Camoranesi in an effort to stretch the game and find space through the middle, but a strong Paraguayan defense with virtually 3 central defenders kept Italy out and held them to a 1-1 draw.

New Zealand and Slovakia face each other in the second match of Group F (First Round) and both will look to take advantage of the Italy-Paraguay result and go on top of the group with a win. The Oceania champions looked anything but satisfying in the last year's Confederations Cup going down to Spain 5-0. But, with Slovakia, they will fancy their chances.

Apart from that, commencing today is the Group of Death with Brazil and North Korea in action after Portugal and Ivory Coast fight it out in the second match of the day.

Portugal's coach calls Cristiano Ronaldo, Superman. And today will be Ronaldo's ultimate test. If Portugal has to go through, they have to defeat Ivory Coast and vice versa. Ivory Coast, or Cote d'Ivoire as they prefer it, boasts of talents like Kolo Toure, Yaya Toure, Didier Drogba and Solomon Kalou. Drogba maybe out of the first match due to injury, but Cote d'Ivoire is still a good unit.

The last match of the day sees eternal favorites, Brazil take on North Korea. North Korea, with tremendous confidence have claimed to be able enough to defeat Brazil. Making their second appearance at the world stage after 1966 (where they actually defeated favorites Italy !! ), that would be a difficult task given Brazil is no ordinary team at all. 

With the likes of Luis Fabiano, Ricardo Kaka, Felipe Melo and a water tight back four with Julio Cesar in the Goalie's position, Brazil are, well, VERY STRONG.

Yet again, its a promising day at the world cup with many favorites in action. Lets hope the day lives up to its expectations!