portugal lost.

i apologise for being so blunt,
but they lost to the french,
and france are ranked 8th in the world.

that's nothing to be ashamed of,
unless they are beaten by Iraq or some
other team la,
but of course,
that's a completely different story altogether.

at least i won't have to lose sleep again;
eugene noticed that i am having
heavier eye bags
(eugene: eh, your eyes very black leh,
never sleep ah?

me: huh?! really ah?! omg! omg! omg! omg!
[kept asking the poor xue qing who was beside
us for reassurance and hoping that she would say something
like it was not as bad as it seemed]),
and i won't have to worry about
more hair loss,
because i have been eating an average of
1 cup noodle per match.

that is a pretty unhealthy lifestyle,
you know.
i have been religiously doing the following
for the past few weeks:

1)waking up 3am early in the morning
following a morning call from zhenyu,

2)grabbing a cup noodle from
my cupboard,
and pour some hot water into it,

3)secretly crawling back into
the bedroom to crouch in one corner
to watch the tv in a sub-conscious state,
while holding my notebook, cup noodle,
and remote controller in my hands.

(for those who do not know,
i have a habit of recording notes
during a match to keep track of the
teams' tactics and players' movements.

june said that i am siao,
but i begged to differ.

i told her she was more siao
to like sitting on roller coaster trains
while screaming at the top of her lungs
as if there is no tomorrow.)




interestingly,
in my process of my note-taking during
the portugal's semi-final loss to france,
i was puzzled that portugal's team coach,
luis philipe scolari,
substituted their only striker on the field,
to make way for Simao,
a attacking midfielder cum winger,
when they are already one-goal down.

others may think that scolari is mad or something.
'cause when your team is one-nil down,
the first thing you would do is to add one
more striker to the field and hope that he
would score and salvage something right?

yeah,
but scolari thought further.

he must have noticed that france's
pair of central defenders are really steady
and blocking out almost all of the passes
that were meant for portugal's lone striker.

so by adding a winger on the field,
the plan was simple.

with 3 wingers on the field
(L Figo, C Ronaldo, S Simao),
the french defence can be stretched to the limits,
and their midfielders,
particularly Maniche,
can use their long-range shooting talents to beat F Barthez,
the france keeper.

just imagine a chewing gum is stretched
and you poke a pen into it;
it is easier to put holes into gum right?

too bad for Scolari's tactical moves,
portugal still lost the match.


well,
the final two is down to france and italy.
the best attack vs the best defence in the tournament.

F Barthez VS G Buffon.
Cannavaro VS Thuram.
Zidane VS Totti.
Henry VS Toni.

go italy.
go and punish france,
for breaking the hearts of
million portugal fans around the world.

sniff.