Sorcerers or ‘Soccer’ers?

This post kind of summarizes the events of this World Cup. Wait!!! No, this has absolutely NOTHING to do with football. Actually I must make it clear here that I'm pretty much a zero in football (Yes, we used to play it with great zeal in school, but I never cared to watch it on TV). Infact, the last match I watched before this World Cup was the finals of the 2002 WC. I didn't know that a man named Ronaldo existed before that.

Rather, this post relives the legend of how this WC turned few ordinary men into wizzards... how few mortals (read my classmates) discovered the power of divination within them... the power to tell the future! This post attempts to recount the innumerable predictions made by the guys of ECE, 2006 batch... And how NONE of them actually came true!

Sorcercer #1
Now what is a better media than blogging to tell the world your predictions. It all started with Asif's "Everybody is talking about the World Cup" ( http://asiftherock.blogspot.com/ ). And talking they did. Though Asif refrained from making any explicit prediction of the results in his post and was mostly discussing the strengths and weaknesses of various teams, he did hint a support for the world wide 'Brazil will Win' syndrome. He dismissed France in "Why don't they change formations" as having poor strategy and that very team with the same strategy made it to the final!

Sorcercer #2
Then comes, of course, our very own, 'The Dark Lord' alias 'Sirius Black' alias 'Siriusly Silver' alias Dijango Maama. This 'Disgruntled English Fan' ( http://siriuslysilver.blogspot.com/ ) constitutes those in this country who still loyally serve our old colonial masters. His devotion and deep 'love' for ManU players can be no less exemplified than Asif's post on this nerd ( http://asiftherock.blogspot.com/2006/01/so-today-lets-look-at-my-buddy-ilango.html ) hehe! None of the teams in his "Order of Favorites" crossed the quaterfinals, and the "Woeful French...Again" AGAIN came close to claiming the honours. His "Go Three Lions!" soon became "Unconvincing Three Lions". Poor chap had a pathetic World Cup this time around. And as it always happens, his passions are often met with hostility by my classmates. Everyone hated England to begin with ( "They are overrated"- Asif ). I sometimes have a feeling people hate England just because Kilango likes it. Its this obsession with which he worships the sportspersons he likes that puts off most people. Everyone was celebrating the day England was out of the WC campaign. And Jango din't come online for a few days... I was worried if Jango, under a fit of passion, did the unthinkable! No one was complaining though, when I expressed this concern to my friends...

Me: "Dei, its been 3 days since I saw him online... you reckon he committed a suicide or something?"
Everyone else: "We hope he does that!"

Poor Jango almost always ends up as a "Black" Sheep. Then finally he was back with the post "Henry is No Saint!" which was but a mere offspring of his frustation and agitation at the world cup results.

Sorcercer #3
Next in the list of sorcerers is the Eternally-Fickle-Minded-Jerk, Kalyanaraaman. Now Kalyan is not exactly a blogger, but then he doesn't need a blog to let the world know what he thinks... His big loud mouth, which goes an extra mile in ranting, does it for him. During ABK's treat in Hot Chips, he proclaimed, "Dei, Brazil thokkanumna Ronaldovukku bedhi varanum, Ronaldinovukku vaanthi varanum, Adrianovukku jaundice varanum" (For Brazil to loose, Ranaldo must suffer from Diahorrea, Ronaldino from Nausea and Adriano from Jaundice)... apparam?... Kakavukku Kakavalippu varanuma?. Hmmm... I'm sure that after they went back to Brazil after the defeat in the Quaterfinals, the whole team WOULD have infact got Diahorrea watching the videos of their own games.

Sorcercer #4
A step toward sensibility was VAC. His "Heart says England... Mind says Brazil" ( http://thayir-sadham.blogspot.com/ ) gave away his "Go England Go!" mind set while acknowledging the power of the former World Champions. Unfortunately, neither his heart nor his mind gave him company beyond the quaterfinal! Later he acknowledged England's pathetic state in the post mortem "God Din't Save the Queen, Murray Did".

Sorcercer #5
One afternoon in the Lab...
Me: "Don't you think tonight's quaterfinal between Argentina and Germany will be pretty close... I mean both of them are playing great"
Kiran: "Dei, isn't it obvious? Argentina will win da"
And not so obviously, the hosts partied home that night. End of the road for the South Americans.

I must mention here that a respite from all these prophecies came in the form of Vivek's light hearted post "Football, England and a Bet" ( http://viveksniche.blogspot.com/ ) which narrates a funny account of how his ignorance of the game almost lost him a bet to his brother.

What I have understood, from my watching these WC matches, is that soccer is pretty much a random game with almost always, the stakes being 50-50 or something close to that. You can almost everytime draw straws between the teams. With no natural elements aiding or frustating the players (like pitch and weather in cricket), and the very tempo of the game being quite high, the game is left to the mercy of a chance rush of adernaline and a very rare display of genius even among the very great geniuses. And since the game has incurred a very defensive mindset over the years (unlike the flamboyance with which it was played in the 80s and 70s), most of the games this WC ended at 1-0s or 1-1s at full time which demand penalty shoot outs which, in turn, only increase the randomness.

And now... the greatest Sorcerer of all!
And then the night of the Finals came. Everyone was chanting "France, France, France.."... Orkut profiles, messenger statuses... almost everything on the internet was flooded with messages predicting a definite French Cup. Being online before a match is a tough time, especially if its the Finals. People just don't stop asking "Hey who do you think will win da?". I was wise enough by now not to make any statement. But my brother (who was as pathetic as me in football before this WC ) was relentless and kept messaging me asking whom am I supporting. Tired of his pestering, I uttered my ONLY prediction for World Cup 2006 Germany...

" I DONT know who will win... but I think there will be atleast one moment of great passion on ground and atleast one interesting Red Card"

... they say Lord Saneeswarar resides in my tongue. An what a red card it was! That raised hand of the refree pushed an illustrious career into oblivion. A rare moment in the history of football when you get to see a street fight during a match! Zidane fans, please don't be mad at me. Human actions are supposedly controlled by Lord Indra, not Saneeswarar!

And by the way, the French lost the match to Italians, and yes, again a penalty shoot out decided the result.

Now tell me folks... who will make a better Nostradamus... me or the self-proclaimed soccer-sorcerers of my class?

PS: Even Nostradamus got it all wrong! He predicted a Spanish win: "In the sixth year the Spaniards will bring the Holy Grail from the battle fields of Central Europe".