Inspirated

Ever since I began writing this blog, my posts have been targeting two prime areas of interest: Open Source and Soccer. Even to the most unobservant of readers, this isn’t a particularly analogous choice of topics. Now, after 21 months of Technology & Sports mishmash writing, I have been given a chance to author a blog totally focused on Football. Melius tarde, quam nunquam.

And this is where The Offside comes into the picture. It is a portal containing blogs about certain clubs, players, leagues and national teams. For anyone who has ever known me, it wouldn’t take him more than 0.001 seconds to guess which blog I was given the responsibility to write for. Welcome to totti.theoffside.com :-) . Of freaking course, what else would I prefer having to write about than the person who has been the sole reason for my continued interest in Football over the past decade. For the neophytes on my blog, here’s what I wrote in my Orkut profile’s sports section:

Over the course of years, I’ve realized that nothing can invoke emotions as powerfully and beautifully as Football does. There’s nothing more passionate than seeing Totti’s name on that red and yellow #10 shirt. Nothing is more breathtaking than the impeccable moments such as Amantino’s back-heel of God against Lazio and Er Pupone’s spoon against Inter Milan. There is nothing more sensational than the moment when fate of a nation’s dreams was lying in the right boot of Francseco; and nothing more glorious than the way he slotted it to perfection. No feeling of betrayal is as intense as Cassano back-stabbing Roma, and no feeling of admiration is as vehement as seeing De Rossi & Aquilani decline interests of bigger clubs and commit their careers to La Magica. There’s no courtship as invoking as Totti running over to the camera and turning it around to film the crowd after scoring in Derby della Capitale.

He isn’t only a player. Roma isn’t only a club. Football … isn’t only a sport.

The very least I could do to express the euphoria.

I didn’t post about the 7th UCL win of the Rossoneri on my blog because there was too much to write about the match and I didn’t have time for going through all the posting hassle. Now that I’ve got some moments of peace, I’d like to post about two match decisions which kept intriguing me for some time. Quite surprisingly, no news source or channel discusses either of them; so I had to take screenshots of my own recorded footage of the match. Here they are:

 
(Click on images for larger versions)

The first image (on the left) is of an offside decision which was given for Kaka 10 minutes after the 2nd half kick-off. Kaka was one-on-one with Reina as the whistle blew, with Inzaghi (clear of any marking) on his right for any needed support. It was a definite goal, but the offside decision was astonishingly not argued upon by either of them. I was literally baffled about judgment of the assistant referee as Kaka was clearly on-side when the pass was being delivered and he was the first one to touch the ball. Does anyone remember Ribery against Spain?

The second image is of the Kuyt goal. I wasn’t initially suspicious of it, but close inspection of the footage later on revealed that he was only marginally offside. However, this decision is somewhat vindicable given the circumstances of the box. Congrats to Kuyt for his first goal of the campaign.

Overall, the match was thoroughly entertaining. Milan played their own brand of the game and at last exacted sweet sweet revenge. It’s been a good year for Italian football despite the Calciopoli scandal as they’ve bagged both the World-Cup and the European trophies. Grandinano i campioni!

A couple of people have asked me why I didn’t post about this on my blog:

The answer is simple. The win was expected anyway after the 6-2 drubbing of Inter in Stadio Olimpico. Inter gave us a tough fight though, but it’s a rare event in Football for a team to overcome 4 goals aggregate deficit in the 2nd leg.

Anyhow, Roma deserved the win. Overall, the season has been pretty good for us — 2nd spot in the league, Champions League quarter-finals, Capitano as the Capocannoniere (Serie A top scorer) with 22+ goals and winners of the domestic cup (not to forget that Juve also played in this particular competition). The Old Trafford loss was definitely disappointing, but it would be unfair to label all the hard-work and efforts from the players as futile because of a single night’s below-par performance.

Hopefully, this will be the first trophy of many more to come. Spalletti has a bright future ahead of him if he can only get some fresh blood in summer for leading our attack. The 4-2-3-1 formation really works wonders when used effectively with everyone in good form, but it also has the ability to crumble under pressure if the attacking half isn’t doing its job properly.

Grazie Roma!

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.†— Michael Jordan

I didn’t see the match myself as no TV channel in my region was broadcasting it. Yet, this was the most pleasing news that I’ve heard in a while. It also marks the 2nd time we’ve beaten Nerrazurri in three weeks. All I can say now is that Spalleti and his players have learned their lesson from the Old Trafford game, and they definitely had the character and the heart to strike back immediately after such a huge disappointment.

P.S. Inactivity period on my blog again. This time it’s because of the my attempts to compile GNU Octave and OpenOffice.org on my PC from scratch. Expect to see posts regarding them within the coming week.

It’s over. Manchester United has finally demonstrated that they’re an average club which is just over-hyped after defeating relatively smaller ones. They crumbled in the first tie that they had against a recent UCL champion, and the ‘best player in the world’ was just stuttering around, trying to show dribbling skills while giving away the possession easily.

AC Milan thoroughly outclassed Manchester United in every aspect of the game. It really takes composure and character to withstand the pressure of an important away game, and Manchester United’s immature young performers haven’t definitely got either of those. They couldn’t play properly even against Roma in the away game, and they were psychologically devastated at San Siro. Apart from Van Der Sar, the whole team had lost mentally midway through the second half. All the more so, an away consolation goal was just too much to ask from them in the ending minutes.

Now, we fix our eyes upon Athens for the final. There’s a prominent feeling of deja vu in the air, but that’s what makes it even more exciting. Forza Rossoneri!

Although the fact that Totti’s magnificent strike against Sampdoria has been dropped to the 2nd spot for the first time in 16 weeks does enervate me a little, it doesn’t affect in any way my adoration for the best soccer league in the world. Get ready for some big-time surprises and enjoy this YouTube video:

Keep a lookout for more interesting soccer action on my blog. As some really preeminent Champions League matches are coming up later tonight and I’ll be trying to record and upload their highlights.

Includes Kaka’s match-winning goal from 93rd minute of the game: