This time for Africa

The world cup has ended. We have a new champion. Only the eight country ever to win the prestigious Jules Rimet Trophy.

I had been wanting to collect my thoughts on the month long festival which had changed my life recently. The hours spent watching TV shot up drastically and most notably late nights had begun. This world cup was special in another way. This is the first world cup after 1998 in France which I actually saw, actually followed, actually enjoyed. The world cup is not about randomly sitting on a night in front of the tube and watching the final between two European countries. The real joy is watching those two last teams alive wade their way through 32 other contenders. I am happy I experienced real joy. So lest this joy fades away into obscurity, let me condense some key moments which left me impressed.

Best Match: Uruguay Vs Ghana, Quaterfinal. I loved watching this match. It went on till 3 AM in the night and even after getting into bed sleep did not come for hours. The drama had just mesmerized me. Suarez' hand of god. Asamoah Gyan missing the penalty in the 29th minute of extra time. Uruguay winning on penalties. One entire continent heartbroken.

Second Best Match: Spain Vs Netherlands, Final. The best final since I knew what the world cup was. I hate penalty shootouts to decide a winner and love to see goals after the group stages. France 98 final between France & Brazil was great in that regard but it was one sided. However, El Matador against Oranje turned out as expected. Two extremely strong midfields cancelling each other out, resulting in either side having numerous opportunities to score. I cant remember how many times Netherlands or Spain should have scored. The tempo and intensity of the game was also high. 8 Dutch players and 5 Spanish given yellow cards! Throwing caution to the wind of fair play just to get that prize. In the end, it was a wonderful strike by Andreas Iniesta that sealed Spain's place in the history books. Loved it.

Best Player: Diego Forlan. 5 goals all at crucial moments when his team were usually trailing 1-0. He reminded me of the legendary Davor Suker of Croatia in 1998. Maybe it went unnoticed that Forlan was injured in the semi final clash against Netherlands but still played since Suarez was out suspended after his Hand of God. Even being unfit, he produced that spectacular equalizer, the long range curling kick. Pure individual brilliance.

Best Team: Germany. Best team at this world cup. One bad match is all it took eventually. A very young side with unknown names who are now world famous stars. Thomas Mueller, Mesut Oezil, Sami Khedira to name a few. But the cherry of the German cake was the great Miroslav Klose. I enjoyed this young team's attacking and free flowing football. The 4-0 demolition of Argentina was a treat.

Best Goal: Ahh this is a tough one aint it? Personally, I love goals which were executed with finesse, skill and technique dashed with individual brilliance. To be honest, I cant remember too many goals which fitted my criteria. But let me still try. One that comes to mind was the Diego Forlan strike against Germany, his fifth goal.

2014 the world cup will travel to ..guess where... Brazil! Anyone betting against Brazil to win the world cup '14? What does Paul say?

FIFA 2010, Technical Analysis, Copernhagen

Assorted updates…

1. The world cup is around the corner, well almost. That's soccer world cup. Cricket does not even evince a semi digested burp from me. Here are the groups (FIFA rank).
Group A – South Africa (86), Mexico (15), Uruguay (19), and France (7)
Group B – Argentina (8), Nigeria (22), South Korea (52), Greece (12)
Group C – England (9), United States (14), Algeria (28), Slovenia (33)
Group D – Germany (6), Australia (21), Serbia (20), Ghana (37)
Group E – Netherlands (3), Denmark (26), Japan (43), Cameroon (11)
Group F – Italy (4), Paraguay (30), New Zealand (77), Slovakia (34)
Group G – Brazil (2), North Korea (84), Ivory Coast (16), Portugal (5)
Group H – Spain (1), Switzerland (18), Honduras (38), Chile (17)

More on the above in later posts. I need to do a lot of reading before the summer. But the above list looks really exciting especially countries like North Korea, Slovenia, Ivory Coast, and Honduras.
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2. I have been dabbling with an animal called Technical Analysis. For the uninitiated, technical analysis is the study of stock prices and charts which is different from fundamental analysis which involves studying the company’s financial statements, annual reports, management quality etc. Why am I learning technical analysis? One, because I want to experiment trading short term. Second, too much of free time courtesy my employer. So, nowadays I swim among aquatic beasts like moving averages, oscillators, RSI, MACD, Bollinger Bands, Slow Stochastics, Elliot Wave Analysis. Yeah they all sound scary, don’t they? But a little persistence with these marine wildlife can bear results. I understand them, know how to use them, however, as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating!
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3. Another latest catch on my antennae has been the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference scheduled this December. This is a next round of diplomatic parleys among 180 countries after the Kyoto Convention held in Japan. Basically, the developed countries have pledged to reduce their toxic gas emissions by fixed percentage targets. Earlier the US, which accounts for ~36% of the world’s emissions had refused to accept a limit on itself. However, it is now known that the US along with China have declared a % reduction level as accepted target. Now the focus is on the only wild sheep left in the herd. India.