beautiful football for a football romantica

barcelona and spain's playmaker xavi hernandez said that football should be attractive and easy on the eye, pleasant for the eyes to see. i totally agree with him. all my life i only know how to play, watch and support that kind of football. at least i tried my best to.

it makes it double satisfying when your team play beautifully and winning. i don't understand and i can't imagine how does it feel to play with all those so called modern efficient football tactics, to play ultra defensively and rely just on counter attacks. for me, winning a football match is to conquer the ball possessions, creating chances and of course, scoring outstanding goals. not scramble in front of the goal post kind of finishing. if you know what i mean.

both previous world cup finalists are out already from the competition. i guess, in the end, teams who play nicely individual and as a team will prevail. let's hope for the best, competitive games and high scoring matches!

breathing onwards

every time i came close, i propelled them away, further back. somehow my sincerity is always misjudged and showering me with misfortunes. i don't know what else to do. fickleness. is surely exhausting me.

sometimes we just have to stop looking back, appreciate what's in front of us, and start looking forward. living in the past won't take us anywhere. enjoy what's present and plan for the future. life in reverse is just stagnant. it's like a twinge into the old scars. rubbing salt onto the exit wound. breathing onwards is dynamic and it is all what we need to achieve what is missing. to purge back air and living into life.

whatever it is, stick to the principles. patience, be grateful, merciful, humility, and bear no ill thoughts. hope things will work out and turn up to be A okay. finger crossed, knees on the ground, palms held upwards and head's down. and i am just one phone call away if you feel like sharing it with me.

anyway, 11 days to rejuvenation day. and counting.

time for change

it is. it is now already june, and i feel like opting for a swing of mood. i need new colors. so, here are my new designs for light at the end of the tunnel version 1.2 which will be commencing next month. kick off at july the first. remind me on that. please. i usually forgot dates :) the new design is elemental by twisted stripes of colors. cheers~

la furia roja

world cup is here haunting us again. once again, being no longer a dark horse, my all time favorite team, spain is tipped as favorites to lift the cup there in south africa. currently they sit in first place in fifa world ranking ahead of brazil and argentina. and there goes the pressure mounting on the players and so do the supporters.

spain, lavished with bunch of talented players to pick from. they have the strongest squad all the way from the goal keeper to the top strikers, some said. they are relatively young with age average of twenty four, an exciting blend between young guns and old horses in the likes of barcelona's pedro and carles puyol respectively. they are technically sound, high work rate, their skills and ability are exemplary and they have been playing together for quite sometimes resulting as perfect gelled teamwork.

with san iker casillas between the goal posts, sergio ramos galloping at the right flank, with xavi hernandez, andres iniesta, david silva and francesc fabregas mastering the middle park, and power forward david villa up front, spain surely looks unstoppable. they have their own style of play, a total possession domination, tiring their opponents with short and neat passing, ready to electrify the atmosphere.

i've been supporting la furia roja or the furious red since i was 11. they had always been disappointed and disappointing in big tournaments, a total big flop, underachiever, it's like they couldn't replicate their club forms in the likes of valencia, barcelona and real madrid, until they finally broke their jinx in last euro 08 in austria, when iker casillas lifted the trophy eliminating all the rumors that there were politics issue in their dressing room saying that the barcelona captain puyol should be the national captain instead of the real madrid keeper since there were only 2 real madrid players in the team i.e casillas and sergio ramos (ruben de la red were still loaned to getafe during that time) compared to barcelona's xavi, pique, iniesta, etc. nevertheless the victory somehow sent a message to the big boys of world football e.g. brazil, argentina, france, italy or england that they were not to be taken lightly again.

but humility is the essence of success in this world cup for the spanish team as said by their sporting director come assistant manager, fernando hierro, former real madrid and spanish captain. they have to maintain their feet on the ground, focus and play like how they want to play their game. i am sure that they have learned from their past mistakes e.g the painful exit in previous world cup back in germany when france destroyed their hopes in the second round and failure to advance from group stage in both euro 04 and world cup 98 when hierro himself and raul were in the team.

whatever it is, just like what kinka said, rain or shine, viva espana! we'll see how their progress to the final, where brazil and italy are the potential opponents in their upcoming knockout stages. llueva o truene, vamos espana siempre!

No.	Pos.	Player	DoB (Age)	Caps	Goals	Club
1	GK	Iker Casillas (c)	20 May 1981 (1981-05-20) (age 29)	104	0	Real Madrid
12	GK	Víctor Valdés	14 January 1982 (1982-01-14) (age 28)	1	0	Barcelona
23	GK	Pepe Reina	31 August 1982 (1982-08-31) (age 27)	20	0	Liverpool
2	DF	Raúl Albiol	4 September 1985 (1985-09-04) (age 24)	23	0	Real Madrid
3	DF	Gerard Piqué	2 February 1987 (1987-02-02) (age 23)	16	4	Barcelona
4	DF	Carlos Marchena	31 July 1979 (1979-07-31) (age 30)	59	2	Valencia
5	DF	Carles Puyol	13 April 1978 (1978-04-13) (age 32)	83	2	Barcelona
11	DF	Joan Capdevila	3 February 1978 (1978-02-03) (age 32)	46	4	Villarreal
15	DF	Sergio Ramos	30 March 1986 (1986-03-30) (age 24)	60	5	Real Madrid
17	DF	Álvaro Arbeloa	17 January 1983 (1983-01-17) (age 27)	15	0	Real Madrid
6	MF	Andrés Iniesta	11 May 1984 (1984-05-11) (age 26)	43	6	Barcelona
8	MF	Xavi Hernández	25 January 1980 (1980-01-25) (age 30)	87	8	Barcelona
10	MF	Cesc Fàbregas	10 May 1987 (1987-05-10) (age 23)	50	6	Arsenal
13	MF	Juan Manuel Mata	28 April 1988 (1988-04-28) (age 22)	8	3	Valencia
14	MF	Xabi Alonso	25 November 1981 (1981-11-25) (age 28)	69	9	Real Madrid
16	MF	Sergio Busquets	16 July 1988 (1988-07-16) (age 21)	13	0	Barcelona
20	MF	Javi Martínez	2 September 1988 (1988-09-02) (age 21)	2	0	Athletic Bilbao
21	MF	David Silva	8 January 1986 (1986-01-08) (age 24)	36	7	Valencia
22	MF	Jesús Navas	February 26, 1985 (1985-02-26) (age 25)	6	1	Sevilla
7	FW	David Villa	3 December 1981 (1981-12-03) (age 28)	58	38	Barcelona
9	FW	Fernando Torres	20 March 1984 (1984-03-20) (age 26)	73	24	Liverpool
18	FW	Pedro Rodríguez	28 July 1987 (1987-07-28) (age 22)	3	1	Barcelona
19	FW	Fernando Llorente	26 February 1985 (1985-02-26) (age 25)	7	3	Athletic Bilbao

living in principles

what is it i hold on to in this life? what determines how i live my life and how i operate. how do i measure that i'm living successful enough. is it the money, or the properties, can it be number of friends, or do achievements fit in the list? too many questions too many answers dwelling. i don't know why i'm always in my depth thinking mode lately.

everytime i'm in search of myself, my beliefs, my faith, my personality, everytime i am in a rush for happiness, the seek of balance, i always go back to the principles. okay, now what differs principle from a belief? for me, a belief might be inconsistent and different from one culture to another, variance from one soul to another. but the principle, it's universal, stand alone, the "it depends" phrase doesn't apply to it, and it's timeless, unchanged and everlasting. for example, let's take a very simple one as better segregation. eating with hands, it's a malay culture, chopstick for the chinese, fork and spoon for the others, mostly. it varies. but whatever it is you are using to eat, it got to be clean. and that's a principle. it's consistent across all kind of cultures.

we have all kinds of religions in this very mean world. different faith, encouraging their followers for different paths and beliefs. but all religion stressed their convictions and doctrines to be good, to be kind, to show mercy, to have manners, to love each other, to respect each other, and so forth. and it doesn't change, be it in 17th century, renaissance, be it in industrial revolution, different caliphs rule, protestant separation, millennium, whenever, forever, it is the same.

so, i feel like i've been strayed too far for too long, so many times. but we are mere mortals. i make mistakes trillions of times, you can't afford to run from them, we all make mistakes. that what makes us human. so colourful, this life can be.

but what is more important is to learn from our mistakes and always streamlined ourselves back to the principles. cleanse ourselves, forgive ourselves, and seek forgiveness from Him. in order to have clarity, the balance for serenity. stick to my faith, my religion. so that my path is straight, and never astray. dear god, show me the way. insha'Allah. amin~

blast off under the scorching sun

yeah, another blast. we went to cherating, for our 3 days batch getaway, as one of the lined up activities for our 10th years after graduation anniversary. it was awesome. the beach was clean and nice, the chalets was perfectly lined up for us to stay door to door next to each other, the bbq food were nice, the seafood drive to kuala kemaman was even cooler, satar lunch on the second day was great accompanied with sweet air batu campur, skin dipped for many times, beach volleyball, sing along together with guitar strumming, poker games until morning, sun rise photography, a cool perfect gateway with close friends, again checked!

we planned for this trip since last year, we are proud to successfully held it. even though the attendance was not as per confirmed earlier, due to some of us had to rain check consequent of last minute commitments, but 20 plus of us was just nice for a turn up number. or else, it could have been too crowded, to jive and mingle around.

it was sizzling during the day, but we still managed to have our shirtless beach volleyball. full of laughter. some of us brought along their newly born sons. yeah, it's good to have cute kids around to hold and kuci kuci kind of play :) man, i was so touched to see how happy my friends who are married, together with their wives and kids. somehow, it developed my fatherhood sense that one day, i'll have my life, my faith, my religion, completed too. insha'Allah.

it was good to have the getaway to really get away from the metropolitan cramps, and all the problems in the office. so, next activity will be our back to school trip, with all those uniforms and last but not least, the grand gala dinner at the end of the year, as the closure, of a wonderful year. boys we were, and we will always be boys in our hearts :p the aging process doesn't affect the memories, truly.

victim of vanity

in my quest of searching for a nice size 8-10 woman's leather jacket for her, i almost got myself caught off guard of being a victim of vanity. i was trying on few designs of man's jacket for myself since i couldn't find a single one which caught my attention. what a diversion. as the temptation built up rapidly.

man, the objective was to buy a jacket for her but instead, it almost end up another additional to my collection in the paper bag. but unfortunately lucky me (urgh), my deep conscience was clear enough, managed to convince me not to buy one of those two cool jaw dropping awesome jackets. hehe. and of all lame excuses i said to myself not to buy one, it was the climate came on top of the long list of doubtful self indulgence denial, etc. malaysia is too hot for another jacket in my wardrobe. yep, blame the sizzling weather. :P

the poking mind blower is, am i that vain to be a victim of my own vanity affair? don't judge me, it was hard to resist them okay! lol~

between needs and necessities

after series of unfortunate events and incidents for the past 3 days, i feel like i need her most. more than i want anyone else. need her, need you now ~ :(