the flow continues

spain u-19 won against italy and you got to look at real betis's midfielder ezequiel calvente. how he took his penalty.

well. the vast talent pool is getting bigger. there are still plenty of young and talented skillful players waiting for their time to represent spain in international flight. barcelona's bojan krkic, arsenal's fran merida, athletico's de gea, osasuna's cesar azpilicueta, real madrid's alberto bueno, santander's sergio canales, sevilla's diego capel, and now calvente. man, it's surely going to be a headache for the coach to select 23 players for any major tournaments.

and the free flow continues. ole!

forbidden goodbyes

ten years ago i once said this to all my friends and junior when i left the malay college, "there are things better left unsaid, and goodbye is one of them".

this year, this season, real madrid club de futbol will have to part with two of our all time living legends i.e. raul and guti. both of them have been with the club since they were kids and been playing almost 15 years in the first team.

"it was a hard decision to leave but i need to continue playing regular first team football", said guti the magical full of visions playmaker. the five-time spanish league and three-time champions league winner that it was not an easy decision to leave his boyhood club and that he felt sad at the departure. he is the true passer, master of assists and through balls.

for raul, it is needless to say, to state his contribution and devotion to the club and to his nation. he is their all time top scorer in all competitions in the likes of primera liga, champions league and also in their national colors, one goal ahead of sensational david villa. he's the living legend, the icon of spanish football. real raul. he's a true leader, a classic example for all young players, in and off the pitch.

but life is like that. people come and go. sad but it is for the best of the club. both of them need to continue playing and staying at santiago bernabeu is a hinder. guti will be reunited with former real madrid coach, bernd schuster at besiktas, turkey while raul will join felix magath's company shalke 04 in germany.

with both of them leaving, iker casillas the legendary goalkeeper automatically will be the new real madrid captain as he already succeeded the same responsibility from raul for spain national team. and sergio ramos will succeed guti for the vice captain post. i think.

both of them are good friends. together with many life time friends like fernando morientes, zinedine zidane, luis figo, roberto carlos and fernando redondo, they played together for many years. raul, 33 this year, father of three boys and a girl, is truly a leader, clean ever clear from any gossips neither any red card for 15 years and he is a true barcelona, athletico madrid and valencia destroyer. he scored many times against the three biggest club arch rivals. here are some videos, tribute to them.

1. raul alejandro blanco gonzalez, raul's wiki
2. jose maria gutierrez hernandez and guti's wiki

this post i dedicate special to them, a tribute for the kind of class,technique and the flamboyant style of play,reasons why i am so in love with real madrid and spanish football. ever since. i feel the lost of madrid number 7, el capitan and number 14, el dominator. already.

if it's love

yep, another version of "ifs, buts and maybes" story. i've been practicing the chords of train's new hit single called if it's love and few other songs. i like the song and i love the lyrics. it just, knocked me in with some sense. so enjoy the song. hope you'll like it.

While everybody else is getting out of bed
I'm usually getting in it
I'm not in it to win it
And there's a thousand ways you can skin it

My feet have been on the floor
Flat like an idle singer
Remember winger
I digress
I confess you are the best thing in my life

But I'm afraid when I hear stories
About a husband and wife
There's no happy endings
No Henry Lee
But you are the greatest thing about me

If it's love
And we decide that it's forever
No one else could do it better
If it's love
And we're two birds of a feather
Then the rest is just whenever
And if I'm addicted to loving you
And you're addicted to my love too
We can be them two birds of a feather
That flock together
Love, love
Got to have something to keep us together
Love, Love
That's enough for me

Took a loan on a house I own
Can't be a queen bee without a bee throne
I wanna buy ya everything
Except cologne
'cause it's poison
We can travel to Spain where the rain falls
Mainly on the plain side and sing
'cause it is we can laugh we can sing
Have ten kids and give them everything
Hold our cell phones up in the air
And just be glad we made it here alive
On a spinning ball in the middle of space
I love you from your toes to your face

You can move in
I won't ask where you've been
'cause everybody has a past
When we're older
We'll do it all over again

Love, love
Got to have something to keep us together
Love, Love
That's enough for me :)

there's "more" to it

it's true. sometimes, it takes months for a person to realize something. some people years, some might need a hard bang on the head to learn some cheesy idea. some require series of unfortunate events or accumulated frustrations to finally swallow the truth.

today, finally i got myself out of it, beyond doubts and confusions. to finally kill the emerging hatred and to eventually wipe off the bitterness in me. now i got it. understood. it's possible for her to feel it that way but at the same time get herself confused, like what she confessed.

well, she made her decisions already. for the better. for the best, for all three of us. for him, for me and definitely for her. it wasn't the famous choice of all time, and surely wasn't pleasant at all. she got to choose. and somebody has to loose. it was hard for me to swallow and now i understand, finally that it wasn't easy for her too. maybe it's true about those things she used to tell me. but it's just me, too greedy to have it all, to proud to accept the truth and her decisions, either or, perhaps both.

but things are different now, probably too late to amend. i said things, mean things. and i regret those. this is the best for everybody. everything happens for a reason. now i just stick to my prayer, like i used to said to her, that i always pray for her happiness. there's nothing else i want other than to make her smile, even it costs me to weep. she is in good hands now, better than mine.

i thought she lied. i wanted more from her, more than what she could possibly to offer, nothing less than what she could never be to me. nothing was enough for me. she tried. but i was just too proud to admit that what she offered was the best she had. to be friends, and demanded me to stay, stick around.

maybe she was, telling the truth. that she loved me, but she loves him more.

first star

so my prayers answered. finally. there's always first time for everything. and my god, infallibly it was a sweet victory for the whole spanish regions and confederates. be it basque, catalonia, la coruna, vigo, andalusia, canary island or palma de mallorca, castille or la manca, they all spanish tonight.

the beginning of a new era. i think they deserved it. it was quite a poor game. not up to my standard, definitely not to the team's standard and level of play. but in the end, the team who created more chances and dominated the possession more won the game. justice in football. beautiful game prevails.

whatever it is, a star on the batch of the shirt is surely a big thing for me, and for the rest of futbol romantica out there. first time that, first time those. and the first star erased all the scars. ole!

sweet victory for the first timers

it was hell a technical game. a tactical battle in midfield. but all in all, in the end, it was 179cm tall puyol who got the better of taller german defenders in the likes of 190cm per mertesacker and arne friedrich.

first time for everything. first time in the semis, first time in africa continent, first time both previous winner and runners up out during group stage, first time that, first time those.

and i hope it will the first time ever for a team to win the world cup despite losing in the opening match, to be the very first european team to bring back the trophy from outside europe, for their first ever world cup triumph. then, they will be the very first european team to clinch both world cup and euro back to back.

the echo to the heart

well, it takes a lot more to listen than to mumble. it takes courage, patience and maturity to listen. people said that the giving hands are way lot better than the receiving hands. same goes to this, listening just supersedes talking.

what is it that people meant when they talk about listening? listen is certainly not eavesdrop. that's different, that's not the kind of listening that i want to talk about. many people can talk, there are a lot of people are loud out there, quite a number of people love to debate, pouring opinions, sharing knowledge, and so forth. but few can really listen. that's the truth, unnoticed in today's society.

it takes the heart to listen actually, not just the pair of ears, cochlea and eustachian tubes. listen with the intent to reply, with the pure intention, intentionally to response immediately, is not really listening after all. you see, if you pay that brief attention just for the sake of collecting some information, probing, writing your own script, analyzing the case while deriving the mental synopsis in your boggling mind, well, i wouldn't call that listening at all. that's inquisitive.

emphatic listening is to listen with the intent to understand, to feel to very bottom heart of the matter, to appreciate the other person on the line who's sharing his or her problems, what's bothering them, to put yourself in their shoes, embedding a pure feeling of love nothing else than to help the person who is in much for a hand, patience enough to succumb all the possible threats and defensive symptoms from the person, because not all people are brave and humble enough to seek for help. most people, will normally go around the bushes, reluctantly to tell the truth, of telling the real problem partially, or putting the defensive mechanism as a wall to protect their ego and they think they will look weak for telling the truth, confusing the listener, leaving the listening mislead. so many possibilities, and one could get hurt during the difficult task of listening and enduring. but that's the true kind of maturity, lending our ears for people that we care.

it looks simple but not easy. it's hard but it's not impossible to really listen. practice makes perfect. that's all. but the bottom line is, we have to be sincere to listen. kind enough to spare few minutes, just to give the other person the support that they are looking for. it's not the solution or opinion that they are looking for. it's not really that much they seek for. but it takes a lot to listen. it's okay to play dumb fool for a while. it's okay for not being the smarter one for the time being, because the one who listens is way much stronger. emotionally, mentally than the one who's screaming.

listening to me, it's like a heart beat, like hard beat, it's like a heart break beat, beating out of me. just like what brandtson said, the echo takes me down to mexico.

anti reckless abandon

after two years, it's time for me to reminisce on my bangkok trip back in 2008. this friday, me and the boys will go there again for an annual rugby match between our beloved the malay college, versus royal vajiravudh college. it's a big thing, another historic event for both institutions.

the rugby match is scheduled on saturday. i think. or sunday. not sure myself but surely, we all will shoot to chatuchak, the weekend market on both days. for another shopping frenzy. this time around, i want to get things which are really really important, things that i've been longing to buy, things that have been in the list for quite sometimes, worth for a penny.

i have my own list prepared already. i have to be prudent this time. i don't want to get too excited with all those cool tshirts, leaving myself becoming a reckless abandon in thai's capital. learned from the previous visit. that's what we do, learn from the past for a better tomorrow. we let go the haunting mistakes that we've done, we do not put all those blames on anyone, not someone in the present, certainly not in the future and we take full responsibility on whatever happened to us that we made a choice, and we can't be absolved from it.

so, a corduroy suit and few colorful ties and probably, leather goods. that's it. that's all. i want to take pictures. a lots of them. and i want to go to the thai kickboxing match, muay thai. can't wait..

but then, first thing first. tonight will be a historic day for my team. spain for the first time in a world cup semi and bidding all their luck on the madrid's cibeles fountain to go all the way to the final, a rendezvous with the dutch. surely, a good match anticipated. what a day, what a week, what a life.

pride devours

i personally think that seeking feedback from others on how we've progressed is good. a good practice, definitely a good thing. it might be a necessity, at times, depending on the situation, different circumstances. we need others to assess us sometimes, to give the check and balance. so that we know that we are doing the right thing.

you see, conscience alone is not enough. we need others in this life. why? because we are not perfect, not even close to perfection, if there's such thing as one. being independent is good, a true characteristic of maturity. but extreme independence becomes negative. we don't want to be too independent like an island, don't we? isolated, disconnected and helpless.

actually, interdependency is an act of another maturity level. way beyond the private victory, against extreme self esteem, pride and self indulgence. i'm not saying that self esteem is not good. we have to maintain a certain level of self believe and confidence. but in this life, the very best thing is balance.

being able to listen and paying attention, observing others are few attributes towards the public victory. the ultimate winning. but listening alone is just inadequate. we need to be opened, unoffensive, not defensive and less complacent, mature enough to accept people's opinion and feedback. listen first and then assess the information. accept, and appreciate the differences. the differences are beautiful. just because we are different, distinguished from each other, it doesn't mean that one of us is wrong. it's just up to us, whether we want to learn from each other or not.

pride and complacency are two lethal unnoticed carcinogenic virus in people. people sit back and embrace themselves due to their ignorance. and those can consume us eventually. if we can't manage these, we are going backwards and nowhere. stagnant and worst, people will loose hope on us, and desert us.

we, human, we are homo sapient not homonus nocturnas. we are not vampires. we are all inherently good people, nice, living by the principles. but ego mismanagement and ignorance ruined it all for us, for centuries. era by era, civilization after civilization. thus, let's pray that we stay on the right course, always. amin.

keeping promises

as promised, 1st of july, the rejuvenation day. i revamped my blog layout. apparently there were slight changes to the initial idea of retrofitting.

the earlier idea was to put teal as my background but unfortunately kinka, it didn't fit with page nicely and the color was too vibrant, overwhelming the rest and made it very difficult to read.

so i changed the main color, matched it with the main "volatile+redundant" header. those two words are best in defining me. in my writing world. hence the new theme.

so, keep on reading or visiting. and seriously i'd appreciate comments. in english, infallibly. my mandarin is not that sharp. mind me :P

drama in johannesburg

finally spain broke their quarter final jinx. once again, 175cm tall david villa is their hero. it was a very very difficult game. but, spain unwilling to trade and give up their tiki taka triangle short passing style of play, continue to press and press. 83 minutes gone before iniesta, pedro and villa broke the dead lock.

whatever it is, i think it is already high time for vicente del bosque, the former glorious real madrid player and manager to start cesc fabregas instead of torres. especially against the hardworking and technically sound german side. pact the middle park to overwhelm bastian schweinesteiger and sami khedira. to suppress the speed of young ozil and podolski.

but the game against paraguay was a howler. full of dramas. two missed penalties. two disallowed goals. two players spilled their blood for their teams. and it was twice against the posts for a goal. the soul goal. it was not that convincing but a win still a win. they worked hard for it.

so spain will meet the germans in durban in four days time. what a game, what a meet, what a rematch of euro 08 final. anyway, deustch, here we come..