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Euro 2008, the season where football fanatics go to bed earlier than usual and wake up WAY earlier than usual. We go to school/work/wherever looking rather lethargic after watching a particular match but we regain our spirit when we hear conversations about the match. We always carry out post-mortem for any matches with watch, as if we are some talented commentators FIFA are dying to employ. We are able to remember every single footballer's name, every single team's formation, who scored a goal, who got an offside, who got booked, which footballer wore red underwears, which footballer had pink hair, but somehow, we can't seem to remember a single junk from our History textbooks nor Mathematic formulae.
Why am I so sure how a football fan thinks? Because I am one. Yes, I do sleep as early as 8 p.m. so I can wake up at 2.45 a.m. to watch a football match. Yes, I do carry out a "revision" session on a particular football match with my fellow football-crazy-mates. And ya, I do remember every single player in Chelsea FC but I can't remember where I place my Chemistry textbook.
Well, you can't blame me (or maybe you can..). Football is the game of beauty. It makes the world unite. The world "goal" is understood by millions, or perhaps billions of people who practices different cultures, speaks different languages and stays in different places. Football-crazy is borderless, it doesn't matter what gender you are, what age you are nor what race you are. Only one thing matters, do you have a TV that can receive live telecast soccer match?
Some might say, "What is so nice watching 22 suckers chasing over a round rubber ball (technically, it is a ball stitched from 32 panels of waterproofed leather or plastic, which has 12 regular pentagons and 20 regular hexagons. The 32-panel configuration is the spherical polyhedron corresponding to the truncated icosahedron, so its NOT round), and kick it away when they manage to get the ball.." but isn't it the same as watching tennis, badminton, basketball etc. etc. etc. ? How can you condemn a person just because he/her likes football and you don't. How can you disgrace another football team just because you dislike that team? Just yesterday, some 140+ German fan were arrested for parading the streets of Austria shouting anti-Polish chants and disgracing the Poland's national football team (Yes, I am a Germany fan, but I did not go around and condemn other teams, I'm civilised). How could a supporter of a beautiful game go around and act like hooligans, even monkeys are not as bad-hearted and wild as those hooligans are. A team is only counted as a victorious team if they have fans who are highly respectable by the world. They can only be a winning team if their fans have well sport spirit and respects the opposing team. That is the true meaning of the beutiful game.
p.s. Germany won Poland 2-0, good beginning. Netherlands won Italy by 3-0, fascinating. Romania drew with France, unbelievable.
