Now finally we have the complete list of who are going to be in the quarter-finals of the World Cup. It was a surprise when I woke up this morning and checked on the cable TV that it's not Spain, but France who is through to the quarter-finals. Everyone has been saying that France has been depending too much on its veterans and it's about time the squad which is often being underrated, international-wise Spain to advance. But it's not.
It will be a France '98 revisited where in the final back then...a France-Brazil meeting. This time round in Germany, it's at the quarter-final stages. Eight years back, France won 3-0 then. Brazil don't need that to remind them what happened in France at that time. This time, it's all up to settle its 'unfinished business'.
Same thing for England and Portugal. Time to settle what should be theirs from what happened in Euro 2004 when they last met each other. And my father had been harping on one thing that England must buck up on - penalty shootouts. History has proven that England always loses out on the major matches...by penalty shootouts. One thing my father has always hoped the England squad to do, since they are in the knockout stages. A do or die thing.
As we were watching the Brazil-Ghana match (my brother was watching with us too) last night, my father was talking about what England should do to survive in this World Cup. The dreaded penalty shootouts. He was giving the example of the eventual results between the Switzerland-Ukraine match. That ended in a penalty shootout.
I swear really (*laughs*)...somebody better hire my father to comment on this World Cup! Right now. He has always been spot-on who will win, who will go. Except for a few blunders by far. The Portugal-Netherlands match, and maybe now the outcome of the Spain-France match. He was jokingly declaring his accuracy to my brother and I last night.
Looking at the way how this father of mine who once dreamt a Brazil-England final and eventually change into a Germany-England one, he can kind of predict the eventual outcome, provided one of those squads he had been supporting ever since he followed the English Premier League (EPL), the England squad has been bucking up. He mentioned some time back that back then when he was in London (this was like the year before or something) for that business trip, those people he met at the conference he attended were clearly surprised at his knowledge of English football.
It was the British representatives who were surprised at my father's knowledge. My father had explained once to me after his London trip that in the UK, TV rights to broadcast the matches is actually way harder than what we often want to complain over here on paying the subscription fees just to watch those EPL matches here. That is when realisation starts to kick in for me. We are already so darn lucky to watch it, and we even dare to complain about paying to watch those matches on cable. The Brits who love football (and they were the ones who started the whole football thing)...oh dear. I often mused that whether my father told those British representatives that it's all thanks to the newspaper and cable TV coverage back here in Singapore.
Hmm.
