FIFA World Cup

FIFA World Cup Final – Argentina vs France – One of the best matches I have seen. Both were equal. Finally, someone has to win. Argentina won in penalty kicks – score equal (3:3) after regular-time and extra-time. Congratulations Argentina. 

I watched most of the matches on TV. Here are my observation and thoughts: 

Cannot imagine Argentina losing to Saudi Arabia (initial rounds) 

Tunisia upsets France, defending world cup champion (initial rounds) 

Morocco upsetting Portugal (quarter finals) 

The mighty and favorite Brazil eliminated by Croatia (quarter finals) 

When smaller countries like Senegal, Croatia, Morocco can qualify for world cup, why can’t bigger countries like India, China, Pakistan qualify? 

Japanese spectators cleaning the stadium after the match. They are the classiest fans. 

A friend of mine went to Qatar to watch couple of matches. He said all the stadiums were fully airconditioned. 

One thing I loved in all the players from every team is their theatrics. Any slight contact with the opponent player, they will fall down crying as if every bone in their body was broken. If they were in such a pain, medics and ambulance should take them away from the game. But they get up and continue to play. 

These are only games. Are famous and popular star players being bigger than the game? Not with Portugal’s Coach Fernando Santos. 

Fernando Santos dropped their world-famous player and Captain Cristiano Ronaldo for the last round 16 game against Switzerland due to Ronaldo’s attitude problem. Santos made him a substitute for the quarter finals against Morocco and allowed him to play late in the second half. 

My thought goes: Will any of the Indian cricket team’s coach/manager has the guts to drop a world-famous Indian cricket player during the world cup quarter finals because of his attitude problem?*  Just leave alone the Indians. 

Will any of America’s National Football League’s coach/manager has the guts to drop their famous quarterback during playoffs towards Super Bowl because of his attitude problem? I think not. 

Salute to Fernando Santos.

* I was informed by Mr. KP that an Indian coach dropped a female cricket player for the semi final match during world cup.  I do not know if she was dropped for disciplinary problem or any other issue.  In the case of Ronaldo, I was mentioning disciplinary problem.

Cinderella Story

This is about what happened this week at the American National Football League. You don’t need to know about American Football to read this Cinderella story. I will be as non-football as possible. 

In USA, you have to go to college to be recruited as a professional football player. No high school dropouts. Every year they recruit only 262 college players for their professional career. This year the 262nd (last player) (in other words no other teams wanted him) was a player named Brock Purdy. They call that 262nd player as Mr. Irrelevant. The San Francisco 49ers took him as the last Mr. Irrelevant player. 

This week, there was a game between San Francisco 49ers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Tampa Bay was led by their Quarterback Tom Brady. Brady is considered as the best Quarterback of all times and supposed to be Greatest of All Time. 

Meantime, unfortunately, 49er number one Quarterback and Number two Quarterback were seriously injured. They had no other option but to put their number 3 bench Quarterback into play…this guy 262nd recruit Mr. Irrelevant Brock Purdy. 

And, you know what happened? Brock Purdy took a class to the Greatest quarterback Tom Brady how to play football. Purdy won 35 to 7 against Brady.

Tulsi Gabbard

In my previous blog post I said I will recommend who should be the Republican Party’s Vice-Presidential nominee for the 2024 Presidential election irrespective of whoever is the Presidential nominee. 

It is Tulsi Gabbard. 

Tulsi was in Democratic Party. She resigned last month from that party because she did not like the way the party is heading. Tulsi was elected to the U.S. House of Representative from Hawaii. She ran for Presidential nomination for the Democratic Party in 2020 but lost. She is 42 years old now. She will be 44 years in 2024. 

As I wrote before, Americans love those who served the nation in the military. Tulsi served in the army and was deployed in Iraq from 2004 to 2005. She was also stationed in Kuwait from 2008 to 2009. Tulsi is now a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve. 

With her first name Tulsi, lot of people think she is of Indian origin. She is not. Her family embraced Hinduism and her parents named her Tulsi. She took her oath of office as a member of the U.S. House of Representative on the Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu Scripture. 

Taking Oath of Office with Bhagavad Gita

With Mr. Narendra Modi

A good number of people follow Tulsi in the Democratic Party.  She has not joined the Republican Party yet.  As of  now, she is independent.  USA needs a forward thinker like Tulsi Gabbard,