Dark Minds: June 2006

Ronaldo

Just how difficult it is to become the all time top scorer in World Cup finals? Ask Ronaldo, the phenomenon, who went one ahead of Germany's Gerd Muller. That's not possible isn't it? So let me break down the facts and tell you why Ronaldo is really the greatest out-and-out striker of all-time.

One simple fact is, you don't get to play many games in a World Cup. Look, Ivory Coast played in only 3. In today's 32-team tournament format, you need to play 7 games to reach the final, Ronaldo scored 8 in the 2002 World Cup and Brazil went on to become World champions. 7 games will never be enough to win you the all-time top scorer in World Cup. Just Fontaine of France in the 1958 World Cup played only one World Cup but scored an astonishing 12 goals, of which, 4 in an irrelevant and insignificant 3rd/4th place playoff. It took Gerd Muller 2 World Cups to beat Fontaine's record. Ronaldo made the national squad in 4 World Cups (1994, 1998, 2002, 2006) but did not play a single game in his first.

To make the highly talented Brazillian squad 4 times in a row as a striker is no mean feat with so many youngsters plying their trade in domestic leagues, watched by scouts all over the World. Ronaldo's place is threatened all the time but he has yet to be displaced although Robinho is closely watching. Be it a late surge of club form that allowed Ronaldo to sneak into the team or by pure genius and talent, Ronaldo and Brazil has become synonymous in World Cup finals for the past 15 years.

It is also to be taken note that the game played in the past is not played in the neckbreaking speed that it is today. There are also no video tapes for defenders to watch how strikers turn their markers or how they move when they take their shots. Gerd Muller had it easy, Ronaldo did not. Ronaldo at his heyday, the electrifying youngster at Barcelona embodies the acceleration of Michael Owen at 17, runs at defenders like Wayne Rooney and finishes like the finished Robbie Fowler at his peak. Funny how I use all these scousers to illustrate Ronaldo. Anyway, more than that, he had the element of samba and trickery that the unimaginative footballer lacks. The game is more focused on pace, strength and fitness now, the great Muller today will probably resemble a certain Ruud Van Nisterooy.

To become top scorer, you must also be blessed with a good team and of course, Brazil has no shortage of blessing. 2 consecutive World Cup finals has given Ronaldo plenty of chances to knock in his goals in the World Cup finals.

Ronaldo has given us the energy of his youth in the 1998 World Cup, his footballing brain and trickery in 2002 but came into the 2006 World Cup labelled as a fatty. Becoming the all-time scorer will silence the critics for a while but if Brazil fails to win the World Cup, heads will roll again and Ronaldo will be one of them. The journalist lives and the great footballer dies. But Ronaldo will still be remembered after this, as the best player in the 2002 World Cup, the all time World Cup top scorer, and now finds himself in the divine company of Pele, Cruyff and Maradona.

I hate ulcers

Firstly, I have 3 ulcers on the right side of my mouth. One resides right between the space between my two lips, one flanks on the right side of my tongue and another one sits right inside my lower lip. I applied bonjella ( the doctor says it doesn't treat ulcers, it stings and numbs them, misleading you that recovery is on its way) 20 times but it won't go away. Now I can't talk properly and I can't chew properly.

The doctor gave me this other cream and says I probably won't finish it but added,
"The chances are, you'll be needing it next time cos people who gets them usually gets them again.'
"What do u mean by people who gets them? Some people don't get it at all?"
"Yep"
"That is so unfair."
"The world is unfair."

Damm. Those people who never get ulcers, don't come and talk to me.

Talking Cock

As Colin Goh rambled on about censorship, Singapore politics and identity in that little Q & A session after the screening of Talking Cock at the National Musuem, I couldn't help but wonder about the great divide in our Singapore society. Here are these ang moh Singaporeans based in New York or 'fill in any major city' feeling a sense of identity crisis in foreign land, coming back making films about the heartlands, reflecting on what it means to be a Singaporean, give authorties a piece of their mind about parliamentary decisions and challenging the system. The intellectual minority, I like to put it, is neccessary but useless to make a significant change to our society dominated by nonchalant and apathetic citizens, which a large part of them, consists of heartlanders.

It is ironic that people like Eric Khoo, born and bred in an ang moh house with nannys and maids taking care of them, are the people that make movies like 12 storeys that reflects the heartlands. It is equally ironic that the rich, smart and vocal minority are the ones questioning the lack of free speech or press freedom when they are already well-off and successful in their own right. They are defending the people who are not complaining. The people they are defending do not want to be defended. They are also exactly the people that the heartlanders want to attack.

So why talk so much cock, complain this, complain that. They are all fighting a losing cause. A losing cause against status quo. So this is the Catch-22, our society is. This whole damm world is.

Which Man Utd player are you?

Click on the picture, you hardcore, die-hard Red Devils fans.
Well, times are grey. At least we're still better than Liverpool.

World Cup

For World Cup news, feelings and thoughts...
Please go to 'Balls To You'
May we all have a splendid World Cup.

Wedding

A random invite to a godsister's wedding. Two years older than me. Married to an ex-Navy personnel. 2 days after the wedding at a random 7eleven store, I met him again. He was serving me as a store manager in Siglap. He stays in Jurong.

The wedding was held opposite the Jurong Entertainment Centre, on the second storey of block 108, a HDB flat. Shophouses make up the first 2 storeys and the lifts were decorated by the restuarant's name and its colours. My mum and I were significantly overdressed as we were surrounded by T-shirts, polo Ts and jeans.

One thing is for sure. I will not get married if I have to hold my wedding dinner in some place like this. No disrespect to anyone. I wish I had lower expectations of myself. A simple non-superstar/high-flyer life, maybe someone who sips non-angmoh coffee in the nearby heartlands coffee shop like what I do now.

I talked to the fish soup uncle whose store I frequent for almost 6 years now. I told him I must have had more than 100 fish soups, he told me that his wife is down with stroke and his daughter is working somewhere. And then I think about the great divide of the educated and the not-so. But maybe everybody leads different lives. Some people are so absorbed in their own lives that they do not know what's going on at the other side of the spectrum.

A lot of thoughts running through my head. The quarter-life crisis they say.