Top Ten Things Going Through Sven-Goran Eriksson's Mind While Selecting the World Cup Squad

(i'm posting this here... original post from my site...)

Sven, Sven, Sven... He's finally named his squad, and there's quite a few surprises in it. Like the inclusion of the teenagers Theo Walcott and Aaron Lennon. But of course he's sticking with Owen and Rooney, although one hasn't played much and the other is, like, injured.

Enough about that. Either he's a visionary who'll bring England to World Cup glory, or a reckless gambler who can't wait to leave his job. Everything will be clear come Germany '06.

Picture taken from theFA.com


The thing is that Sven the man always looks serious, like he's contemplating the deeper mysteries of the universe. Well, i think he's an everyday dude, only with a bloated salary... most of the time, he's thinking usual stuff, probably a little more trivial than most people...

Top Ten Things Going Through Sven-Goran Eriksson's Mind While Selecting the World Cup Squad

• "Wow, Beckham is such a great player, and an awesome captain... Must remember to emphasize that in my next press interview... I wonder if I've mention that before... Beckham must play... such a great player... I'll even let him play goalie if he wants... I'm so lucky to have him as a captain... Beckham is awesome!"
  
  
  
• Oh, man... Steve McClaren is SO screwed, man...!"
  
  
  
• "What on earth is a 'metatarsal'? Isn't some kind of Greek lamb dish? And why did Rooney go and play with it and break it?"
  
  
  
• "Screw the World Cup, that new FA secretary is one hot chick!"
  
  
  
• "Damn, that Mourinho has got hot looking stubble! I wonder if he uses double blade shavers. Speaking of which, did I shave this morning...?
  
  
  
• "Shaun who? Wright-Phillips? Right winger? Where have I heard this name before? Is he one of the England U-17 players? Got to ask Tord Grip about this... La-di-da..."
  
  
  
• "Ok, I've got to remind myself everyday... '4-4-2' is good... '4-4-2' is good... and don't forget to pick a goalie, too... '4-4-2' is good..."
  
  
  
• "OK, one more time... JOE Cole is a midfielder... CARLTON Cole is not on my list... wait, wait... there's another player named Cole... playing leftback.... ummm... damn, I know this... Andy Cole? Nat King Cole?"
  
  
  
• "Oh my, that Thierry Henry is really good, I should really pick him for the World Cup! I wonder if he's English? Can I pick him? Oh wait, I think he's probably Welsh... damn. Just like that Giggs kid... Damn this farcical 'passport' rule...!"
  
  
  
• "What the heck, whichever player I choose, England will still probably lose at the semis or quarters... Might as well close my eyes and pick the 23 players i see on Match of the Day..."

Horse for sale

The Summer Sale Extravaganza!
For Sale: 1 talking horse.
Price: 10 million pounds (negotiable).
Operators are standing by.

From The Guardian:

Van Nistelrooy flies home as United attach £10m price tag

Not everyone at Manchester United agrees with Sir Alex Ferguson that the club would be better off without Ruud van Nistelrooy but nobody will stand in the manager's way as he prepares to add the Dutch striker to the long list of players he has spectacularly disposed of. Ferguson spoke at length with his chief executive David Gill yesterday and the outcome is that Van Nistelrooy is available to the highest bidder, valued in the region of £10m.

Call NOW to avoid disappointment!

Images were googled - naturally.

"Sorry I Poisoned Your Team, Jol...and No Hard Feelings"

So the 2005/06 Premier League has closed shop, save for the FA Cup Final next week, and this other small kickabout somewhere in Paris on May 17. And I'm adding to the deluge of Hantu Bola postings today...


Top Rumours Flying Around On the Last Day of the EPL...

• Arsene Wenger sent Ashley Cole to put dishwasher liquid in the Spurs' Campbell Soup at their hotel kitchen. The Pakistani kitchen hand reported saw a short ghey looking bloke loitering around the alley behind the hotel.
  
  
• Sunderland will be making an undisclosed bid the disgruntled Ruud Van Nistelrooy in their bid to bounce back up to the Premiership.
  
  
• Chelsea are looking to buy Aaron Lennon / Stewart Downing / Darren Bent / Gareth Barry / Jamie Carragher and making them high priced substitutes and wrecking whatever England national squad hopes they have. (Refer Scott Parker and Shaun Wrong Phillips)
  
  
• The squirrel seen at Highbury's last Europe game was actually a remote control droid sent by Martin Jol to spy on Arsenal. For the entire first half the 'squirrel' was 'mysteriously' lost in the ladies toilet.
  
  
• Peter Crouch is actually Yao Ming's long lost brother.
  
  
• Newcastle all along wanted to qualify for the InterToto Cup 'from the very beginning', so in truth, they achieve their target in flying colours. (Champion's League and the UEFA Cup is 'too pretentious'...)
  

So Long Highbury

Well, that's that then.

After 93 solid years of football that ranged from total domination in the 30s led by Cliff Bastin, to the boring boring regime of Georgie G, and now the pure genius of Thierry Henry, the time has come for us to bid goodbye to one of the oldest and best grounds in England.

Highbury.

I can't comment on the atmosphere or how the comfy the seats were or how good the grub was, coz unfortunately, the economy did notallow this lifelong Gooner the opportunity to watch a game there. But what I can recall is what I've seen on TV throughout the years supporting the Arsenal, and these are some of the most memorable things about Highbury for me.

The Stadium
If you're not sure if Arsenal is playing at home or not, all you need to do is see the size of the players on the screen. If they're big, we're most certainly playing at home.

Unlike the rugby field/concert hall at Old Trafford, and the bitc-I MEAN-"beach" at the Bridge, we take pride in our pitch. There's no freaking way we ever allowed a dodgy, red-haired, mop top called Smelly Red belt out dodgy pseudo funk numbers on our turf!! Without fail, our pitch has always managed to replicate the top of a snooker table which accomodates our sleek passing game and can even make Bolton look good.

The Players
My first ever favourite player was this Swedish dude, Anders Limpar, but Highbury has been graced by many great players over the years I supported the team. Players such as Paul Merson, Alan Smith (not the rubbish one up north), David Platt, Ray Parlour, Marc Overmars, Manu Petit, Paddy Vieira, Ashley Cole, Freddie Ljungberg and of course the legendary back four of Adams, Bould (later Keown tha man), Dixon and Winterburn. In the early 90s, we bought this tough little git of a striker by the name of Ian Wright Wright Wright, who most memorably put Schemeichel in his place (red nosed Danish cvnt!).

And then there was Bergkamp. I can remember clearly THAT goal against Newcastle, where he made Dabizas look a complete fool... Well he was already a confirmed fool la, but foolier than usual that particular day (er, was that at Highbury?).

And Henry. What can I say? The hattrick last night against Wigan practically sums up his 8 years at Highbury in one word. CLASS... And I can only hope and pray that he doesn't leave us.

Of course we've also got a few duds over the years such as John Jensen, Remi Garde, Kaba Diawara (who?), Christopher Wreh (who who?) and Doofus Cygan, but sometimes you have to take the good with the bad.

Well, its been a great 93 years at Highbury, of which I have had the privilege to follow this team at this stadium for the past 17 years. But here's to the future at (ugh) The Emirates... No no, I will refer to the new stadium as Ashburton Grove... (Imagine if Chelsea moved to the Samsung Stadium).

p/s : Teddy Sheringham is on the take.

On the Final Day of the Season....

Oops, too bad, Spurs. Sheringham tried his best, but even his 'missed' penalty against his old club couldn't help them get fourth. Henry made sure of that.

And pah, Stupid Charlton. Just rolled over and died. Oh well, third it is then.

So, finally here's how things are at the end of the season:

Champions League: Chelsea (Champions), Manure (2nd)
Champions League qualifiers: Liverpool (3rd), Arsenal (4th)
UEFA Cup: Spurs (5th in table, 1st in food poisoning), Blackburn (6th), West Ham (FA Cup Winner)
Relegation: Birmingham (18th), West Brom (19th), Sunderland (Worst ever team in the Premiership)

Oh, and Newcastle Comedy Club are in the Inter-Magnum4D.. oh sorry, Inter-Toto cup after Titus Bramble of all players scored a scissors kick goal against Chelsea.

And what's this? Ruud "Horse Face" Van Nistelrooy might be leaving Manure? What kind of bust-up did he have with Fergie? Was Fergie more interested in racing Van the Man-Horse at Ascot instead of playing him in the first team?

Oh, and Farewell to Highbury, the only EPL football stadium I've ever seen. haha.

Ah hah hah hah

We're in Europe! We're in Europe! We're in Europe! We're in Europe! We're in Europe! We beat the champions!!!

It does not matter that the referee kayu Mike Riley tried to cheat us of the victory.

Steven Carr is man of the match. Titus Bramble is the best striker in the world! Shay Given is a god!

Ah hah hah hah!

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Congrats Gunners! Champions League will be played at Ashburton Grove next season.

Farewell Highbury.

Thierry Henry is the second best striker in the world, next to Titus. ;)

Wor Alan's Tribute

Initially, I put this post up in me own blog. A certain someone commented that it should be put here, despite the current fugly template and dodgy layout. Man, can't you guys centre the whole thing? I am getting lefteyetwitchitis and also fuglyheaderart syndrome. All the Head Hantus fault. Medical bill is in the mail. (Note to the boss: The banners I e-mailed not nice meh?)

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Okay, on to the tribute.
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I remember when I was a kid, way back in the 80s. We did not have iPods, PDA handphones or even compact discs. PCs ran at ‘blistering’ speeds of 16 MHz. Remember typing ‘dir/w’ to bring up the directory? Basic programming was the IN thing back then. I remember writing my own programmes and computer games. One of the first I ever ‘copied’ was the snake game, which proved so popular on the older Nokia phones.

Most importantly, satellite television did not exist. Which means no Astro. No live English Premier League football on Saturdays and Sundays. Nothing to live for during the weekends. I wonder how people lived through those dark and depressing times.

What we had was a weekly highlight show of the games played the previous week, subject to the whims of the RTM programme director. If he felt like it, the show would be aired. If not, you would be treated to a rerun of one of P. Ramlee’s old black and white movies. I remember the Orang Minyak episode. Still haunts me till this day. Damn.

On very rare occasions, the terrestrial television channels would air live games, but only if they are important games involving the big clubs – FA Cup final, Charity Shield. Man, I loved the weekly highlight show. Beggars can’t be choosers, they say.

My dad is a Liverpool fan, so I learned a lot about the hubcap stealing Scousers from him. I remember cheering on John Barnes, John Aldridge and Ian Rush as they play for the reds.

I couldn't give a rat’s ass for El Liverpool these days. Call it ingratitude. What passes as football in Anfield these days is shocking. Drab and dull. Lumping long balls forward at Peter “Bean Pole” Crouchy does not constitute football as I understand it. Pah. Liverpool’s fall from grace seems complete.

It’s a good thing I don’t support Liverpool then. Eh heh heh.

I am Black and White through and through. I grew up watching Chris Waddle, Kevin “Mighty Mouse” Keegan, Peter Beardsley, Paul “Gazza” Gascoigne and Mirandinha ply their weekly trade in the Magpies colours. I loved the team back then, as I do now.

Defence has never been Newcastle’s strong point, at least to my memory. But, we do play attractive, flowing, attacking football. None of that 1 – 0 nonsense. We win big or not at all. Most of the time, we find ourselves staring at the wrong end of a huge scoreline.

In 1996, Newcastle paid a (then) world record transfer fee for a certain fence creosoting Alan Shearer. And the rest is history.Wor Alan is the most complete striker ever to grace the Premiership. Strong in the air, can shoot with both feet, fearless, great at holding the ball up, deadly pace and makes great crosses. Shearer had everything. Andy Gray agrees with me. See here. *Pfffbbbrrrttt*

Shearer is a throwback to the old days of the big English centre forward. His is a dying breed. We may never see another like him grace the premiership again. I loved everything about the man - his one armed goal celebrations, stoic demeanour when deadpanning reporters even his wayward elbows (not that I condone them).

It is a pity that so many football fans have turned on Wor Alan in the days of his footballing dotage. People seem to conveniently forget that they too will grow old someday. I admire Shearer’s courage to stand up, accept reality and modify his game to suit his strengths. The anti-Shearer mob has objected to his overtly physical approach to the game. All I can say is that Shearer gave back as good as he got. If defenders can play rough, so can he. Now stop crying like a baby and go to your mummy.

As I reminisce, I realise how many happy memories Wor Alan had given me over the years. Etched in my heart and mind, will forever be the big Number 9 running with his hand upraised in celebration.

Alan Shearer's tribute at St. James' Park

As the greatest marksman of his generation retires from the life of a footballer, one can only wish him well. Lovers of football around the world are all the poorer for it. In the end, I can only echo what all Newcastle United fans around the world are saying:

"Wor Alan, thank you for the memories. Haway the lad!"

Screw the template. God's Staying!

Screw the template. I'm not looking at the code anymore. Bah. Headache.

Oh well, at least God's staying.


(Picture of God over the moon on Soccernet)

And come tomorrow, it's the Arse vs the Spuds for fourth place, and Pool vs Manure for 2nd. Spuds and Manure need to screw up against West Ham and Charlton, Arse and Pool need to win against Wigan and Portsmouth.

It's that simple. Every other match played this weekend will be ignored. (Yes, even Newcastle's romp with the Ruskis where Shearer was supposed to 'give Chelsea's strikers a lesson in consistency').

Professional Opinions

We have decided that you average football fans know jack shit about football and about blog templates, so we have decided to interview some professional managers to get their opinion on the controversial topic of the blog layout of the hantubola template.

We asked them, "People have been critisizing the HantuBola template. What do you have to say in response to all those critisisms?"

Jose Mourinho : This is ridiculous. This is the worst site to write for. We every day come up with good shit. We are the best damn football blog out there, you know. We have good team of writers, we write poetry, but you journalists only know how to critisise the small matters. In this blogosphere, there is only PPS, then after PPS there is God, and then after God...HantuBola.

Gerard Houllier : Ah, we are turning the corner. We are learning all this HTML thing. We expect to turn the corner very soon.

Arsene Wenger : I don't see anything wrong with it. No, no. I don't see anything.

Claudio Ranieri : Aaah, we are a young team. Like a little children. Children will learn. After children learn then children will become lions. Lions are strong. We will face the problem like lions. We are growing, everyday and learn everyday.

David O'Leary : The fans and readers have to be more understanding. It is not our fault. We have been crippled by work and haven't been able to spend more time on the template. We will get there. Slowly, but surely.

Kevin Keegan : That accusation is rubbish! Absolute rubbish! This undermines our professionalism! I will LUV it when we prove you wrong! LUV' IT!

and finally,

Sir Alex Ferguson : You'se are all fucking idiots! HantuBola has a fucking good template. You'se don't know your blogs. Fucking idiots!


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Update by eyeris (3:05am)

After more than 3 hours and playing around with the template until 3am, I've finally got the 'new' template going.

The reasoning behind this 'new' template of mine is that if it ain't broke, why fix it? So I used back the old template, added borders, changed some colours, and added a spanking new header.

Problem is, while the site works perfectly (well, ALMOST perfectly) on Firefox, it's a little wonky on Internet Explorer.

The moral of the story? What the hell are you still using IE?!?!?!? CHANGE TO FIREFOX RIGHT NOW!!!!

PS: The header is still off-center on BOTH browsers though. Anyone know how to fix it?

Our Favourite Pundek

This shit is too funny to pass up.

Contribute Ideas for Hantu Bola's new look!

OKOK, we get it. This new template isn't exactly high art, but it's still a work in progress.

We're still tweaking around with it to get the best combination of colours (READ: more RED which makes almost everyone happy; and less BLUE, which should make only ONE person unhappy), to get the layout and configuration right, and of course, to make it easier to read.

And I agree, I say we get rid of that picture of Old Trafford. Instead, let's put in a picture of the new (unfinished) Wembley, the biggest stadium farce of the year...

I'll probably be fiddling around with the template tonight (which actually may not be a very good thing, actually, judging from the ugliness of MY own blog and my Eye on Sports one... but don't worry, I won't turn it Green. that much I can promise. :D ).

So gimme some ideas on how YOU want it to look! Anyone else have any suggestions?

These are some of the comments we've received about the current look:

1. Shaolintiger says it looks pretty messy, and the white background burns eyes (eyeris says: wear sunglasses, dude...)
2. Scorkes says the template is EEEWWWW (eyeris says: okok, we get it...)
3. Huge picture of the Old Trafford stadium is an eyesore (eyeris says: agreed whole-heartedly)
4. Template not attractive enough (eyeris says: er... define 'attractive')
5. Sic6sence finds it odd to read from the centre of the page. (eyeris says: We'll be switching the sidebars to the right like before...)
6. Too much blue, not enough red (eyeris says: agreed. :P )
7. S-Kay only likes the header and the side bar, that's all (eyeris says: we'll probably keep that)
8. Template not center (eyeris says: anyone know how to fix that?)
9. Lily says picture of Owen not cute enough. (eyeris says: ....... )
10. Sashi wants pictures of Page 3 girls wearing football jersey body-paint (eyeris says hopefully: maybe our Hantu Bola girls would like to volunteer? .... :P )
11. Antyyk said he don't like the fonts. Don't like the fonts. Don't like the fonts. (eyeris says: what font you want, what font you want, what font you want?)
12. Skiver thinks it looks more like a footie site like Soccernet rather than a blog now.. (eyeris: yeah, we noticed. we're trying to remedy that)

(BTW, for the record, I had nothign to do with the current template either. But if tomorrow, it miraculously becomes even UGLIER than it is now.... then it was all VINCENT'S fault! BUAHAHAHA!)

blue is the new red

Like the new look? We thought the blog needed a bit of sprucing up, so here youse go then. Complete with a collage banner. There still a bit of fine-tuning to be done, but the whole template thing is more or less sorted now.

If anyone happens to think that there should be more red in the blog colours, youse will have to pray that one of the red-shirted teams (like Boro or Charlton) win the league next year.

*pppphhbbbbbrrrttttt*

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Blue is the colour, football is the game
We're all together, and winning is our aim
So cheer us on through the sun and rain
'cause Chelsea, Chelsea is our name
Here at the Bridge whether rain or fine
We can shine all the time
Home or away, come and see us play
You're welcome any day
Blue is the colour, football is the game
We're all together, and winning is our aim
So cheer us on through the sun and rain
Coz Chelsea, Chelsea is our name

EEEWWW!

I would like to go on record as having no part of this new blog template.

Seriously, not enough red, too much blue.

Thank you.

dun jeles k

Back-to-back league titles, babeh!

May the trophies keep flowing, every season from now till whenever.

I was the only blue shirt among a sea of mancs and scousers watching the match on Saturday night. What surprised me most were that there were actually Liverpool fans there who were cheering on ManYoo, as if it would change the fact that the league title are belong to us.

I would have thought that every scouser would be cheering a ManYoo loss, as it would allow youse to perhaps claim 2nd place and avoid having to qualify for next season's Champions League. I guess most of the scousers around me that night were just Chelsea haters who had no idea of the bigger picture. They probably just learnt that gay scouser club song in May last year too.

In any case, as the chords of "We Are The Champions" from Stamford Bridge competed with the voice commentary on the big screen, I sang along but with changed lyrics. That is, You're NOT The Champions. Then I quickly got out of there before I kena whack upside-down. LOL

On a more sombre note, Chelsea may only claim one trophy this season. What to do, we just aren't able to count the European Super Cup and FA Youth Cup as our cup double this year. As you may have observed, the Community Shield doesn't really count as a trophy. Even if we keep on winning it every year.

Toodles

[all photos flogged from BBC Sports]

p.s. Apologies to Wayne Rooney about the metatarsal; but you made our Captain bleed mate. So there.

I Know Chelsea's Secret To Success

It's not tons of money.

It's not a miserly defense.

It's not even The Predator-look-alike Droggy.

It's the scary visage of their manager doing this in the dugout...