The Game!!!

Woke up around 6 am… “IBEMPISHAK” wasn’t well so I was little worried from previous night. Thought I’ll call her up; then realized the sun God himself isn’t up yet. So did the usual chores of cleaning my teeth and washing my face then the usual trip to holy land to pay my daily bill. All this while, this had been the only Saturday in a long long time where I couldn’t just wait for evening to come. I put on the idiot box and went straight to ESPN. They were showing some mind numbingly boring sport they call golf. Then star sports had some old re-run of some tennis match, ten sports was dishing out its usual routine of WWE-smackdown. Man I hate TV. BBC News was where I parked for next 10-20 mins. There was a cricket match scheduled between India and New Zealand, so I switched to set max. Two rather dumb looking guy were talking about Shewag and Dhoni, but all I heard was a lot of adjectives ranging from amazing, instinctive, great, cool headed, blah blah blah. So I switched over to animex. At least one decent channel left which had no pretensions of what it was. Watched an episode of God Save the King. Man, these Japanese are so creative. No wonder they are ages ahead of us in everything.

My brain was going slightly blank around this time. Obviously, I needed my morning cuppa. Made the most awesome cup of tea with ginger and bay-leaf (this thing makes tea heavenly… try it). It was time for times of India. Man if not only for the daily pictures of Priyanka Chopra, Katrina Kaifs and gang, I would have given up on this paper long time back.

Paper done, roomie got up and made me some buttered toast. Tummy also happy now. Called up ibempishak, she wasn’t feeling any better L. Told her to take rest and prayed little she gets better. Soon enough it was it was noon. Roomies GF got us food and made us chilly chicken and some mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes was tasty but man was it spicy or what. Hogged liked a pig. By this time India had lost to new Zealand and I was back to animex. All this while 5 pm was approaching rather slowly.

A cup of tea here, another there. One episode of Darker then black, in between some dancing routines from Katrina Kaif latter, John Dykes was on set along with usual suspects PJ and Mashfields. The next one hour went along on same line as the couple of mins I had spent in the early morn listening Charu Sharma and Sanjay Manjrekar about Indian team. But this time PJ and team were singing praises for Sir Alex and his bunch and how impregnable Old Trafford was how Ferdinand and Vidic were the most solid and strong defense in world football right now. Torres and Gerrard were pushed to footnote. The red’s trashing of Real Madrid was totally overlooked. Real is a trash team. That seemed the consensus. Rooney and Tavez would run down Caraaghar and Skrtl, and so it seemed. The guys didn’t have many kind words to say for Rafa Benitez either. 2-1 or 2-0 prediction in favor of Alex seemed the consensus.

All this while I was just praying Torres and Gerrard can produce some of the magic which only Torres and Gerrard can produce.

The 1st 20 mins went along the lines of the pundits. Ronaldo netting one from the spot. But for it’s spell of possession United hardly looked monstrous. Torres was not looking too comfortable… not good signs I thought; but next few mins he reminded me why he’s been my favorite center-forward for sometime. Strong, fast and confident inside the D; add to it ice-cool finish. That is what Torres is all about. Van-der-Saar was beaten; Vidic left scratching his head. It was level at old Trafford. The commentators were talking about how Sir Alex will come back storming and United will slam it shut soon enough. Gerrard had other ideas. A confident and in-form Gerrard is without doubt world class. But when you add Torres in to the mix, the combo always does weave some magic out of thin air. Torres gave an instinctive thorugh ball which Gerrard guessed right and he gained 3-4 yards over Evra. This season, it’s kind of hard to re-collect when Evra’s been outpaced in any game. Gerrard just out-thought him. It was the correct call from the ref. Football folklore says if you are fouled, don’t take the spot kick yourself. Gerrard did the opposite. Captain inspirational netted it to make it 2-1 for the reds. Van-der-Saar scare tactic hardly bothering him while costing the giant Dutchman a booking.

Reds don’t loose when Gerrard-Torres combo is on song; doesn’t matter who the opponent is. To add insult to injury, Vidic got booked for pulling down a rampant Gerrard, Aurelia netting superbly from 5 yards outside the D. Towards the end when it was hard to see many fans left at old Trafford, Dossena added more insult by lobbing one over Van-der sar. So 4-1 it was and Man-United got a royal trashing.

In the end it was one of the best game for all red’s fan in a long long time. And what a week it’s been. They defeated the 2 biggest and richest clubs in the world by margins of 4-0 and 4-1 in space of 3 days. Man this has been the week. Maybe this will not give them the league this year; but having done the double on both Chelsea and Man-United they have earned all the bragging rights for being the club of the year.