good sunday

trust me it’s been a while. i can’t recall the last time two of my favourite sports produced good results in one weekend. anyhow, my favourable fortune in sports was preceded by some unfortunate news in the family. apart from that, i’m very happy and i’ve been in need of such uplifting moments of late!

the last 3 races weren’t bad but the yamaha machine looked clearly inferior to the others. then again it probably takes time and races to get used to the new bridgestones. i dare not declare that they finally got the hang of it cos it’s just one successful race so far. it’s only the 4th leg with 350 pts to be won. of the race in particular, stoner, pedrosa and rossi were the main riders competing for the lead. there was edwards if thats worth recalling but with pole or even a one lap advantage over the rest, he seems configured to end all races in mid-table. stoner faded away early into the race and it was the one season belated battle most of us looked foward to. Rossi v Pedrosa. Pedrosa led initially and stayed 2nd all the way once Rossi overtook him (quite effortlessly) at a corner. the 1.58m short tall spaniard hung on to rossi’s rear till lap 18 until he officially gave in. there wasn’t any desperate attempt to take the lead i wd say and rossi looked hardly threatened. nerve wrecking duels were more apparent down the line between melandri, dovisiozo, hayden and lorenzo for 3rd place downwards. in all, i’m just happy rossi secured his first win since estoril last year. le mans beckons in about 10 days time.

off the tarmac and onto the pitch, the blaugrana hosted valencia at the camp nou. it’s been a tough season for the los che especially off the pitch and even as opposition, it was heartwarming to see albelda representing his team the first time after 149 days. by the 4th minute, messi earned and scored a penalty for us and by the 14th, we were 3-0 up. xavi’s low and hard drive from the edge of the penalty area made up the 2nd goal while henry secured the 3rd with a low angled shot from the left. henry’s second in the 58th was a pretty one as he curled the ball into the net just from outside of the box. finally bojan tapped in 2 more towards the end of the game.

sadly, a nice sunday afternoon of football was marred by off pitch issues. before the game, white hankies were waved along with banners in protest of laporta’s presidency. tough one there, who’s gonna take over then? sandro rosell? god forbid that. he’s done enough with all the dressing room drama and should leave too. whatever it is, i’m hoping to see rijkaard commit to his contract till next season. what the club needs now is maybe more stability up there and in the dressing room. seems that i can still tolerate the coaching and tech staff headed by txixi for now and next season. i reallly really want to see changes in the team. out with ronaldinho, edmilson, marquez, sylvinhoand maybe deco. we need a new DM and rightback (alves or garay!?) urgently. and omg, yes i re-confirm my aversion to paulgreenturner commentary. get another job dude. the match was exciting enough but all he could talk about was THE RUMOR aired over spanish radio. in case you’re wondering - it’s roman assbromovich forking out €100 million for MESSI. once he ran out of different ways to make mention of that, he began talking about Real Madrid’s imminent glory at osasuna.

so maybe he was right. Real Madrid have won the league but, EL CLASICO is like a whole new championship somewhat. come on barça - they can’t celebrate their heart out once they lose to us at home. this wednesday people!!! congratulations to you for reading this far, bugger off and do something more useful now =)