Dejected

Thrashed. Clobbered. Massacred. Demolished. Utterly humiliated.

Could anybody have predicted that the reigning champs be destroyed right by the team they’ve taken the title from four years ago? By all accounts, everybody expected the Spanish team to ease themselves through the game with a comfortable win, but conceding five goals at an opening match? All Spanish football fans must be gaping at total disbelief right now. After the third Dutch goal from Iker’s mistake, I wanted to kick the TV and shout expletives at the crumbling tiki-taka and the ramshackle Spanish defense.

Sad Iker is sad.

This isn’t exactly how I planned to open up my World Cup post. It’s my first time to watch and follow the tournament not just latching on to the hype but I actually have a fairly good idea of what’s going on. I was prepared to overcome the ungodly timezone difference in the name of football thrills and excitements. Seeing La Roja go down in such an embarassing defeat was at the far back of my mind. I know Spanish football and tiki-taka in general has been on a slow decline for the past few years, considering how Barca isn’t exactly their old championship selves, but this was an outrage I wasn’t ready to face this early.

For a little consolation, at least Xabi put them on the scoresheet, albeit from a questionable penalty from Diego Costa, who I still hate with a passion in spite of being with the Spanish football team.

Ah Xabi. What would they be without you.

Seeing mostly everyone around me is more preoccupied with the NBA finals, I still hope to find across someone who I can swear with about this game and World Cup as a whole. I cannot be thankful enough for unblocked reddit and r/soccer that at least fills the void of my football needs. I now have to compete for TV time with my dad for World Cup replays. Here’s to hoping somebody wins the NBA finals soon enough so I can hog the TV all I want every time there’s a replay.

Because I cannot stay up late every darn morning, here are my conditions for the group stages:

Timezone difference is against me so I’m only getting up in the group stages for the following teams: Spain (Xabi, Iker, Sergio), Portugal (Cristiano, Pepe, Coentrao), and Germany (Ozil, Khedira).

I will only catch up on replays if in case they coincide with my free TV time. For other important games I probably need to know about, there’s always r/soccer. That place is infuriating most of the time, but for the clever quips here and there, being a lurker still makes it worth it. Besides I owe more than half of my football knowledge and history from that place and there really isn’t a better substitute for a thriving football community.

Other random football thoughts

I hate Neymar. Something about his smug face that makes me want to punch the screen whenever he’s on TV. It’s been making me think what if he signed up for our side instead? Would I be able to tolerate and overlook his antics just because he wears white? It’s like my Barca officemate’s irrational hate for Ronaldo’s waxed eyebrows and perfect physique, yet when I mentioned Neymar, he said he’s okay, and doesn’t seem to understand why I don’t like him. He’s okay? Neymar? Really? Maybe club allegiance leads to blindness over faults and other disappointing theatrics. Now it makes me glad he chose the Catalan side after all, and I know Real Madrid isn’t the perfect role model club either but we have enough of that diving from Pepe to deal with.

Here’s my prediction table for the meantime. It was supposed to end with the Ger-Esp final but I couldn’t quite figure out who to give up yet. Let’s see how much of this I can get correct.

I’m now also practicing extreme control over not flooding my twitter feed. It is hard. As hard as getting over five-goal deficit. Maybe I’ll try not to think in snippets but collect all of them in the entire match and post all of them in one huge post here when the game’s done, like what I did during the Confeds final. That way I won’t earn the ire of the few loyal followers. Ahem.

Anyway, I’m gonna curl up in a corner, rock slowly back and forth and chant to myself, it’s just one game… it’s just one game…