Beijing Olympics And Football
Beijing Olympics has put a very tough challenge for London. It was well organized and the Chinese officials leaving no stone unturned to make this event a huge success. If you just look at the opening and the closing ceremony then you will understand how the organizers have perfected the art of big event management.
Two big gain from this Olympic was Abhinav Bindra’s winning Gold in Rifle Shooting and Argentina winning gold for male football. Abhinav’s case was India’s first individual gold medal and Argentina again came to spotlight of football after her gold medal. Although a frustrating outcome was Roger Federer’s loss in Tennis Singles (myself a Federer fan and not a Rafa supporter). Kudos to Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt for getting their ‘Legendary’ athlete status at Olympics.
Argentina has been struggling for a long time for winning a championship. Forget about their last world cup performance, even at Copa America cup, they lost to arch-rival Brazil in the final. Great frustration was built after that. But a true champion’s career graph is NOT all about winning, stupid! An emphatic win will hardly teach you anything. You will be surrounded by your fans and nobody will question about your tactical faults and game strategy. But after a Great loss, you will be brutally criticized and some of the criticisms will be positive criticisms. After their unwanted debacle at some championship finals, Argentineans learnt many things and they tried to apply those at Olympics. Thankfully, they are true champions and they know how to come back in the game and how to take Revenge. After Argentina’s 1-0 triumph over Nigeria, one Bengali newspapers’ journalist has written that Argentina won the title due to luck factor and Messi Magic. Luck can give you one goal. But not three goals. Argentina should not be called ‘lucky’ after crushing Brazil 3-0 at Olympics. Actually most of our media persons are Brazilian football supporters. So they disliked or hated Argentina’s victory over football giant Brazil. That’s why they show bitter ignorance to Argentina’s gold winning football team. When Brazil wins any football title, all the TV channels repeatedly show the replays or clippings of the strikers’ goals. But now, I have not seen any match replay on television after Argentina’s historic win. Also, Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium’s fans showed the football enthusiasm breaking all geographical boundaries to prove that we are one-football world.
A clever politics: When Brazil wins you will see the photograph of how a Brazilian striker pushing the ball into net and how frustrated the opponent players are after the match.. When Argentina wins, you will see Messi and Ronaldinho shaking hands at the center line before the match started, showing a false picture or creating an image of how Brazilians have always been supportive to Argentina’s football culture. And like due to sympathy and friendly attitude Brazilians gifted the match results in favour of Argentina! Argentina’s win against Brazil clearly proves that Argentina is simply a better team than Brazil at present. And the match was not gifted to Argentina. I don’t say Brazilian football team ‘get’ victory since I don’t want to show disrespect to Brazilian football fans’ emotions. But I must mention that Argentinean football team knows how to ‘earn’ victory and ‘achieve’ success. Football legend Maradona’s followers get yet another feet to celebrate. Whatever be the opposition from football playing rival countries and ignorance from media persons, Argentina will continue to be world’s one of the greatest superpowers in the game of football. Long live Maradona, long live football!
