FIFA rankings need a spanking :)

One source of great amusement during this years world cup has been the FIFA world rankings. They put America as 5th, Mexico at 4th, Czech Republic 2nd.... then Argentina 8th. What a joke!! Basically, the system must be set up so that ranking points are awarded for each win, so the teams who play more games in a year end up ranked higher. There must be a better way of arranging these rankings, or else just don't bother......ideas on the back of a postcard to Sepp Blatter :)

Temporary nervous wreck....

One of the things that I have noticed in my 30 years on this planet is that in some situations I can really be a nervous wreck. I really believe that in general I don't come across as a nervous person, but I can feel it under the surface quite often and it occasionally rears its ugly head and I turn into a bag of nerves.... its totally embarrassing, but thankfully doesn't happen that often. I personally believe this part of my character has occurred due to my speech impediment. Everyone who has this problem knows that in certain situations you feel this surge of nerves... it might be waiting in a line to buy a train ticket, it might be making an important phonecall. Basically, these nerves are pre-programmed into your brain from bad experiences growing up where your stammer has caused you embarrassment and then the next time you come across this same situation you get the nerves. It was worse when I was younger, but now at the ripe old age of 30 it is not really that obvious; I have learned how to stay calm and breath properly, and most of the time I control the nerves well (although I do still feel them in the background). But there are the odd few occasions when they still take over. Basically, whenever I feel under great pressure there is a chance it could happen. One major example is if I get into a serious argument with someone, that has gone beyond the realms of a debate and into a slagging match. And it is really weird that when I sense that this is starting, my heartbeat really starts going, I can really feel it pumping and I find it really hard to talk properly when it gets this bad. My voice is all shaky and I come across as a babbling mess. If I really take command back of my breathing it gets better again, but if I don't it just spirals. And afterwards I feel more upset about how crap I came across than the subject of the argument (something all people with speech impediments can relate to). However, my life is based on having confidence, so I am good at telling myself not to be so stupid, to forget about what other people think of me and cheer up and get on with it. Something I do every time I feel bad about my speech impediment. You have to keep putting yourself out there and forgetting past experiences with this problem, otherwise you would become so inward looking and isolate yourself. Also, my speech impediment is not bad at all relatively speaking, and I have met other people that have it much worse. Most of the time I just have pauses in words and sentences, not full on stammers over sounds. A friend of mine knows someone with a pretty bad stammer, but he has got to the point where he rarely goes out and socializes with others. He stays in a lot, and his life has taken a downward spiral. You just can't afford to let that happen, you have to keep pushing yourself forward into the limelight!! Infact I am not socializing as much as I would like to at the moment, due to the fact that I don't really live near many of my friends in the UK. See here for more details. But I sometimes notice that after a weekend spent with my own company, I might be a little less fluent for the first half of Monday. It's really weird how that happens. It's almost as if the more I talk to others, the more consistently fluent I am...weird, right??

arrgghhh... the world cup

To say I feel excited about the world cup is an understatement. It is but a week away, and I am already imagining all the games that I will watch. Of course, the England games will be really sweet, but I always feel nervous and tense. When you watch the neutral games, you can watch some really great games that you totally didn't expect. Like years ago, when I was a kid. It was 1994, the world cup was in America; Romania were playing and I really had no idea about what they were like. I think they were playing Columbia, and it was a great game capped by a superb long range goal by Hagi (a player I had really never heard of before). But that world cup was made special because all the games were on TV in the middle of the night. I lived with my parents, in a loft room at the top of the house. I would quietly wake up in the middle of the night, and switch on the TV to watch the games. Any little creak made me jump and think I had been rumbled... Hilarious! I believe that Stoichkov also came alive in that world cup, and played a key role for Bulgaria. I think because England weren't there, I could appreciate the qualities of other teams more. Then there was the 1998 world cup. The standout game was of course the England-Argentina game, which I watched in a pub with some friends at home. When Owen scored that wonder goal the whole place erupted! 2002 was a tamer affair, as it was in Japan and South Korea, and I was living in Taiwan. So I could watch the games in the daytime quite easily; the games were very surprising that year. We had a kind of prediction competition organised at work, and I was confident that I would win (as I was up against mostly north americans who have no idea about "soccer"!!). However, the likes of South Korea in the latter stages of the competition really blew that idea out of the water. A lot of good teams fell early, and a lot of underdogs triumphed....... So to 2006.... what do I think?? Well of course, England have a great chance. We have got one of the best teams we have had for a long time; my worry is that Sven just doesn't have the gusto to go with our team. If we play the slow, calculated game then the top teams will do it better and beat us. We need to play with the English hybrid game, that fuses good skill and passing with quick feet and lots of nippy interchanges. Other teams don't like playing at a fast tempo, but England can do it well. We would be all over other teams like cheap aftershave, and they wouldn't like it one bit. But I fear that we will be forced to play into the hands of our opponents!! I think the uproar about Theo Walcott is totally understandable; but I feel he could be a dark horse that no other teams really know much about. He could come on and score some quickfire goals at crucial times. Even if he doesn't score, he will mix up the opposing teams defence and give us more chances. I back him to be a surprise package (not just because he's an Arsenal player). Anyway, I hope everyone enjoys the feast of football that is the world cup, and I will be posting again in about 3-4 weeks crying about how we were knocked out on penalties.