Through thick and thin..

The attributes of a fan…

To be a fan/supporter of a sports team is a wonderful thing, you get a sense that you belong to something that in your eyes is the greatest thing. It can be a way to meet new people that have the same passions as you and it gives you a feeling of pride when your team does well. Notice I’ve said team and not individual players, in a sport like football, it truly is the team that wins or loses not the individual player. What the AC Milan fans have done recently, protesting about the sale of two players seems to be going against this, no matter how important the player is, he is not bigger than the club and the so called supporters should realise this.

Yet there is a flipside to this, Zlatan Ibrahimovic has scored over 20 goals for the club and has been an imposing figure in this team, and Thiago Silva has been called the best defender in Europe, and when he wasn’t available for the team the team did suffer, and the sale of Milan’s 2 best players could hurt the competitiveness of the club. So in the end the fans that are asking for refunds and threatening legal action, could be doing it in the name of the club as a whole. What I mean is that they probably feel that the sale of these 2 players is a sign that things will get a lot worse for the club.

Yet by saying the club will not be able to go on without these players no matter how important they may seem, could seem like a huge insult to the rest of the players because you are essentially saying that they cannot do their jobs properly without these 2 players. As good as these players are, a true supporter of AC Milan has to keep an open mind and put their trust in the club they profess to love.

Football is a global game with audiences from all over. The fan has to realise that with this kind of exposure also means that a lot of money has been invested in the game, through advertising, TV rights and sponsorship deals, and like any business they have to keep an eye on their finances. The fans should have faith that the huge fee they received from these two players will be reinvested into the club, although it is understandable that they don’t, considering what happened after the sale of Kaka’.

However if you are a real supporter of the club, you will support the club during all the hard times and accept that things will not always go your way. As a Juve fan, I’ve been with them all the way, through the calciopoli scandle to the finishing 7th and all the players we said goodbye to in between, and this has made their success last season even sweeter, so chin up, and keep the faith that your club knows what they’re doing.

Grande Italia

People are guilty of being rather disrespectful to the Azzurri, claiming that they're all corrupt and cannot compete anymore with the big leagues.... And you know what I say to theses people??? We made it to the Euro finals, and where were you?! People who claim that Italy were slaughtered in the final and simply don't have the " super stars" anymore are half right. It's true that they were against a more superior team, but people tend to forget is that a fully fit Italy team with a dose of luck held Spain to a draw in the first game. I'm not saying that the men in blue would have beaten Spain, but it would have been a close fight. People tend to forget that this Spain team have been with each other for a fair amount of time and have won alot with the same team, whereas this Azzurri team is fairly new and have not been tested at the very top with the exception of: Buffon, Pirlo, Bazargli, Rossi and Di Natale, you should not underestimate the power of familiarity, it is needed for any team to be successful.
Anyway my rant today is not about that, it's about the departure of some big names from Serie A which has made some people question the pull of the Italian league. The departure of Zlatan Ibrahimovic was not too mush of a shock, as he is 30 and as we know, a footballers career is rather short, so you cannot blame him too much for going for a far paycheque, yet the saleof Thiago Silva has been met with confusion and anger, as some of the fans have even started legal action against the club for false advertising. Silva is regarded as one of the best centre backs in Europe and he's Brazilian, not normally a nation you would associate with great defenders. And how did he become so highly regarded? He was mentored by an Italian great.. Mr Maldini!! And then Nesta, both Italia and taught him everything he knows. Yes, I know they have both also left the scene but that in no way means that Italian football has lost it's edge, they are evolving into a new way of playing as was evident in the Euro's, and least you forget Italy is a beautiful country.. who wouldn't want to go there, I certainly can't wait to go back!
Serie A may lose a few stars, but we have many in the making and the prestige of Italian football is far from over!

FORZA AZZURRI!

Alessandro Del Piero - Ciao il Capitano | 13.5.2012 vs Atlanta | HD

Age of the ZOMBIES!!! ( I am exercising my right to freedom of expression)

There’s something wrong with people…

Every day now when I switch on the television, there’s some kind of conflict and some new kind of danger that we have to be alert of, and it doesn’t even stop at the news, on the trains you hear announcements now that tells you to inform any “ suspicious” behaviour to the police. Now tell me what the hell constitute as suspicious behaviour??!! Maybe a person has a twitch or has just had a bad day at work and seems particularly annoyed, do you report everyone who doesn’t fit the profile set by the police? This is just one of the many things the Government is doing… for our safety, of course! I mean they’ve decided to put rocket launchers on top of people’s houses, a tad overkill don’t you think? And people scoff at me when I point out the similarities to Fascism. The police for one thing, has become more and more militarised and are less concerned with the safety of the people, but more concerned with certain areas (usually rich) and certain buildings (usually banks or big corporations) All this extra “security” doesn’t make me feel safe at all, it makes me feel nervous because if I do anything that they perceive to be suspicious, like wearing a backpack, they might arrest me or worse.. shoot me in the name of national security. I tell you what the biggest threat to national security is.. CLIMATE CHANGE. But does that even cross their minds…no, all they can think of is to make the people more afraid of so called terrorism.

According to Wikipedia: Fascism ( /ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology.[1][2] Fascists seek elevation of their nation based on commitment to an organic national community where its individuals are united together as one people in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry and culture through a totalitarian state that seeks the mass mobilization of a nation through discipline, indoctrination, physical training, and eugenics.[3][4] Fascism seeks to eradicate perceived foreign influences that are deemed to be causing degeneration of the nation or of not fitting into the national culture.[5]

You have to be a complete zombie not to see the similarities, but that is what a large portion of the public is, through working all day, doing the same repetitive crap, they are exposed to the Metro, The Sun and other forms of “ popular news” and have only enough free time to watch sensationalised news which is often put out of context, but you see, that is all they see, and the more they are exposed to this kind of lazy reporting the more they will believe they are under threat and be more than willing to give up all their rights. What people normally equate with fascism is Hitler, now he took it to the extreme and don’t recognise that there are subtle phases in this and that not everything is so black and white, there are more complex issues to consider.

The news has a responsibility to be objective a show the stories from all angles and encourage people to be more analytical, and should not just concentrate on the views from the west. But you see all this, the notion that the news is there to inform you of the goings on in the world for the public has gone out of the window, they are more concerned with ratings and finding different ways to “ sex it up”. And one of the many ways they do this is by replacing the news with gossip and speculation, because in the end that’s what a large portion of the public wants, but just because they crave it doesn’t mean they should encourage this behaviour, a former alcoholic might want a drink but that doesn’t mean you should give it to him/her, you see what I mean??

I urge people to question the news more and try to watch different forms of news and avoid the mainstream like, Fox, Sky and the BBC or watch them in moderation, as they have forgotten what investigative journalist are meant to do, so it is up to us to investigate. Otherwise welcome to the age of the zombies!

It's Here..

It baffles me how people still refuse to acknowledge that something is wrong, not only with the planet but the way people perceive things. Are people so selfish that they are willing to sacrifice the simple beauties of this planet, and make sure that future generations will see things like trees, mountains and lake in historical books!
It make me incredibly sad when I hear about a new "fracking plant" or how we're blowing the tops of mountains inorder to get the raw materials we need for energy. Entire mountain ranges in the US have been reduced to mere foothills, what took mother nature millions of years to make, we have destroyed within a year. They have permanently scarred the planet in the name of energy, that land will be scarred forever, nothing will grow there, but do these people think of that, no..they just assume that everything on this planet is made for them to consume and make a profit!
What makes me laugh and cry is that many of these " cleaner" methods of finding energy are not only damaging the earth, but also the people who they are supposedly doing this for. Take the hydraulic fracturing for example, the fluids that are coming out of the plant are basically poison, and what do you think happens to the people who breathe in that air??? They get poisoned!! Increasing amounts of caners, tumours and also birth defects, but also they begining to lose their sense of smell and in some cases even taste. And don't forget the drilling that the do underground to get to this so called clean energy, it's very unsafe and is prone to leakages, meaning contamination of the water supply.. the very essence of life. But the corporation claim their are risks in any endeavour, but tell me this... if you kill everyone, who are you doing it for?

People think that the Earth is ours and we can do whatever we want to it and not have to deal with the consequence's, and I tell you this now, the repercussion are very real, just take a look outside your window, mother nature has had enough.

TORINO CITTA' MERAVIGLIOSA

We can change

Everything’s connected…

It’s still hard for some people to realise this, like Mufasa said to Simba in The Lion King, “ we’re all connected in this great circle of life”. Being only 10 years old at the time, I didn’t truly know what he meant. What he was trying to convey is that everything relies on everything in order to survive and that we should pay everything, no matter how small, with care and respect, even though we don’t think it is worth caring for, what we as people have to learn that it is worth caring for and our very survival depends on everything working in harmony with nature.

Humanity is a really young species on this Earth, but look at what we’ve done to it in our existence, we have made entire species extinct, we have polluted the World’s ocean, we’ve sped up climate change, and that’s only the tip of the ( melting) iceberg, just look what we have done to each other, global poverty is at an all time high, so is global hunger, there is also huge waste with energy and food, there is also the economic crisis that is in the forefront, I could go on and on, but my point is that PEOPLE have to change the way they perceive things. Humanity has this notion that we are the smartest beings on this planet, yet we can do nothing to help anyone but ourselves, and we have not got the intelligence to understand that the long term risks strongly outweigh any short term benefits.

When I look at the world today, it makes me sad, because where there used to be a park there is now a block of flats and where there used to be an abundance of wildlife, there is no more and I recall the small fact that we had actual seasons and that it didn’t go from Winter to Summer on a daily basis! Nature is trying to tell us something very important, why are we still refusing to listen????

We have this notion that this planet is filled with resource that are just for us to make a quick profit, We have forgotten the fact that we rely on this little blue planet to live, we have are priorities all mixed up, when I think about the wealthiest nation, I don’t think of the US or even the UK, I believe the wealthiest nations are those where it’s people live in harmony with nature, I don’t believe that people who work in the financial sector are the smartest, I believe people such as the bur burs in Morocco are smarter, simply because they know what has true value. The planet doesn’t belong to us, we are quite simply custodians, but Western civilization doesn’t think this way, a major reason is because of Capitalism.

This notion that everything is there to make a quick buck, is deadly wrong! Capitalism is about growth and expanding, but the Earth is struggling to keep up with this insatiable demand for growth. We can’t just keep taking and be horrified when Mother Nature decides to kick our asses. Just to name one in a long list of things that we are doing to this planet that has already killed so many…. The new method of drilling which is commonly known as “Fracking”. Wake up people, it’s called fracking, anyone who used to watch Battlestar Galactica knows what the word fracking is replacing!

The mainstream media does a masterful job of connecting the dots when something goes so wrong. Just an example of the wonderful reporting by the media, In May there was over 15 deaths in Northern Italy due to a massive earthquake over 5 on the Richter scale and it produced over 50 aftershocks, and they’re so quick to blame nature but what they conveniently leave out, is that it has increased in intensity due to the fracking compounds in that area. So in essence, nature is not the villain, we are.

An ever increasing population has meant that we need to find more and more new ways to supply and meet these new demand, but does that mean that we must do things that fly in the face of common sense? The oil companies have been given permission to drill in the Arctic to find more oil to satisfy our demands, yet this was considered to be too dangerous to due to the ice, yet the ice is melting so fast that it is now possible to drill in the Arctic. But do people not realise the affect the melting ice will have on us? The ice coverage helps reflect some of the Sun’s heat back into space, but with more dark blue ocean being revealed, more of the same heat will be absorbed further heating the oceans causing marine life to die and further ice to melt. Sea levels will rise, cause extensive flooding to all coastal areas a low lying land like Holland. It’s not just our need for energy but it is the amount we waste, oil spills to name the most obvious. We have the technology to avert these ecological disasters, so what, are we simply to stupid or just plain lazy to put them in place?

Why are we so arrogant to believe that our need for energy outweighs the risks that will be offloaded onto the other creatures that inhabit this unique blue planet?

Italy National anthem Italian & English lyrics

Italy V Spain

It was all too much fot the Italian, but they should be proud of their performance throughout the tournament, Spain were just too hot to handle in the end. I just foung it funny that people dared to critisie the Spainards for not playing with a striker upfront. With the talent that they've got, they don't need one. Spain came good when it mattered and after that tremendous semi final with Germany, Italy just ran out of steam were it was needed the most. Prandelli should be applauded for getting the Azzurri to the final when everyone else doubted they had the ability anymore.

Although Prandelli maybe made a mistake by starting with Giorhio Chiellini as it was obvious from the game against the Germans, he wasn't 100% matchfit. I don't like to put the blame on any individual as it is a team sport and any mistake or achievment was by the team, yet the first goal was a little to do with the fact that Chiellini couldn't stop Fabregas. Giorgio then went off in the 21st minute, meaning they had one less sub later on in the game when it could have mattered. Italy were not able to keep the ball in Spains half for very long and the midfield maestro, who is Andrea Pirlo was completely nullified, everytime he got the ball in an area that could hurt Spain there were atleast 3 Spainsh players around him, putting him under great pressure. He may be an amazing player, but he has played 2 very intense games in quick succession, the 120 minutes against England and Thursdays game against Germany. One of the major reasons he has been so effective for Juventus this term is because he was able to rest a week before every match.
Yet Italy were able to hold the off until the 41st minute when Jordi Alba got the second, yet there still was a glimmer of hope, but when Thiago Motta pulled up with a hamstring injury, it started to fade very quickly. Thiago Motta had come on as a subsitute for Ricardo Montolivo in th 57th minute, which I thought was a mistake to sub so early, he had looked rathe creative and "Pirlo like" at times. And as Italy had used up all their subs, they were forced to play the remaining half hour with 10 men. It seemed highly unlikely that Italy were going to score when they had 11 men, so when they went down to 10 it was more or leess game over. Torres then scored the 3rd in the 84th minute and a minute after coming on, Mata scored the 4 to make it Spain's third trophy on the trot.
Just a sign that the boys in blue are improving....they're just not the finished product yet.

Forza Azzurri!!