SOCCER-PELE-MARADONA-MESSI & ARDILES.

Seen above are Pele & Maradona

The game of soccer is the most popular single sport in the world. There is not a single country in the world that does not play soccer. Like Christianity Soccer is also present in every country in the world. Great Britain and other colonial powers are responsible to spread soccer in most of the countries in the world. The best of soccer is played in South America and Brazil while best of money after this sport is spent in Europe and especially in Spain.

The most artistic soccer players in the history were produced by South America and Brazil namely Brazilian Pele, Argentinians Alfredo Di Stefano, Maradona and now Lionel Messi. Europe is also having its own share of producing great footballers such as Hungarian Puskas, Mozambican born Portuguese Eusebio, Germans Backenbeur & Rumminige and Dutch Cryuf. These soccer players made this sport more popular and more attractive. For its fame and charisma soccer owes its gratitude to these soccer artistes of which type world is yet to see more.

The soccer pundits who saw Alfredo Di Stefano, Ferenz Puskas and Pele playing the best soccer during their peak form and comparing them to one another say that Stefano ranks first followed by Puskas and then comes Pele on third place. But those who saw only Pele during his peak form say that Pele was the best in the world. About 30 years back French Magazine “ O Globo” in a poll conducted by it declared Pele was the best not only as a footballer but also as a Sportsman of last century followed by American Olympian athlete Jesse Owens and coming on third place was American Heavyweight World Boxing champion Mohammed Ali. Incidentally all were Blacks.

After Pele’s voluntarily retirement in early seventies when he was still enjoying best of his form and running 100 meters in 11 seconds which was unimaginable for a footballer at that age, soccer experts said that world will never produce another Pele. This prophecy to a certain extent lasted for another decade till the fully blossomed Diego Maradona appeared on the football scene. During Maradona’s era especially during his peak form at Napoli in Italy and at 1986 & 1990 World Cups, soccer experts dubbed Maradona as the best player of whose type never came before. Who were these soccer experts who made this comment? They were those who never saw Pele during his peak form and never analyzed Pele’s game properly.

Now came Lionel Messi who is really a great player in the world currently but according to me he is not as great as his compatriot Maradona. Oswi Ardiles the great midfielder of 1978 World Cup winning squad of Argentina in his recent comment on Messi said that Messi is better than Maradona. With due respect to great Ardiles after whom I named my second son who sadly died with a stroke of Jaundice in Kuwait on the eve of his Baptism, I differ from this opinion of Ardiles.

No doubt, Ardiles was not only a great footballer but also a great game reader and because of this he was appointed as Manager of English soccer club Tottenham Hotspurs where he was very successful. However, as a true patriot when his country Argentina was engaged in Falkland War with Britain, as a mark of protest against the British he abruptly cut short his engagement with Tottenham and left for Argentina, saying the interest of my country comes first.

According to my analysis leaving aside Di Stefano and Puskas, Pele was the greatest among all. He was the perfect footballer using both his feet with equal ease, using his Head with perfect precision in aerial duels and above all using his brain perfectly well to outsmart his opponents. We are yet to see another Pele and probably we may never see again as perfect as Pele was.

Seen above is Ardiles.

Maradona was no doubt a great player but he was not a perfect footballer. He lacked Heading power and in his right leg he was absolutely handicapped. He was over perfect in his left leg and appropriate in his very decisive thinking power on the field. He was not only playing but more than that he was making his colleagues play by accurately feeding them with clever passes. He was playing the game of two soccer players, to quote Bobby Charlton when he was asked how England lost by a margin of 2-0 goals against Argentina in 1986 World Cup? Bobby Charlton replied thus “because Argentina played with 12 players”, which means one Maradona was equal to two players.

Lionel Messi is currently the best among all the top world class footballers. He is according to me the best because others are of low level including the highest paid footballer the Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo. British writer George Bernard Shaw was once asked thus “why Shakespeare became great?” replied Shaw saying “because I was not born then”. Messi is seen as best now because there is no stiff competition for him from really top players. The only opponent for him for the top spot is Ronaldo but he too is of very mediocre level. In fact currently world soccer is not producing great footballers for reasons best known to the players only. Today world soccer is played not by skill of the players but by the amount of the money. It is money now that controls everything ingrained in footballers.

Coming back to Lionel Messi, he is only a club level footballer while Maradona was national and international level player. Maradona could gain the victory for his national team thru his individual genius while Messi can do this only at club level. Maradona besides playing was making others to play while Messi had to be played by others. Maradona was more accurate in his passing and aiming at corner of the opponents’ net while Messi is 50 – 50 accurate. Messi’s running with the ball near the goal mouth was really fantastic like an Olympian sprinter. And what I liked in him the most was that he is non-complaining unlike Maradona when fouled by his opponents.

A. Veronica Fernandes,

Kuwait.

PARRIKAR!! BE CAREFUL. YOU ARE UNDER WATCH.

WAS IT TO HOODWINK MP SHRIPAD NAIK?

By Aires Rodrigues

The public is entitled to know the real intention behind every decision the Government takes. Recently by a very bizarre and illogical order the Goa government appointed North Goa Member of Parliament, Mr. Shripad Naik as ‘Special Representative of Goa in Delhi’. It doesn’t take much intelligence to see behind the act. By virtue of being an MP, Mr. Naik already represents Goa in Delhi. So what does this order really mean? Given that Mr. Naik was apparently very keen to enter State politics during the last assembly elections, does this order in any way seek to communicate to Mr. Naik that he should be based full time in Delhi and keep his hands off the Goan political landscape. Or does the order seek to give him more powers than he already has to pursue issues pertaining to Goa with the central government. This seemingly fancy designation will fool no one, least of all Mr. Naik, a former Union Minister himself.

If there is any other justification for this irrational order perhaps, Mr. Manohar Parrikar himself could enlighten us. Like every astute politician, he always has a crafty justification for every thing he does. But let us hear it from him. Over to you, Mr. Chief Minister.

ARE WE BETTER THAN ANIMALS??

According to science, man is the ultimate animal or the last derivative of the animal species. Over the sequence of evolution the characteristics of living organisms have only evolved from a single cell amoeba to give us the most complex human being and it’s relativity to think and reason, a trait that is not prevalent or is absent in rest of the living organisms. Yes, it is an obvious assumption that, take away the power to think and reason and we are no better than the animals.

The story of Umar Farooq is a clear indication and proof that we are still animals, even though we think that we as human being have acquired the right to be superior to animals as we have the power to think and reason. In the case of the animal called Umar Farooq he tortured his own new born infant child Afreen for 85 days. What can be more cruel, than battering a baby who is defenseless and clueless to what and why she is being subjected to such pain and agony.

Only when the mother of the baby Afreen, Reshman Bano, went to the hospital with the battered body of her baby, the brutality and the inhuman acts of the father Umar Farooq became public knowledge. For nearly three months baby Afreen was subjected to beating, biting and cigarette butt burns over her delicate body, her only crime was, she was tabooed to be a girl child, an unwanted girl child.

India is certainly shocked at this barbaric act against baby Afreen, sick as we may feel, but this condemnation of a girl child is very common even today all over shining India, it is not just prevalent in the illiterate world of shanties and hutments across the length and breadth of India but also across the wide spectrum of the educated elite living in condominiums, who live with the notion that their legacy should be carried forward only by their male child and their women are often treated as slot machines for the preferred boy child, if not some are even beaten, burnt or driven to suicide. This is indeed the ugliest truth of shining India of the 21st century.

It is not only Umar Farooq who should be blamed for this horrific tragedy but the whole Indian society, for not only propagating but also supporting the hypocritical superiority of a male child in our families or else how can we justify the selective abortions of a girl child that run in millions ? We are as guilty as Umar Farooq as we try to destroy the very life that we set out to create in the mother’s womb. If we feel sorry and appalled by what happened to baby Afreen shouldn’t we feel the same for the unborn that we kill ?

May our Indian society do away with animals like Umar Farooq for good and not treat a girl child as a burden or a liability or even a dent in our personal coffers but may our society promote and respect every girl child and offer them equal opportunities to live and prove themselves as much as their male counterparts. They too have the right to live as much as any boy child. They are our children so let’s not differentiate between a boy and a girl child. We do need to find a cure for this growing epidemic of crime against the girl child before it consumes society.

Freddy Agnelo Fernandes.