Arindam: - Good afternoon viewers! Today in this silver jubilee episode of ‘Fantastic Football Fever’ in your favorite ‘Royal Bengal Tiger (RBT)’ TV Channel, we have invited Koustuv Roy, the owner of Chirag United football club of Bengal. Also we have invited Michael Ballack, the injured captain of Germany football team who has not played in this World Cup 2010 due to his injury. Wait, wait, we have another special guest. He is K’naan, the famous African singer. We welcome three of them in our studio. First, I would like to ask K’naan about his song ‘Celebration’, which has become a theme song for this World Cup 2010. What is the meaning of this song?
K’naan:- The meaning is crystal clear. I don’t think that the lyric is too complex to understand. ‘Give me freedom, give me fire’. It means that a footballer is requesting to his team coach to give him more space and freedom to show his skills in the field. He is also requesting his coach to motivate him with inspirational words that will ignite fire under his belly to win a match. Then there is another line, ‘Give me reason to take me higher’. What is that reason and who will give that reason? It is the football fans who will expect their favorite team to win every football match. The fans’ expectations are the reasons for any footballer to perform well in any match and it will take his reputation and fame higher as a great international football player. Ultimately, when you perform well for the team, your team emerges as the winner and then there are celebrations.
Ballack: - Ha ha ha…well said, Mr. K’naan. I really like your ‘Celebration’ song. In South Africa, I have seen all the football fans rocking and dancing in the discotheque with the tune of Shakira’s ‘This time for Africa’ song, but for any footballer like me, the real inspirational song is the ‘Celebration’ song. The song has all the ingredients to ignite the fighting spirit within a footballer. I will keep K’naan’s song ahead of Shakira’s in terms of ranking.
Arindam: - Oho! Shakira will be so disappointed to know that Mr. Ballack likes the ‘Celebration’ song more than her ‘Waka Waka’. He he he…anyway, we will try to invite her again in our final episode to do some social work for African poor children. Mr. K’naan, one thing I don’t understand that why people sing with a very shrill voice. Even Akon also don’t sing with traditional male voice.
K’naan:- This type of voice suits well with the African musical beats and African people do not always prefer to hear hip-hop songs. The tribal people of Africa always love their own sweet tunes without any western instrumental touch in it.
Arindam:- Hmm…now, don’t tell me that Vuvuzela is also used to create those sweet tunes, he he he…Anyway, jokes apart, the African tribal tunes are not bad at all, especially in the tribal areas surrounding Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Koustav: - I have heard that there are many jewels and valuable ornaments kept in a cave inside Mt. Kilimanjaro, but, till now, no one has been able to collect those ornaments. Whoever has gone there to collect it has died.
Arindam: - Uff, Mr. Koustav, you must have read about all those things in a storybook. Even Discovery Channel is yet to explore Mt. Kilimanjaro in details. Let us not discuss about that mountain and the controversial stories associated with it. Mr. Koustav, you started your career as a mere computer assembler in Dalhousie and Chandni market of Kolkata. You were working for RP Communications. Then, you and one of your close friends opened up your own partnership business of computer parts and accessories. The name of your company is ‘Chirag Computers’. That business is quite ok. But, suddenly, what prompted you to buy the corporate football team of ‘Eveready’ and name it as ‘Chirag United’.
Koustav: - Ha ha ha…Believe me; I had no plans to buy any football team. Our ‘Chirag Computers’ were doing fabulous business. Even in 2007 and 2008, we sold the maximum number of computers in and around Kolkata than any other companies in the same business. We used to get huge response, whenever we used to give stalls in the Kolkata Book Fair. Now, the PC assembling business is slightly down because customers are switching to palmtops and laptops very fast. Maybe, who knows, after 2 years, laptops will also become obsolete. Everyone will use 3G mobile handsets as TV and laptops. You are laughing, but, I am telling you the truth. Anyway, so, suddenly, one day, I decided to buy that football team which was eager to sell it in the market. As a Bengali, I also have passion towards football. Since my childhood, I have seen Mohun Bagan, East Bengal and Md. Sporting club doing great business through their football team. Before taking the final decision, I discussed a lot about whether to buy a football team or not. When I got satisfied with some futuristic financial valuations, I decided to buy that football team. Now, the entire India knows the name of ‘Chirag United’. The best thing about my team is that I give more chances to Bengali footballers than any other football clubs of Bengal and our boys are really playing well. Even big fishes like Mohun Bagan and East Bengal become stunned by our teams’ terrific performance.
Arindam: - Recently, media people were saying that there were some ego clashes between you and Subrata Bhattacharya, the coach of Chirag United football club.
Koustav: - No, there is nothing like that. Babu daa is totally passionate towards football. He never compromises with the performance of his players. I just requested him not to speak too much in front of the media about his personal grudges. Media people just need a reason to cook up a story which affects the moral of the footballers. We are a football team; so, let the fight with other teams be limited within that football playground only for 90 minutes. Outside the field, there is no need of going for war of words to show up a bad image of Bengal football in front of the whole world. Already the Goa football clubs are performing better than the Bengal football clubs. We need to regain our prestige in Indian football.
Arindam: - Hmm…a healthy competition between Bengal football and Goa football will ultimately improve the quality of Indian football. Maybe, I am sounding too much optimistic but it is not impossible also. We will keep our discussion on, but before that, let us hear about the match between Germany and Uruguay from Mr. ARINAN.
Mr. ARINAN: - for the first time in this tournament, the Blue Stars displayed the best traditional football of Latin America. Both the teams were playing powerful football, but, the Uruguayan goalkeeper was weaker than the German goalkeeper. German scored two goals due to the bad goalkeeping from the Uruguayan goalkeeper. Muller kicked the ball which rebounded from the goalkeeper’s hand. In the second case, the goalkeeper completely missed the line of the ball due to his lack of self-confidence. But, Uruguay was not far behind. Cavani angled the ball into the net. Suarez missed a sure shot goal. How he missed that one-to-one angle, only he knows! The pick of the match was Oezil of Germany. He was creating the game for the German strikers. But, how can you forget that Forlan is there as the Star of the Blue Stars. He scored a goal in such a fashion that the Jabulani entered the German goal post and the German goalkeeper was just stunned to see that. In a corner kick, Germans scored their 3rd goal. That goal was a genuine one. In this case, the Uruguayan defenders were just clustering at one end of the goal post. It is not that the God has not given Uruguay a last chance to score the equalizer. In the last 15 seconds of the injury time, Uruguay got a free-kick. The shot of Forlan was on the target and was able to beat the German goalkeeper, but, alas, the Jabulani hit the upper bar post. Uruguay was unfortunate and the luck favored the countrymen of Paul, the octopus. Germans secured the 3rd place with the score-line 3-2. It was a classic match of this tournament after the match between USA and Slovenia and between Uruguay and Ghana.
Arindam: - Ha ha ha…that octopus is 6th time lucky with his predictions now. We need to see whether he will be lucky for the 7th time or not. Mr. Ballack, your German team should have finished 1st instead of 3rd in this world cup. Before the tournament, everyone was saying that this Germany team is looking a very weak side in absence of Ballack. Some people said the other thing also. They said that Ballack is not there in the team, which means that the team will play some innovative football rather than their traditional German football.
Ballack: - Yeah, yeah, people are always there to comment, but, I don’t care who says what. Our team has displayed fantastic football in this tournament, which is more than enough for me. Whether I am playing there or not, it hardly matters! What matters is that our Germany team just rocked. Show me a world cup, where Germany has thrashed England and Argentina with 4 goals each.
Arindam: - Ok, ok, I have understood what you are trying to say. But, what really went wrong against Spain?
Ballack: - Spain is a very mysterious side. It is very hard to predict in which strategy they will play on a particular day. Germany was expecting that Spain will play a total attacking football against them and that will be fruitful for the Germans to counterattack. But, that did not happen. The Spain played a very calculated defensive football and trapped the German footballers so efficiently that hardly any German strikers were able to take some deadly shots at the goal. Even if they were taking shots at the goal, Mr. Casillas was there like a Pillar of a Spanish fort.
Arindam: - He he he…yeah, Mr. Casillas should get an award for best goalkeeping in this tournament. By the way, Mr. Ballack, to you, who should win this World Cup?
Ballack: - Spain deserves this World Cup. This team of Spain is playing like the traditional Brazil team. They don’t have any fixed strategy. They formulate the strategy on the spot according to their opponent team’s strength. Netherlands team is expert in counterattacking. I am damn sure that Spain will also play rapid counterattacking football against the Dutch to keep them under pressure.
Arindam: - Well, we are heading for a terrific battle and that is the final match of Spain vs. Holland. Thanks to three of you for coming to our show. We will end our show here. Viewers! Just stay tuned there. We have done an online polling to select the top 20 footballers in this World Cup based on their performances. Mr. ARINAN will declare the results of that poll with their rankings from 20 to 1. Don’t forget to watch our last episode tomorrow. Goodbye.
Mr. ARINAN: - Based on individual performances only, we did an online polling to select the top 20 players of this FIFA World Cup 2010. Here are the results from rank 20 to rank 1. They are:- 20) Tshabalala (South Africa), 19) Kingson (Ghana), 18) Santos (Mexico), 17) Chonyoung (South Korea), 16) Donovan (USA), 15) Simao (Portugal), 14) Maicon (Brazil), 13) Oezil (Germany), 12)Vittek (Slovakia), 11) Tevez (Argentina), 10) Robinho (Brazil), 9) Robben (Netherlands, 8) Suarez(Uruguay), 7) Messi (Argentina), 6) Casillas (Spain), 5) Asamoah Gyan (Ghana), 4) Muller (Germany), 3) Villa(Spain), 2) Forlan (Uruguay), 1) Sneijder (Netherlands).
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