Nobody does it better

Joe is a Chelsea fan.
Joe is my good friend.

With those statements, here is a tribute on his blog for his ex club manager. Though he might have a more elaborate piece of blog in the making!

Quickly off the mark, Jose Mourinho is a lot like marmite, you either love him or loathe him. As you can see in his quotes below later, the least you could say is he made his mark and good luck to his successor. I would like to consider myself lucky as my gf & I managed to watch the Special One coached Chelsea vs Blackburn, in what was his penultimate game in charge. It was drab 0-0 draw i admit, but the man was Macguyver, he made good with what he had. Of all his quotes, this one beats closer to heart, before the last FA cup final he asked his team whether they want to enjoy the game or enjoy after the game? Chelsea went on to prevent another Double by MU. Nobody gets tired of winning, dour or not. Winning as everything in his genius world but Roman dreamt Einstein can be sexy too. The latest news is Jose will be going to US for a while then to Malaysia for a commercial shoot. After which he will be mighty busy counting his multimillion £££ compensation at the comfort of his home.

Without further ado, let's go straight to the quotes:

"Please don't call me arrogant, but I'm European champion and I think I'm a special one" - Mourinho introduces himself to the English press after arriving from Porto in summer 2004

"In the second half it was whistle and whistle, fault and fault, cheat and cheat. The referee controlled the game in one way during the first half but in the second they had dozens of free-kicks. I know the referee did not walk to the dressing rooms alone at half-time" - Mourinho claims Sir Alex Ferguson had unduly influenced referee Neale Barry at half-time during a Carling Cup semi-final against Manchester United in January 2005. He was fined £5,000 by the Football Association for improper conduct

"I don't regret it. The only thing I have to understand is I'm in England, so maybe even when I think I am not wrong, I have to adapt to your country and I have to respect that. I have a lot of respect for Liverpool fans and what I did, the sign of silence - 'shut your mouth' - was not for them, it was for the English press" - Mourinho defends putting a finger to his lips during the 2005 Carling Cup final against Liverpool, an action which resulted in him being sent to the stands

"When I saw Rijkaard entering the referee's dressing room I couldn't believe it. When Drogba was sent off I didn't get surprised. There is something that tells me that in London the referee will be Collina, the best in the world. A perfect referee with personality and quality" - Mourinho claims in Portuguese newspaper Dez Record that Barcelona coach Frank Rijkaard visited referee Anders Frisk's dressing room at half-time in the first leg of the teams' Champions League last-16 clash in February 2005. Mourinho was banned from the dug-out for two matches and fined £9,000 by UEFA for bringing the game into disrepute over his claims

"I felt the power of Anfield, it was magnificent. I felt it didn't interfere with my players but maybe it interfered with other people and maybe it interfered with the result. You should ask the linesman why he gave a goal. Because, to give a goal, the ball must be 100 per cent in and he must be 100 per cent sure that the ball is in" - Mourinho questions the validity of Liverpool forward Luis Garcia' s goal which puts Chelsea out of the Champions League semi-finals on May 3, 2004

"It is not a red card, of course not, and for the second time we have to play 55, 60 minutes without a man and the game is completely different. I shouldn't speak about the game, because the game is not a game" - Mourinho blames a first-leg defeat to Barcelona in the Champions League last 16 in February 2006 on the sending-off of Asier del Horno

"We have played against them four matches in two seasons. (When it was) 11 against 11 they never beat us. That is the reality" - After 1-1 draw at the Nou Camp in 2006 which sent Barca through to the quarter-finals 3-2 on aggregate

"The goalkeeper has the ball in his hands, slides and the number 10 cannot get the ball. He goes with the knee into his face" - Mourinho accuses Reading midfielder Stephen Hunt of deliberately injuring Petr Cech after the pair collide in the first minute of last October's match at the Madejski Stadium

"It is not possible (for) penalties (to be awarded) against Manchester United, and it is not possible (to get) penalties in favour of Chelsea. If somebody punishes me because I tell the truth, it is the end of democracy, we go back to the old times" - The Chelsea boss fumed last weekend after seeing his side's penalty appeals against Newcastle turned down, a day after United were given the benefit of the doubt over a strong injury-time penalty claim by Middlesbrough in their clash at Old Trafford

"A player who wants to be the best one of the world, and he already may be, should have the uprightness and the sufficient maturity to verify that against facts there are not arguments. If he says that it is a lie that Manchester United have conceded some penalties this season which have not been awarded against them, he is lying. And if he lies he will never reach the level that he wants to reach" - Mourinho hit back at Ronaldo after the United winger claimed his penalty rant proved his countryman "doesn't know how to admit his own failures"

"It is omelettes and eggs. No eggs - no omelettes! It depends on the quality of the eggs. In the supermarket you have class one, two or class three eggs and some are more expensive than others and some give you better omelettes. So when the class one eggs are in Waitrose and you cannot go there, you have a problem" - Shorn of the likes of injury victims Frank Lampard, Michael Ballack, Ricardo Carvalho and Didier Drogba, Mourinho cooked up a surreal analogy ahead of Tuesday's fateful draw with Rosenborg

Joe is also a Radiohead fan, truculently and but now aptly.

Nobody does it better
Makes me feel sad for the rest
Nobody does it half as good as you
Baby you're the best
- Radiohead's chorus for 'Nobody does it better'

There's only one matter we can ask of any genius, is to hope that he will keep in touch with us and perhaps we can be a little more like him. Now will the last person off the Chelsea bandwagon please switch off the lights?

131. Nurin Jazlin Jazimin

Rest in peace

130. England

Football minnows England pulled a shocking upset last night. They actually beat a decent team coached by a decent coach. How wonderful. The world rejoices. All is safe once more. Osama bin Laden is but a distant memory. The Spice Girls never existed. And George Bush is in his final term as president. It's all just roses and rainbows and mutant midgets dancing upon fields of green.

I hate England. I really do. With all my freaking heart and soul I hate them. Does this mean that we'd have to put up with retarded hype machine of WAGS and wankers (not necessarily in that order) come next year in Austria and Switzerland? I can hardly contain myself.







Famed Three Lions fan and dog-lover, Osama "Big Ben" Laden watches England beat Russia in his comfy pad.

Fedex

Jim Courier got me hooked on tennis. The bended cap, single backhand, his high jump on serve and his power play & serve-and-volley.

Back in my time, if you're a school kid and into tennis, like every kid on this side of the world, my friends looked up to Michael Chang, the dynamo, the first Energizer bunny. He made up on big calves muscles for his lack of height and it wasn't pretty for me.Adam Malik paved the Malaysian way and Michael Chang-style was the only thing on the menu. I hated the chasing after the yellow ball, picking up the ball ALL the time during practices, expensive access to courts and most importantly, it was a wimpsy non-contact sport. I guess, to correct myself, Jim Courier got me hooked on watching tennis.

Then came Pistol Pete. Jim Courier 2.0. No one even came close to knocking this guy off his pedestal, but clay was his kryptonite and there were no Grand Slam in his otherwise brilliant career. Young Fedex soon came along, he was the typical rookie - talented, petulant, moody and plays great tennis when in control (beaten Sampras before he retired). In his company, the other promising up & coming stars were Andy Roddick and Marat Safin. What happened next in Federer's career is well chronicled, but Roger & Marat were very similar when they first started. Geniuses but cranky.

Roger turned 26 this year, and in tennis years, he's 74. Most critics and the public are starting to call him GOAT, they have to go way back in the record books to see if Roger hasn't broken any of them. The one that's been weighing on his mind is breaking Pete Sampras's 14 Grand Slams record (2 away) and oh yeah, another would be winning the French Open.

Many youngsters are waiting to be his successor to Roger's tennis throne, Nadal, Djokovic, Isner are all waiting to pounce, but the master had shown he's not ready to hand over the baton just yet. It was Nadal at the French Open final, this time it's Novak Djokovic whom came close last night in the US Open final.

Watching the final, 2 things came to mind, brilliance conjured in Federer's play was expected and he only selectively ups his game when necessary. The score was 7-6 (4), 7-6 (2), 6-4 to Federer. He was in cruising mode through the games while Novak slugged and groaned. In both tiebreakers, Roger shifted gear to 2nd and Djokovic, for less of a better word, choked.

The match was much closer than the scoreline already offers, if you watched the game, you can't help but think that the game was slowly playing out as how in Federer's mind. He knew.

At one play, Novak's crosscourt backhand zipped across the court inside the box diagonal to where he played the shot, which looked like a winner, and also showing up Roger (the crowd ooh). Roger anticipated, stepped up with his single-handed backhand crossed it back at a tighter angle and a higher degree of Swiss-precision. Mess with best, die like the rest. I can emphatise Novak's play, hey if i can't win a game, i'll try to embarrass the opponent too.

Enough of Roger, Novak is one for the future. He may have lost the US Open trophy last night, but he may have won another trophy whom was sitting in his player box, the lovely Maria Sharapova.

This won him his fans.
http://faniq.com/blog/Video-Novak-Djokovic-Impersonates-Maria-Sharapova-and-Rafael-Nadal-at-US-Open-Blog-4077

129. The Suffering...the Sweet Suffering

It's finally sunk in...the pain is piercing, like every single cell in your body screaming...like cold ice flowing through your veins...like your heart being splintered by a million shards of glass...why does the sun go on rising? Why does the sea rush to shore? Don't they know, it's the end of the world...and it ended when Chelsea lost over the weekend to Villa and Liverpool winning 6 nil. Which means that Alf and Adam are plenty happy.

Worse yet, Arsenal won, with ten men. Oh the humanity.

128. Unfinished Business

Hmmm, this blog has some unfinished business. I still need to finish off my essay on Italy's glorious run in USA '94 that I began sometime in 2005, there's those sordid Halloween tales I promised to tell, and a few film reviews that I really want to write but never really came round to. In due time, just so I can leave my mind in peace for once. I hate unfinished business.

127. That Trance-y Feeling

Everyone has their favourite clubbing experiences. Those memorable nights out that somehow stick with you and makes you grin just thinking about it. If you were to compile one of those top five lists like Rob Fleming did in Nick Hornby's High Fidelity on your best ever clubbing nights out, what would it look like?

For me, no. 1 would be that night out when me and my mates figured we check out this famous East German dj who was spinning in the now-defunct Movement. The dj in question was Paul van Dyk, and it turned out to be the most awesome clubbing experience ever, I shit you not. PvD absolutely and completely ruled over all things that night, and we didn't even have to get high to enjoy ourselves, that's how bloody good he was. You couldn't believe how psyched the crowd was, there was this electricity and energy in the air unlike I've ever known. That was magic man, pure magic.

I've been a fan of electronic dance music ever since. For me, nothing even comes close to having real good house or trance music in a club or going for a good rave. Now, don't get me wrong, listening to a bit of pop or hip hop or rap at a club is fine and all, but it's just not the same feeling. It just doesn't have the same buzz, or the kinetic energy.

Now almost 7 years later, I'm counting my lucky stars that I got to hear him spin again over the weekend, and I'm happy to say that it easily makes no. 2 on my list. The only reason why it doesn't top that night out in Movement all those years ago is that nothing beats the first time. But his show was magnificent, and the crowd was fantastic, well most of them anyway. I'm not even going to get started on some jerk-offs who came in their fancy coats and gowns like they were going to the bloody opera and other creeps who were hunting for drunk or spaced out meat. Other than that, it was way awesome, and I've seen a dj who got the crowd so amped before.

Ok, I'm going to end this gushing tribute to all things trance-y before it turns out to be too gay. I'm partially deaf as I write this, but so blissfully happy, fuck yeah. Lemme just sign off with a top five list of the best trance/house/electronic dance music tracks ever.

1. Halcyon (Airscape Remix) - Chicane
2. Gouryella (Armix Remix) - Gouryella
3. Words - PvD
4. Sunchyme - Dario G
5. Komodo (Tea Mix) - Mauro Picotto