It was the red versus the blue, the Horde against the Alliance. I wasn’t too sure about the outcome. Spain could not beat Italy in the quarter-final. Spain had to go into penalty shootout against Portugal in the semi-final. I began to have my duda: Can Spain score at all with this new formation?
Cynthia and I are happy with the results of course. We have plenty of Spanish and Spanish learning friends in Singapore. We have visited Spain twice. Photographs of last year’s visit are still … in process but you can view the pictures taken on our 2009 trip here. We practically love everything Spanish. Perhaps, just perhaps, I may finally get Cynthia into watching Formula One now that the Spanish fever is burning higher than ever.
It was just last weekend when Spanish F1 driver Fernando Alonso won the European race that took place in Valencia, Spain. At the end of the race, he was meant to cruise to the podium. Instead, Alonso stopped his Ferrari at the grandstand, with a Spanish flag on his hands, and he paid tribute to the Spanish fans. Such emotion he was in, it was as though he has won the Championship (which is still a long way to go). Alonso is a big fan of Spanish football. I bet he is delighted about the UEFA win. With the economy black hole Spain is in today, her people could really use some good news.
Some say Spanish football is boring. Some say watching Formula One is boring. For some strange reasons, I find either very exciting to watch. I enjoy seeing how the Spanish football team set up the attack by slowly inching towards the goal through their accurate passing. There is great teamwork involved and the Spanish team has sufficient star power as well. To me, the experience of watching football and F1 is similar. Both take one and a half hour to watch. The first 5 minutes of a football match is as exciting as the opening laps of a F1 race. Thereafter, the pace settles down. Draw in a match to me is like a pole-to-podium-finish in a race. There ain’t many goals in a typical football match. Just like F1, there are only one or a few overtakes that truly matter.
Four years ago when Spain won UEFA, I doodled a picture of Torres. And we enrolled ourselves into a Spanish class shortly after. This year, I will be doing neither. Cynthia is still practicing her Spanish. In fact, her blog entry on this very topic written in Spanish is published faster than mine! As for me, I will stick with my Spanish guitar. She needs some love.
