Arshavin… Arshavin…Arshavin…. Arda… Arda… Arda

If politics is all i care about, I would say the Russian win yesterday night and  the Turkish win the day before mattered the most to me.  I dont usually like it this way, but i always tend to support  the under dogs and the outcasts while i watch any internationals.

From almost being an imperial behemoth, Russia toppled down from all its majestic glory to a ravaged nation.  To add to this, the ever drunk – senile Boris Yeltsin, assumed charge and took the Russian people for a  catastrophic ride.  Pictures which flashed across every television set in the world  was that of an ignominious fat man making a fool out of himself on various stages. By doing this, he humiliated the Russian pride. The natural successor of Yeltsin, turned out to be something very different from what Yeltsin  was. Vladmir Putin.  Constantly harried  by the West about his democracy, human rights  and so on, he has survived a decade  and has a good deal of support from the Russian people.  Trying to regain the lost glory, on the political front, they are offering stiff resistance towards the cheeky NATO expansion plans and to top it all, they have an “energy trump card”, that they too often brandish by cutting supplies and restoring them at their whimsy to all their neighbors, like Ukraine and other post-Soviet nations that  are now showing ever increasing tendencies of “colored revolutions”.

I am not sure, if there were any personal interests of Putin at work when selecting Hiddink for this Job. Being a judoka himself Putin is not that typical Golf playing, “wood cutting- for the sake of it” premier.  A “putin + Guss Hiddink” google search wont reveal anything either.

Guss Hiddink’s team played very well, they caged an all attacking Netherlands team, scored some great goals and played good football. Andrei Arshavin stood out; for his stature of 1.72m, he was terrific, clever , and lived up to the hype he created after his splendid show against Sweden. He is a player who can create and score; this diminutive player will now sell off like hot cake in the transfer market, which has already been heated up behind the screens with rumors flying right and left.

For Turkey, there needn’t be any explanation. It is no secret that they are the “pariahs” of Europe. They played some good football and had loads of luck which favored them. I loved the scintillating come back they staged against the Czechs, but in the match against Croatia, luck favored them a lot.  It would be a tad unfair on my part if i say; “its all luck”; they believed in staging a come back and fought on till the end in both the games. They seemed to be a brave lot, giving it all to every match they play. Fortune favors the brave!