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Croatia vs Germany

I braved fatigue yesterday midnight to watch on the internet the Eurocup Group A match between Croatia and Germany. That was the first match of the Eurocup soccer tournament 2008 that I watched as I wanted to validate my belief that Croatia would triumph over one of the tournament’s favourite teams.

Prior to watching the matches, I have read many news and sports articles which prophesied that Croatia was definitely going to be run down by the Germans in this match; some of these predictions were also written by renowned local soccer players. The whole nation has many believing that the Germans were clear winners, with the odds at Singapore Pools for Croatia to win at this game starting at 6.00 and jumping to 6.50 just few hours before the commencement of the match (conversely, odds for Germany opened at 1.6 and become lower as the match drew closer).

Alas, my belief was right: Croatia won against the Germans by 2:1 ! For soccer matches, personally I believe there is no really much analysis to look at or done; the news articles and reports predicting the results of the matches are one thing; the actual playing of the teams at the match is another. The ball is always round, and it does not always mean the better team will win; even the best soccer team on earth may fall to a minnow (here, I am not saying Croatia is a minnow team, in fact, this team has immense hidden soccer power, that’s why I am supporting fully for the team in the match, though I do not think it will march to the finals).

The probability of better teams winning is always high, but I believe too in trusting your natural instinct. I agreed wholeheartedly with the theory of the book ‘Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking’ book written by Malcolm Gladwell; sometimes one must trust one’s gut instincts.

For those who would like to watch an action of the tournament that is currently besieging the world but have no access to the channels featuring the matches and do not like to go to the packed coffee shops to roar together with the uncles, one may download the free media player ‘TV U player’ from the internet and start watching for free. It is still not late; there are about two weeks more before the tournament closes, not to mention that there are also many other interesting channels to view on the player.
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