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www.bigfourza.com

And I truly mean it when I say this… it couldn’t have been possible without all of you. Here’s hoping that you like the website even more!

Decided to come out of hiding after Germany’s exit at the hands of those rotten tomatoes, and what better day to emerge than the eve of the curtain raiser to the Premier League 2010-11 season

So to pick up where I left off , Here is what’s left to say:

Chelsea’s Low Point of 2009-10:

• Unfortunately low points of Chelsea and Champions League gel as well as Navjot Singh Sidhu and his juicy one liners! This term we lost at the hands of Mourinho.
• Probably not in the right time frame, but loosing Joe Cole and (equally) Michael Ballack is a huge drag. Respect.

Chelsea’s High Point of 2009-2010:

• The Double. 105 years in the making.

And that’s the bottom line.

Kenny Huang: Why hello Roy! I’ve been expecting you. Come in, have a seat.

Roy Hodgson: Thank you, Mr. Huang.

Huang: Now, the papers may be screaming that I’ve ‘taken over’ the club but I find that too strong a word. I prefer ‘joined hands’. I’m just here to help the club in any way I can. I trust that we can strike up a cordial partnership and take Liverpool back to where it deserves to be.

Hodgson: Of course sir. I’ll try my ut-

Huang: Say, this Google is something eh?

Hodgson: Pardon, sir?

Huang: Google Roy, Google. I’ve been stuck to my laptop for two hours and I still can’t get enough of it. It’s such a relief to type ‘girl on girl action’ on a search engine and not have my house blown up.

Hodgson: Er- very good, sir. I was under the impression that you had called me to discuss something.

Huang: What? Oh yes, as a matter of fact I do. I have a new player for you, Roy.

Hodgson: Oh? Well, with all due respect sir, I would prefer if I was allowed to make my own signings. I AM the manager, after all.

Huang: Don’t worry Roy. Of course you’ll make your own signings. This is just something to set the dice rolling. Consider it a present from me and the Chinese government. Shall I call him in?

Hodgson: He’s standing outside?

Jackie Chan: Howdy!

Hodgson: ……

Huang: Well?

Hodgson: It’s Jackie Chan. Was it necessary for him to come crashing in through the window? Is this some sort of joke?

Huang: Do I look like a joking sort of fellow to you, Roy?

Hodgson: No sir. You look like any other person.

Huang: What did you just say, Roy? Did you just say that all Chinese look alike?

Hodgson: Surely not, sir!

Huang: Look Roy, they say people in England fight against racism. You’re going to have to prove that if we’re to have a congenial atmosphere around here.

Hodgson: I-yes sir.

Huang: Now will you take Jackie or not? He’s your new central defender.

Hodgson: But dash it, he doesn’t know the first thing about football! He can’t be a defender in the Premier League straight away!

Huang: Sorry Roy, but my hands are tied. Explicit orders from the Chinese government state that Chan is to be stopped from starring in more movies like ‘Karate Kid’.

Hodgson: I don’t see why that should concern Liverpool. I’m sorry sir, but I have to put my foot down.

Huang: Very well. I thought you would react like this Roy. I have a back-up offer for you. He’s standing outside. Shall I call him in?

(After ten minutes)

Hodgson: Why isn’t he here yet? I thought he was standing outside?

Huang: Patience Roy. I thought you were famous for your patience? He’s not the fastest, plus he’s just ditched Abu Dhabi United to come join us. Let him take his time.

Hodgson: N-No. You can’t. You can’t possibly mean-

Mikhael Silvestre: Hello!

Hodgson: I’ll take Jackie Chan. Just please ma-make him go away.

(After ten minutes)

Huang: Are you alright Roy? You look shaken.

Hodgson: You’re damn right I am! I can’t believe you used such underhanded tactics to get your way.

Huang: You seem cross Roy.

Hodgson: Forgive me sir, but it seems there’s something fishy going on here. I would appreciate it if you came clean over your motives.

Huang: Hmph. Very well. It’s best we get down to the real business. Roy, Jackie and I have come here to tell you, and Liverpool, and Britain, that the game is up.

Hodgson: I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Huang: Come on, hand him over.

Hodgson: Hand WHO over, exactly?

Huang: Lucas.

Hodgson: Lucas?

Huang: Lucas. I must say that you hid him very well until now. But do me a favour and drop the pretence. So, what does he do? Shoot flames?

Chan: Fly?

Huang: Control the weather?

Chan: Has super strength?

Hodgson: I’m sorry but I’ve completely lost track of the conversation now.

Huang: Sigh. Don’t you understand Roy? The gig is up. We know Lucas is a secret weapon developed by the UK to use on the world any time now. Well, we at the People’s Republic of China will not let that happen!

Hodgson: But that’s ridiculous. Lucas isn’t a secret weapon.

Huang: Then why, pray tell, is he still playing at Liverpool other than because the government is forcing you to keep him?

Hodgson: Because he’s a good footballer.

Huang: Please, Roy. I may be Chinese, but I’m not stupid.

Chan: Boss, look at these two pandas go at it in a gigantic rice bowl. Boy, I had forgotten how great Google was.

The Women’s World Cup? I’m guessing that’s a Double D.

- Carlton Palmer confuses (World) Cup sizes.

Let me be honest. The time my co-authors spent on getting reacquainted with basic arithmetic, I spent by not watching the group stage of the FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup. In fact, I do not even know if there was a group stage. Neither did I see the knockout stages or the quarterfinals. Nor the semifinals. Actually, I saw roughly ten minutes of one game that I believe was the final. I’m not sure. So the majority of this World Cup review will be based on extrapolation, guesswork, and telepathy. Not unlike the majority of World Cup refereeing.

If I learned anything from playing rugby, apart from the fact that I am awful at playing rugby, it is that it takes a lot of concerted effort to bring a fully grown man down; me, not so much. Unfortunately, nobody let football know. Or so I thought.

Which is why, BFZ gives two heartfelt thumbs up to the FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup. After watching a very enjoyable twenty-minute period of a damned decent football match between Nigeria and Germany, during which the referee was called into action all of zero times, the only thing to hit the deck and writhe around in agony for seemingly no reason was my jaw.

In the five minutes of football that I saw, I was witness to one of Germany’s finest new talents, Alexandra Popp. Now if the BFZ Times’ gossip column is to be believed, Manchester City are set to outbid neighbors United with a $32 million bid for Popp, who they see as an ideal backup and possible replacement for Emmanuel Adebayor;  if they succeed, they will have much-needed cover in the cheer-leading position that is a staple of most Manchester based teams (see Dimitar Berbatov, also Michael Owen). But then if the BFZ Times is to be believed, then the BFZ Times is not to be believed at all. (Pardon me, but every post needs it’s Nolan moment.)

In those forty minutes of football, I was privy to the precariously named Popp, pop into the area, prance past two, pummel the ball into the bottom corner and pirouette away towards the corner flag, stand there perplexed for a couple of seconds, and then punch the air modestly in celebration, her title of princess of the penalty box finally justified; then I had to go pee. Careful analysis by The Sun revealed that her celebration was by no means passionate enough for the big occasion at hand.

To understand her muted celebration, we need to step back in time to when FIFA decided that this whole shirt removal business would henceforth be an automatically card-able offence. Given Cristiano Ronaldo’s propensity for taking off his shirt, to celebrate a goal, to announce his baby’s birth or just because it’s kind of humid, men all over the world rejoiced, happy that if they would necessarily have to see Ronaldo half-naked, at least he’d be half-sent-off.

But in what turned out to be a small, somewhat misguided step for women’s lib and a giant leap against boobies, FIFA also made the act of taking off the shirt a caution-able offense in women’s football. This came as a hammer blow and led to much wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst fans of the beautiful game in particular and amongst fans of the beautiful in general.

What I’m saying is, the already cautioned Popp was not pleased. I’m told Germany won the game 2-0. Or something like that.

In all, the Under-20 Women’s World Cup was a refreshing change from having to hear Xavi announce that there were trace amounts of Catalunya in the sample of Cesc’s Jesus Juice that he put in his DNA machine. Keep in mind that in Spanish, ‘put‘ means to ‘swallow‘, and ‘DNA machine‘ refers to ‘Xavi’s big mouth‘.

Speaking of big mouths, here’s a thoughtful video of an anaconda regurgitating an entire hippopotamus.

1. We don’t have a huge reporter base with their ears perenially to the ground picking up the merest sounds of a rumour like how horses can pick up an impending earthquake.
2. We don’t have a Statistics Team and in spite of the 8 Engineering graduates (and hopefuls) who write this blog, our Statistics grades are really nothing to write on BigFourZa about.
3. We wouldn’t bother even if we did have both of the above.

Of course, pointing and laughing is the easy way out. So just to show we’re not always playing for the other team, I will acknowledge straightaway that this post has been inspired by an actually useful article from our good friends over at F365.

On the back of some tireless hard work and intrepid reporting, which involved 15 eye-straining minutes of reading the above article under the perennial threat of his manager peeking over his shoulder to see what the heck he was up to, yours truly has managed to gather some astonishing facts from this year’s transfers so far. The magnitude of this revelation is great, going beyond just the shocking moves such as Sol Campbell to Newcastle and Paul the Octopus to Arsenal to predict whether they will FINALLY win something this season.

A quick scroll through the list will reveal that the only place where double digits occur not once, not twice but FOUR times is under that endearing club that we all love – Manchester Shitty. Mancini has spent a total of 76 Million Pounds on two extra wingbacks, one extra holding midfielder and one winger. Gareth Barry will now presumably be the creative force of that team, and images of Ozil sauntering past him for Germany’s third goal is a very reassuring image about Barry’s abilities for every Manc. Now that there is a proper left-footed winger, Bellamy and SWP may also have to leave.  Bellamy is apparently being tracked closely by Liverpool, Spurs and the Greater Manchester Police, while SWP may be picked up by Villa, Arsenal, Madonna or Brangelina.

Latest Transfer Target?

Further research into this unbelievable spending spree revealed the root cause of all these problems – Mancini had dyslexia as a child. As a result, his Math ability is only slightly better than that of the 8 Engineering grads on this site (sorry guys, I know I shouldn’t have revealed that). The dyslexia adds a further complication to the mix, resulting in his inability to process Zeros, resulting in such transfers – Alexandar Kolarov (£16m from Lazio). That’s three times what Chelsea piad for Yossi Benayoun – the man who inspired ‘Yoss the Boss’, ‘Yossi We Can’ and many such article titles, but not quite the Premiership one.

A secretly constituted committee which includes Invesment Bankers, former chairmen of Enron, Federal Reserve chairmen and Warren Buffet among others are scuttling all attempts to end this madness from Mancini. They believe his actions hold the key to understanding the world’s economic troubeles of the past three years, and want to see how long it can really go on. A few people who formerly worked at Lehman Brothers have already been sounded out about the possibility of managing a football club which is in ‘great financial shape’. However, we understand they too read the above article and politely declined.

Their neighbours from the other side of Manchester still can’t believe they got £14million between Ben Foster and Zoran Tosic. Tosic’s high fee apparently included the Energy costs that United had to shell out to keep the temperatures at sub-zero while he trained. Now that he is off to CSKA, everyone is convinced that he will be back to his frigid best. Chief Executive David Gill has also admitted that they tried to pawn off Owen to Citeh for £10million, but Citeh weren’t buying  (pun unintended). Hence they are now in a fix to figure out where the funds for the 4 defenders, 2 midfielders and one goalkeeper born after World War II required to complete the squad will come from. They have also made absolutely clear that discipline is of foremost importance to the club, and alcoholism will simply not be tolerated. As a result, the newly re-named Daniel Drinkwater has been loaned to Cardiff City.

The smartest piece of business has clearly been done in the Arsenal boardrooms. Clearly Wenger, with his Ph.D has no problems getting his head around numbers. He has finally added height to his squad with a cashless swoop for Chamakh. It is believed that the tunnel height at Emirates had to be increased as a result of this move. But the more interesting piece of news obviously relates to those who left, and that oft-used phrase ‘Foot in Mouth’. We are very humble reporters and will readily own up to our faults when they get revealed to us. We thought Eduardo was going to stay. Whoopsie! We stand chastised by this unacceptable lowering of our journalistic standards.

And on one last note before we sign off. If you thought inflation was out to get you and a Dollar is simply not what is used to be anymore, well then you missed this bit of beauty from Everton – Joao Silva (£500,000 from Desportivo Aves). It’s a six figure transfer figure! In a day and age where there are six-figure weekly pay packets. The Lords be praised!

Now that the World Cup is done with, the usual stories about a player leaving his “boyhood club” and going to his “dream-home-where-the-fans-are-the-best-in-the-world”, or vice versa in some cases, and stories about players wanting to follow the cash dangled in front of them, have begun in earnest. We, at BFZ Times, present to you in this article, the lastest transfer rumours and other gossip doing the rounds.

BFZ Times Gossip Column

Paulo is dead. Yes, there are rumours that Paulo the Octopus killed itself yesterday after it jumped out of its pool to escape the constant media attention that has been showered on it since it predicted World Cup scores correctly. As football fans might remember, it went on to have the best record in the Cup with a predicting record of 8-0. The 2 year old cephalopod, rumoured to be younger than actually stated was found dead by its caretaker yesterday night. This comes hot on the heels of the announcement that BP is looking to ask Paul(o) for his prediction on whether they can survive the oil leakage crisis in the Gulf.  Looks like they should have settled for Emile Heskey instead.

Paul is Dead

Looks like Paulo won’t be sorely missed though, as Kuppusamy, the flying buffalo from India has predicted that Kansas Wizards striker, Sunil Chhetri will go on to play for one of the big four within the next two years. This comes hot on the heels of its successful prediction of the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the Tsunami that hit South Asia and bookmakers have already slashed odds on this happening in a few years time.

Manchester City are rumoured to be in the market for a piece of wood as a potential future replacement for the aging Kolo Toure. However, they are not willing to go above $5M for the piece, which is being sold by Emmanuel Adebayor (Yes, he makes money selling wood)

Liverpool’s move for Argelico Fucks as their new manager reportedly fell through after he was spotted leaving owner Tom Hicks house at 2 in the morning in the last week of June while Hicks was in India trying to sell the club to the BCCI.

The elite clubs of European football seem to be intent on forming a breakaway league after new rules introduced over the past few seasons heavily crippled them in favour of smaller clubs. Sources say that jailed Indian moghul, Lalit Modi has been contacted to head this enterprise after his brilliant handling of the IPL.

Manchester City might have gotten a few superstars in the last few days, but BFZ Times learns that they actually bid for a staggering 113 players before succeeding finally with David Silva. Taken from a host of papers over the past few weeks, we can present to you that Manchester City were reportedly snubbed by a host of superstars including Inter Milan’s Maicon, Cambiasso, Julio Cesar, Walter Samuel, Wesley Sneijder, Samuel Etoo, and Diego Milito, AC Milan’s Pato, Pirlo, Ronaldinho, Valencia’s Juan Mata, Palermo’s pair of Cavani and Kjaer, Juventus’ Felipe Melo and Chiellini, Sevilla’s Luis Fabiano, Athletico’s Forlan, Aguero, Simao, Di Gea, Asenjo, Chelsea’s Ballack (now in Leverkusen), Everton’s Jack Rodwell, Newcastle’s (then of Everton’s) Dan Gosling, Bayern’s Thomas Mueller, Arjen Robben, Phillip Lahm, and Bastian Schweinsteiger, Arsenal’s Manuel Almunia, Liverpool’s star pair of Gerrard and Torres, McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, Radioshack’s Lance Armstrong, RHCP frontman, Anthony Kiedis, my driver, Subu, and Page 3′s Keeley Hazell, who supposedly is the best player “up front” in a poll conducted recently, to name a few. (Various Sources)

Staying with Manchester City, rumors are abound that they finally broke their record of 113 players without a success, only after owner HH Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan threatened to buy Valencia itself and leave it rotting.

Harry Redknapp’s pursuit of Edin Dzeko continues after he was overheard having a conversation with Sir Alex regarding the Wolfsburg frontman. Some snippets:

HR: Dude wassaap!
SAF : Yo Harry! How’s everything going?
…………………………….
HR : Man, I so want Edin Dzeko. His attributes are amazing. 19 for jumping, 17 for Heading, 17 for Anticipation, 16 for Off the Ball, and 16 for so many others! I can’t believe he is that good. If I use him as a Target Man, then I am sure he will score 40 goals a season for me!

World Class, indeed

SAF: You idiot! Stop playing FM10 so much! You do realize that those attributes are 4 years in the future, and that too assuming he develops as well as he has in the game!
HR : Er… … Well, Rio Ferdinand’s a crock whether its now or 4 years on! Take that, bitch!

He then ran away, tears in his eyes, and his thumb in his mouth.

Spurs are looking to continue their policy of selling their players to clubs and then buying them back for a lesser value. The trend which started when Robbie Keane moved to Anfield and back looks set to continue with Spurs now looking to offload Keane again (he’ll be back within 6 months, don’t worry about that). Carrick is yet another transfer target for the Spuds. Rumours have it that they might even try to get Jurgen Klinsmann back for free. Someone please tell them that he retired ages back. (Various Sources)

England are planning to make a special plea to the Spanish Federation to allow one of their goalkeepers to play for them. Spain who have a long line of goalkeepers waiting behind Iker Casillas are said to be welcome to the idea provided England loan them the now retired Emile Heskey for the same period. Reina, Valdes, Di Gea, Asenjo, Palop and Almunia are among the goalkeepers in the mix…

And last but not the least, Rafa Benitez, who took over at Inter Milan recently, is supposedly contemplating sporting a Mohawk along with his French beard. (We, at BFZ Times, would like to spare you the sight of Rafa with a Mohawk. Trust us, its not worth it)

Goodbye Kiss?

It was September 2003. And I was watching Football Mundial – back then it was not clichéd and used to come in Star Sports/ESPN. They used to have a five-minute section dedicated to profiling upcoming youngsters. It was Cesc Fabregas’s first celluloid moment in India – and not coincidentally my first ever opportunity of watching the youngster play football.

I was being informed by the narrator that Fabregas was Arsene Wenger’s latest recruit. And I liked the look of him. There was a nice little clip of him playing football in the Barcelona academy.  He was composed on the ball, wanted the ball always and liked to pass it around.

Fast forward seven years. He has come a long way since then, rising above countless hurdles and barricades in the process: Patrick Vieira against Juventus, Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabeu, not going the Adrian Mutu way at London, managing to maintain, mostly, a level head apart from occasional misdemeanors like “Pizzagate”, faking injuries after a stray elbow from Mikel Arteta and sucking up to Thierry Henry in a couple of interviews while the Frenchman was still the boss at the Grove.

A couple of years back I was really interested in reading up on some of his interviews. Soon after the departure of Henry, Fabregas talked about how this could liberate the Arsenal midfield. According to Fabregas, Henry would get “moody and upset” if he did not get the ball even if there were other players in better positions.  In another interview, Fabregas talked about his formation years at Arsenal.

Initially he did not even want to come because the Barcelona Academy had twatted the Arsenal Academy 5-0 or something like that. But fair play to Cesc , who wanted first team opportunities,  for coming. After coming he formed a close bond with Philippe Senderos – strange bedfellows I must say.

After what all he has been through since forming that friendship, the catharsis is still one of “contempt, selfish and not really good” rather than “satisfied, unselfish and willing to learn always.”

Fabregas – playing on with a broken foot against Barcelona in a Champions League quarterfinal last season – almost endangered his World Cup chances. While there is a case for questioning his ulterior motive, anyone who knows an ounce of behavioral science will vouch for the fact that he was playing for the Arsenal gallery and not for impressing the already infatuated Juan Laporta.

He still managed to go to the World Cup – making clear his ambitions of moving on back to Catalonia before going to South Africa. While Arsenal hid from Barcelona, Barcelona’s famous UNICEF ambassadors were endorsing openly for his return. He managed to keep a dignified silence – occasionally saying he wanted to go before reiterating something on the lines of “I love the Arsenal fans,” – Cesc, I strongly believe that you don’t need to do that again and again.

Now that there seems to some sort of an impasse, almost an understanding truce that Arsenal WILL SELL Cesc next season if not this season, Arsenal will have to repay Cesc’s loyalty – he has been man enough to not hand in a transfer request till now – in the best possible manner.

Buy Mesut Ozil, a centre back, a high quality goal-keeper and give Cesc a realistic tilt of winning the league title. While his greatness – no, that’s used too often these days – stay in England wouldn’t be considered any inferior if he was to leave for Iberia without a title to his credit, it will make his psychologically a better player.

It will give him the satisfaction of achieving something tangible at the Grove and he can walk back with his held high.

Filed under: Arsenal Tagged: Arsenal, Barcelona, Cesc, Transfer ]]> http://bigfourza.wordpress.com/2010/07/28/a-cescy-tale/feed/ 2 Maddy Cesc http://bigfourza.wordpress.com/2010/07/26/factfile-4-%e2%80%93-the-world-cup/ http://bigfourza.wordpress.com/2010/07/26/factfile-4-%e2%80%93-the-world-cup/#comments Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10:48:13 +0000 Ducky http://bigfourza.wordpress.com/?p=3732 ]]>

Since it is off-season, I thought no one could make a bigger fool of themselves than me, but I was proved wrong! (Again!)

- Carlton Palmer, Football Pundit Extraordinaire

What the heck is this ‘Ajax’ thing which keeps coming up when Suarez is mentioned? Why is it not in the list of clubs I memorized? Can we talk about Cristiano now?

- Mayanti Langer,  Cricket, Hockey, Football and Quidditch Pundit Extraordinaire.

At least she’s not Mandira Bedi. Oh wait, that’s not necessarily a good thing.

- The Dude.

While it’s been a fortnight since the conclusion of the ’Greatest Show on Earth’, as dedicated football fans, we felt it would just not be right to let the World Cup fade from our memories without one of BigFourZa’s special Factfiles. So, here goes:

Unforgettable Images from the tournament and the stories behind them.

Non-football fan during the Mayanti Langer halftime show

Non-football fan during the game

The Uruguay team's most used tactic

England's two greatest spills involving the US

Why did the chicken cross the road? 'Cos FIFA said it didn't cross the white line.

Till next!