talking about sports, but not the game

when my mom and sister acknowledged my new habit of watching soccer when i was in high school, they accused me of being weird as no girls in the family ever had such habit. my dad and my brothers, however, welcomed "the new me" without complaining. until now, i cant stop wondering why a girl cannot watch soccer without being accused as tomboy.
anyway, i dont really care about that as women can enjoy many other sports that is considered less "macho". even when we don't want to watch over the game, there are many interesting things in sports to see and talk about
moreover, i have to confess that i'm not capable enough to talk about how great a game is, or how bad the newly transferred boy in a club plays, or how the speed of wind affects the movement of the ball and the cock, as i haven't watched as many games as a sport critic does. i prefer talk about people's faces, peculiar behavior and other weird things in the field. but of course i do mind about the game. people have to be interested enough in sports to wait for those unusual moments to come or to become conscious of the peculiar things when the game becomes dreary. someone who is easily fed up by a game could have picked another channel that they could missed these funny facts

lets take a look

soccer players must not only play sweaty but also dirty. sometimes i cant help but feel nauseated to see them spitting anywhere around the field. all of them, even my favorite handsome and gifted player alessandro nesta (there must be a lot more other gifted and younger players nowadays but i dont know many of them as i stopped watching soccer, save for the World Cup, years ago). i have read somewhere that most soccer fields use synthetic grass to have a better green color or to avoid the necessity of mowing the grass. however, i did not find any information about the ground. did they do something with the ground to make it absorbent enough? as if not, there’ll be many puddles of spit left on the ground, where the players fall and roll unhesitantly. dirty, huh? its just like, well, zidane spitting on materazzi's face indirectly...no, precisely, spitting on all over his body indirectly... yuck..quite a dirty things to talk about, right?

ok lets move to another field. have you ever noticed that indonesian badminton fans always cried "taufik hidayat" out with a unique tone? they always shout the word "taufik" twice in one go. the first word took a long and slow tone on the last syllable, while the second word is shouted fast with no tone. it is cried "taufiiiiiik...taufik!," instead of only one "taufiiiiik.." or "taufik! taufik!", each time the spectators call his name. taufik is the only player honored with this particular tone. i can't found other players cheered with such style. why don't they give it to alan budikusuma, also a great player in his age? he also has a name with two syllables and it wouldn't be difficult to call him like that: "alaaaan...alan!" or wouldn't Olympiad men doubles gold winner ricky subagdja and rexy mainaki deserve that? "rickyyyyy...rexy!" what's so special on taufik's name?

maria sharapova. if you haven't heard of her, then you must be from another planet. currently the world's number one tennis female player, she also stuns the world for her beauty (i cant remember whether she casts in any commercial ad, surely she can make much money from that). however, there is something not sexy about her; the grunt.
i read last year an article concerning her grunt, which is considered annoying and accused of “a tactical move to put off opponent”. but not until last january that i watch her playing on TV and hear the sound. when i first read the article, i thought, oh please... all tennis players grunt, don't they? i’m sure no one can belt the ball thousand times in hours without making any sound at last, as those grunter said, “it’s simply a natural release of pent-up energy as the ball is hit”. so i thought it was just an envious comments from "the other side"
so i watched her in Australian Open women singles semifinal, against fellow Russian anna chakvetadze, last wednesday. i never watched australian open intensely before, but as my brother in law picked star sports channel and no one in the house dared to argue, i started to enjoy the game.
well, what can i say, maria did grunt louder and longer than any other players i've heard (not that i've watched many games before, but she did make tennis critics and other players protest, right? and she is judged the loudest grunter so far, with 101 decibels, almost as loud as a police siren heard at close-quarters) i think it rather resembles a groan of someone in terrible pain. and her groan grows longer when she was distressed for playing badly or during her match point. fortunately, it was not enough to annoy me. moreover, i could take benefit from her groan: i knew who hit the ball without having to gaze at the tv, as i was busy translating an article for a friend at that time hence i couldn’t take my eyes from my notebook. a long groan meant maria was hitting the ball, while a whack or small grunt meant anna’s hit.
WHACK! (anna serves)
UUUGGGHHHH...! (maria hit)
WHACK! (anna hit)
UUUGGGHHHH...! (maria hit)
WHACK! (anna again)
...there was no sound then. spectators applauded instead...it means anna scores!!! maria could not give the ball back!!!
however, i could not do that trick for the next semifinal match between kim clijsters and martina hingis as both grunt in normal loudness and length for tennis players, and i couldn't tell which one was which...

see? there are many remarkable things in sports. u don’t even have to watch soccer to know that beckham enjoys being a celebrity so much (moving out to Hollywood to join this infamous club LA galaxy? yes, his star has waned, but he’s not old enough to give up European leagues, right? disneyland took a picture of him as a prince with a shining armor and riding a white horse in sleeping beauty story, even before he moves to the States. well, who cares, maybe he just want to hang out more often with new friends tom and katie. oh no, he has destroyed my assumption that soccer is a gossip-free environment. i don’t like gossip or stories of celebrities’ private life, i really don’t. but what can i do when the world leading news channel such as BBC, CNA and CNN included this story, along with President Bush’s plan to boost troops in Iraq, on their headline news?)
neither you have to stuck in a sharapova’s match for long to hear her grunt. no two minutes of her match passes without the grunt. but u have to be patient enough to witness historical moment of zidane head-butting materazzi’s chest (it was a world cup final, his last play, and the additional time was almost up, for God’s sake, what was he thinking?) as not every day can players become so angry and so unwise at the same time, at that very very important match