The End of A Goal

I'm back after a weekend break...

In the midst of all the excitement for Euro 2004, a small piece of news seems to have slipped past un-noticed.

Here's the scrimpy news

Our premier football authority has announced the end of Goal 2010. As I raise my arms up in despair, I curse them for ending a dream and stopping something which I could laugh at when I felt bored. Curiously, there was no mention about how the goal was started in the first place (want to know? go find out yourself lah).

So why did Goal 2010 fail? Did we put too much pressure on our players? Is it an over-reliance on foreign talent? Are our players not skillful enough? From what I see on the soccer greens and courts, this is not exactly true. We have a lot of homegrown Zidanes, Figos and Henrys kicking the ball around every now and then. Nuture them and we will win.

However, it always seem that once they hit a certain age (or start playing professionally), they become bloody lazy. Yes, you can probably hear one say: 'Haha, I'm earning 3k a month for kicking a ball, no need for me to work so hard already.' They're just not on par in terms of fitness compared to the 'big' countries or our neighbours for that matter.

Now if we were to invite the old trafford or anfield crowd down for an S-league match, there will probably be a pitch invasion by the fans, who will want to smack every single player into oblivion. This is not due to inferior skills as compared to our english counterparts, but when u're talking about fighting spirit and piahness shown there, our players are downright lacklustre (ok maybe the Liverpool fans wouldn't invade cos they're used to these performances).

It's not like the coaches didn't try, everytime I hear them being interviewed, they talk about the players' general fitness. So what does this equate to?

Local players = Bloody lazy = You can forget about qualifying for World Cup

One final thing, there was no mention about how much money and resources were lost in trying to make Goal 2010 (i quote: 'an albatross') a success...