More Top 100 Sporting Moments
Dec. 15th, 2009 08:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redfiona99http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/more_sport/article6956568.ece
Numbers 80-61 - several of these are less than happy for me.
It was one of the biggest shocks in World Cup history as South Korea, the co-hosts, knocked out one of the favourites with a golden goal that was made in Italy. Ahn Jung-Hwan, who played his club football for Perugia, scored with a header in the 117th minute to make up for missing a penalty near the start. Italy led 1-0 with two minutes of regular time left but Seol Ki-Hyeon’s goal took the game into extra time. Ahn’s efforts were not appreciated by his employers. The next day, the Perugia owner cancelled the player’s contract, saying: “I have no intention of paying a salary to someone who has ruined Italian football.” South Korea, who knocked Portugal out of the competition in the group stage, then beat Spain on penalties to reach the semi-finals.
Logically, I should appreciate the underdog winning, but I feel less good about it when my boys were the overdogs, and the referee was later found guilty of rigging matches, about which I am saying nothing.
To think that England owed their Ashes victory last summer partly to Monty Panesar’s batting ... this really was the one that got away for Australia. They began the first Test with four hundreds and a lead of 239 after the first innings. They ended it desperately hoping that one of the world’s most notoriously hapless batsmen would get an edge or play the ball on to his stumps or even be run out in a comedy mix-up. This was not in the script when England slipped to 159 for seven, but Paul Collingwood stayed at the crease for almost six hours to erase England’s deficit and then, on his dismissal, Panesar and James Anderson had to hang around for 12 overs to save the game. With a little help from a physio, they did.
Collingwood was also Panesar's batting buddy, where they'd got one of the 'proper' batsmen to teach the bowlers how to bat. I <3 Collingwood.
At the end of a final set that took more than 90 minutes, Andy Roddick, the beaten Wimbledon finalist, looked up at the Royal Box and apologised to his compatriot, Pete Sampras. “I tried, sorry Pete,” he said. His 7-5, 6-7, 6-7, 6-3, 14-16 defeat by Roger Federer meant that the Swiss won his fifteenth major title, passing Sampras’s record of 14 in a fluctuating final. Roddick had four points in the second set to go 2-0 up, but Federer fought back like a champion. In the final set they traded blows like prize-fighters, comfortably passing the 82-year-old record of 20 games for the last set of a grand-slam final. When Roddick hit a forehand long to lose the match, it was the first time all day he had been broken.
Needless to say, I was cheering for Roddick. It was a magnificent match.
Footballers receive so much criticism for bad sportsmanship that it is right to praise a rare and impromptu act of magnanimity. West Ham United were drawing 1-1 with Everton at Goodison Park and stoppage time was being played when Paul Gerrard, the Everton goalkeeper, went down with an injury. The ball was still in play and Di Canio had a chance to put it into the open goal, but instead he caught the ball and allowed the injured player to be attended. “I’m no saint,” Di Canio said afterwards and that was certainly true — he once served an eleven-match suspension for pushing over a referee — but this was a moment of decency. “I’d be lying if I said I was happy,” Harry Redknapp, his manager at the time, said.
That's the thing with Paolo, he's so gosh-darn frustrating. Because he is an oik, and a fascist oik at that, but then sometimes, just sometimes, he can be remarkably nice.
The first international between the Lions and the All Blacks was only a minute old when O’Driscoll, the Ireland outside centre and Lions captain, was carried off on a stretcher with a dislocated shoulder. He had been the victim of a heavy double-tackle in which Tana Umaga and Keven Mealamu, the New Zealand centre and hooker, each grabbed a leg and speared O’Driscoll, head first, into the ground. “It was a cheap shot,” O’Driscoll fumed later. “They could have quite easily broken my neck.” O’Driscoll, who thought the attack was premeditated, was particularly angry that Umaga had not even checked if he was OK. “I’d never done it for anyone else,” Umaga said. The All Blacks won 21-3; Mealamu and Umaga escaped punishment.
Remember this whenever people go on about New Zealand playing lovely rugby, they do, but they can be dirty fuckers when they want to be. Brian O'Driscoll is not in my rugby union icon for nothing.
Numbers 80-61 - several of these are less than happy for me.
It was one of the biggest shocks in World Cup history as South Korea, the co-hosts, knocked out one of the favourites with a golden goal that was made in Italy. Ahn Jung-Hwan, who played his club football for Perugia, scored with a header in the 117th minute to make up for missing a penalty near the start. Italy led 1-0 with two minutes of regular time left but Seol Ki-Hyeon’s goal took the game into extra time. Ahn’s efforts were not appreciated by his employers. The next day, the Perugia owner cancelled the player’s contract, saying: “I have no intention of paying a salary to someone who has ruined Italian football.” South Korea, who knocked Portugal out of the competition in the group stage, then beat Spain on penalties to reach the semi-finals.
Logically, I should appreciate the underdog winning, but I feel less good about it when my boys were the overdogs, and the referee was later found guilty of rigging matches, about which I am saying nothing.
To think that England owed their Ashes victory last summer partly to Monty Panesar’s batting ... this really was the one that got away for Australia. They began the first Test with four hundreds and a lead of 239 after the first innings. They ended it desperately hoping that one of the world’s most notoriously hapless batsmen would get an edge or play the ball on to his stumps or even be run out in a comedy mix-up. This was not in the script when England slipped to 159 for seven, but Paul Collingwood stayed at the crease for almost six hours to erase England’s deficit and then, on his dismissal, Panesar and James Anderson had to hang around for 12 overs to save the game. With a little help from a physio, they did.
Collingwood was also Panesar's batting buddy, where they'd got one of the 'proper' batsmen to teach the bowlers how to bat. I <3 Collingwood.
At the end of a final set that took more than 90 minutes, Andy Roddick, the beaten Wimbledon finalist, looked up at the Royal Box and apologised to his compatriot, Pete Sampras. “I tried, sorry Pete,” he said. His 7-5, 6-7, 6-7, 6-3, 14-16 defeat by Roger Federer meant that the Swiss won his fifteenth major title, passing Sampras’s record of 14 in a fluctuating final. Roddick had four points in the second set to go 2-0 up, but Federer fought back like a champion. In the final set they traded blows like prize-fighters, comfortably passing the 82-year-old record of 20 games for the last set of a grand-slam final. When Roddick hit a forehand long to lose the match, it was the first time all day he had been broken.
Needless to say, I was cheering for Roddick. It was a magnificent match.
Footballers receive so much criticism for bad sportsmanship that it is right to praise a rare and impromptu act of magnanimity. West Ham United were drawing 1-1 with Everton at Goodison Park and stoppage time was being played when Paul Gerrard, the Everton goalkeeper, went down with an injury. The ball was still in play and Di Canio had a chance to put it into the open goal, but instead he caught the ball and allowed the injured player to be attended. “I’m no saint,” Di Canio said afterwards and that was certainly true — he once served an eleven-match suspension for pushing over a referee — but this was a moment of decency. “I’d be lying if I said I was happy,” Harry Redknapp, his manager at the time, said.
That's the thing with Paolo, he's so gosh-darn frustrating. Because he is an oik, and a fascist oik at that, but then sometimes, just sometimes, he can be remarkably nice.
The first international between the Lions and the All Blacks was only a minute old when O’Driscoll, the Ireland outside centre and Lions captain, was carried off on a stretcher with a dislocated shoulder. He had been the victim of a heavy double-tackle in which Tana Umaga and Keven Mealamu, the New Zealand centre and hooker, each grabbed a leg and speared O’Driscoll, head first, into the ground. “It was a cheap shot,” O’Driscoll fumed later. “They could have quite easily broken my neck.” O’Driscoll, who thought the attack was premeditated, was particularly angry that Umaga had not even checked if he was OK. “I’d never done it for anyone else,” Umaga said. The All Blacks won 21-3; Mealamu and Umaga escaped punishment.
Remember this whenever people go on about New Zealand playing lovely rugby, they do, but they can be dirty fuckers when they want to be. Brian O'Driscoll is not in my rugby union icon for nothing.
