www.Go To The Mountain - Musings of a Potential Guru

Last time I wrote about why Lionel Messi is the greatest footballer I knew that not everyone would agree but not many would not disagree simply because there are fans of Pele, George Best, Cruyff, Maradona, Zinedine Zidan, Ronaldo, etc. I have also explained that is is so difficult to quantify and qualify as the era, the strategy and speed plus number of games played are different. The link below was the article I wrote in March 2012 which featured the world's best. You must read: http://gforce-guru.blogspot.sg/2012/03/messi-ah.html Just like boxing, tennis, squash, badminton, golf - they have their greats, so do soccer. Pele was one of the most complete player strong with his head as well as his feet and both feet and he scored a massive 1282 goals in 1363 matches. These comprised 760 goals in official competitive matches and 522 in friendlis and charity matches. He also lasted a very long time as he took care of himself well and was disciplined. Cruyff was special too but...

Same old same old - who is the world's best soccer player? There was a time not very long ago when Tiger Woods and Roger Federer were unstoppable. Rudy Hartono and Carl Lewis too. Invincible. They had a good run and there was an aura about them.  Pele said that unless Messi won the World Cup with Argentina Messi cannot be considered one of the greats? Do you agree? Pele also said he scored 1289 goals which is hard to equal. In this case was George Best a great legend since he not only did not win the World Cup, he has never been there? Cruyff remains one of the greats but he too never won the World Cup with the Netherlands. So what now? The Game and Pele Is is always hard to compare unless you compare apple with apple. During Pele's time the ball was not the same nor were the jerseys and the pitches. While these were true, Pele had advantage of more open play compared to today's very strategic play. However, Pele was less protected against hatchet men but the mo...

Frank Lampard http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-yAUTtRWBg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ut8o- 1X96U&feature=PlayList&p=4D7786C7F2CFB5A9&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=43 Would you agree with me that Frank Lampard is actually one of the world's top soccer players? It will probably be his last chance to prove it in this coming World Cup. In the recently concluded EPL season, Lampard not only scored some 27 goals - this is more than even what many top strikers could do. In the Actim Index which is used to monitor and gauge what each player rated throughout the season for things like completion of passes, successful tackles, goal assists and goals scored, etc. Lampard aced 8 out of 10 categories! Moreover, he is one of the world's best penalty takers if not the best. To top that all, he got through an entire season without a caution or red card. Amazing! He goes about the business the same way every season and outscored many strikers o...

David Beckham Imagine that you have to fly from Los Angeles to Milan or to London and quite often just to warm the bench not knowing if you were selected to play and yet you keep plugging at it. Then after doing this dedication for sometime hoping to play in your last World Cup and the world around you collapsed around you when you raptured your achilles tendon. This is what had happened to David Beckham.  Whether you love him or loathe him, you can have my assurance that Beckham was as good as having that ticket to South Africa in the bag until this unfortunate incident - 88 days to the World Cup. Is 88 a lucky number after all? How and why is he crucial to England? He is fit, experienced and a highly motivated professional and can be useful even in the dressing room. With 15-20 minutes to go in a big game, his dead ball expertise can be crucial from a free-kick, corners or even threading a 60 yard pass throught the eye of a needle with the ball dropping on the gallop...

There's something strange in the neighbourhood. Who do you call? Goals Busters! Barcelona won everything in sight all six of them and made history with Lionel Messi at the helm. Meantime, they sacked Mark Hughes whose Manchester City suffered only two losses even if they drew too many but they had taken the mickey out of Arsenal, Chelsea and drew Liverpool. But I suppose Hughes will be paid handsomely but there is no dignity with people doing things these days. Instant noodles, instant coffee, instant cash, instant success and instant death. Liverpool lost 2-0 to bottom team Portsmouth on Bill Shankly's 50th anniversary. It was not so much the loss but the way they played. Captain and vice captain Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher played as if they wanted Rafa out and Rafa's selection and and tactics seemed like he wanted an early pay cheque. Liverpool is no longer the family club we knew and the American owners are not helping the situation. It's not far-fetche...

It gets cold when it is raining cats and dogs these days some of the time. In the very old days, the English countryside have people living in farms where houses have thatched roofs piled with straws but no wooden support underneath it and small animals like rats, cats and dogs would live there to keep warm and during torrential downpour, it can get slippery and you will find animals falling down from the roofs hence raining cats and dogs. It's raining cats and dogs on Tiger Woods of late, even woolly mammoths judging by the revelations. Poor Tiger. Tiger Tiger crashed his SUV and lo and behold all kinds of rumours abound. The price of fame. I do not mind coming back from the Land of Oz with a cool US$3 million in the pocket to get my SUV dented a bit though. Ah, the paparazzi spin mill profiting at the expense of others again. Here's a guy who could drive (with his golf clubs) and how many of you out there could not drive straight with a golf club in your hands but ...

Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who is the one with the Golden Ball? Once in awhile, comes a genius of a soccer player who whenever a ball is at his feet, you expect something special to happen. I was indoctrinated and soccer crazy when I was at Victoria School since the school A, B and C teams are usually in some kind of semi-finals and finals. We watched our teams played in our very good school field where even the National Team used to train where we watched our famous 1977 Malaysia Cup winning team trained under the eagle-eyed late and legendary Uncle Choo. Then the highlights of the 1970 World Cup "The World at Their Feet" captured my imagination at the time they were ushering the 1974 World Cup. That was where I embarked on a journey of acquiring soccer knowledge with dosiers of Eusebio the Portuguese Black Panther, the world's best goalie Gordon Banks, the great Bobby Moore, the unstoppable and thundering shots of Bobby Charlton, the first and ever world cup h...