Category: football

I’m a great one for writing songs and little ditties to help children (and those slightly older!) learn languages. We’ve had Diez animales to the tune of Ten green bottles, Hace sol y hace calor to Half a pound of Tuppeny Rice and ¿Quieres un helado? to a random (very annoying!) tune I composed myself.

It seems that some of my songwriting (dis)ability has been passed on in the genes as my eldest was inspired to song by Tottenham beating Chelsea on Saturday. Odd, as he is a Man Utd. fan , but his Dad and little brother are Spurs fans so I guess it is explicable. Very catchy, I have to say.

Strange that you weren’t inspired to song by last week’s match against Liverpool – now what was the score, Isaac? Oh yes – Man Utd 1 – Liverpool 4 :o)
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-U6VheJQRo&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6&border=1]

In honour of the big match tomorrow night and in honour of Scousers everywhere, a short video!

Especially for @raff31 – get well soon x

¡Qué ganen los Rojos!

After my week in Anglesey (pictures on Flickr!) I returned to a mammoth list of posts to read in Google reader. I’ve now waded through them and am back to a nice clean page (until someone else blogs!)

This post on About.com -Spanish language caught my eye-

Reporting on an article in the Telegraph , it seems that Barcelona FC cancelled their flight to the USA on Air Berlin as the company refused to deliver the in-flight communications in Catalan. The club’s President, Joan Laporta is involved in the promotion of Catalan and the decision, it seems, was made as a matter of principle.

Whilst I can support the right of people to speak and promote their language, especially in the light of the treatment meted out by Franco to Catalan, Basque and Gallego, and in light of recent discussions, I’m wondering…
how realistic the demands are on a low cost airline? As the spokeman for Air Berlin said, it would involve a great effort.
how far the right to have announcements in your language could be taken – will those from Valencia expect valencià to be spoken whilst those from Mallorca would want them to ‘xerrar es mallorquí’ ?
how much it was for the entourage rather than the players – although the manager is now Pep Guardiola – Catalan through and through – and there are a number of players from Barcelona, there are others who perhaps would be more comfortable in Spanish – or perhaps they should have asked for announcements in Portuguese, French and Icelandic as well?

And one last thing – does anyone pay attention to the inflight announcements anyway?

There’s been lots of football going on around here – I’m making no apologies for it as it’s part of me and therefore part of my blog. Added to that, it is relevant to my ‘mission statement’ of making PLL relevant and fun, as proved earlier this week.

It was my assembly on Thursday – actually it seems to be my assembly every Thursday! – and the theme for the week was Happiness. I talked about Sunday night when Spain had been playing Italy and how I had felt sick when it went to penalties, and then about the match that was happening that evening between Spain and Russia. I talked about my friend Nick who supports Russia and how one of us would be very happy and one would be sad on Friday morning.
Come Friday morning, I walked down the path into the playground and felt like royalty as so many kids stared cheering and shouting and hugging me as if I had personally led the Spanish to victory. It was amazing! And what’s even better, they were shouting in Spanish! They love learning Spanish, and this has given them another reasn why their learning is relevant to their lives. Some of them even commented on John Motson’s pronunciation – good on you, kids!

So I am SO looking forward to seeing them tomorrow – it’s my day off but I’m going in anyway, just so we can all dance around the playground, chanting
¡Campeones! ¡Campeones! ¡Olé, olé, olé!

Miss the match last night? Here are the highlights, complete with commentary in Spanish, footage of the crowd in Vienna and in Madrid, and shots of the Royal Box.

According to the Euro 08 blog, Spain have been reported to be using voodoo in their pursuit of that elusive championship win.

Originally reported in Russia Today (bit suspicious that, eh?),

Someone in Spain has been making and selling football player voodoo dolls, which come with a pack of flags. La Furia Roja fans can simply fix the flag of whoever Spain are playing onto the doll, and write a name and number on the back, then perform some amateur voodoo on whichever player they want.

The article seeks to give credence to this by citing the example of Luca toni who spent the quarter final inexplicably rolling around in pain, and suggests that..

.. if you see a certain Russian playmaker inexplicably holding his sides in agony or his legs doing things he clearly doesn’t intend tomorrow, you’ll know it’s due to an army of Spain fans poking a “10 Arshavin” doll with sharp sticks.

To be honest, I think the dolls are quite cute and remind me of Cobi, the Barcelona 1992 mascot. And if Spain win, well…..

I’m finally sat in my lounge, clad in my Spain shirt with a glass of wine in hand watching the big match. When José Picardo enquired via Twitter ¿estás lista? whilst I was at music group practice, I tweeted in response that ‘La Furia Roja marcha adelante‘.

As José pointed out for me, tonight it’s La Furia Amarilla. Doesn’t sound as scary I’m afraid. And what’s more, I predicted that the best team would win – and they’d be wearing red when my mate Nick (who supports Russia) asked me yesterday.

Oh dear!

Let’s hope that’s the end of my woes for the night!

STOP PRESS – Xavi has just scored!!!!

In advance of this evening’s main event (sorry boys, there’s something more important than the ETR flashmeeting this week!) I’d like you to watch the following videos, consider their message and then ….

¡Hazte de la peña de la Selección!

And in case you haven’t got the message yet as you can’t speak Spanish, here it is in English!