Match Report: Italy 2-1 Germany

Super Mario rips apart a humbled Germany

Mario Balotelli fetched the headlines for all the 'right' reasons as his 1st half brace was enough for the Azurri to defeat a below par Germany side. Mesut Ozil how ever got a consolation for his side as he converted from the spot.

Germany brought Mario Gomez & Lukas Podolski back into the squad as the two were benched in their quarter final tie with Greece. Toni Kroos got his first start of the tournament as Thomas Muller was overlooked. Italy on the other hand made only one change, bringing in Giorgio Chiellini to replace Ignazio Abate as the former fully recovered from his injury.

Min 1-6: Both sides got of to a cautious start!

Match Report: Spain 0-0 Portugal (4-2 Penalties)

Casillas the savior as Spain survive the Portuguese scare.

Cesc Fabregas netted the winning goal from the spot after Bruno Alves failed to score as La Roja emerge victorious in an all Iberian tie to book their place into the final of UEFA Euro 2012

       

Spain's team shit sprung a surprise as Sevilla's young striker Alvaro Negredo found his place in the starting 11 from nowhere as Del Bosque decided to bench both Fabregas and Farnendo Torres. On the other hand, Portugal manager Paulo Bento had to bring in Hugo Almeida to replace their injured striker Helder Postiga.

Sania Mirza and Somdev Devvarman get wild card entries into the Olymics

In what could prove to be a twist in the already in news tale of the tennis saga, Sania Mirza and Rashmi Chakravarti's doubles team have got a wild card entry into the Olympics. Sania, ranked 12th in the world could not get an automatic qualification. So she had to rely on the wild card to participate in the London games.

The other Indian to get a wild card was Somdev Devvarman for the singles event. 

Indian Tennis Blues

            "Will he or will he not?" That's the million dollar question concerning Paes partnering a relatively inexperienced Vishnu Vardhan. Fears are that Paes might skip the Olympics all-together. And that seems to be a worrying factor, with just a month to go to the Olympics, there are doubts about India's highest ranked doubles player participating in the games. Looking from the fans' point of view it looks unfortunate to say the least, but hold on, Pairing up Bhupati-Bopanna might be India's best chance for a medal. Here's why-

           

The whole country treasures the memory of India's favourite Tennis duo Lee-Hesh playing together as a team, winning matches in Grandslams, Davis Cup and so many other ATP events, we could literally feel the vigour seeing their famous chest-bumps, whole nation was proud of the Indian Express.

Match Report: Italy 0-0 England (4-2 Penalties)

Super Mario's super misses don't matter as the 2 Ashleys of England miss penalties.

Andrea Pirlo was the hero for the Azzurri as he lead his team to the semi-finals. Italy scored 4 of 5 penalties as England's Ashley Cole and Ashley Young missed from the spot to hand it over to the Azzuri after a goalless 120 minutes of play.

Fernando Alonso wins European Grand Prix

Valencia: Ferrari's Fernando Alonso became the first driver to win 2 races this season by winning a dramatic and accident-filled European Grand Prix on Sunday. The biggest surprise was the presence of Micheal Schumacher (3rd) on the podium for the first time since his return to F1.

Match Report: Spain 2-0 France

A Xabi Alosno brace was enough for Spain to send listless Les Bleus crashing out of Euro 2012. 

Cesc Febregas was selected over Fernando Torres as the latter did not impress in the game against Croatia and the rumored infighting in the French camp gathered more momentum as Samir Nasri was surprisingly benched in the game.

The downfall & resurgence of Hockey in India

There was a time in India when a 2 year old boy would have said to his father – Papa, I want to be like Dhyan Chand babu. Pargat Singh, Dhyanchand, K.D. Singh Babu and the other members of the Indian hockey team were the only heroes for India. There was a time when the world knew India by 2 words – Population and Hockey. There was a time when other teams shivered standing in front of the Indian hockey team. There was a time when the final of hockey in the Olympics was called off not because of rain, not because of any technical failure, but because the finalists simply refused to play against the mighty Indians. There was a time when Adolf Hitler bowed down to team India when Germany was ruthlessly thrashed in the finals of the Olympics.

Cricket World Cup-2011

          Summer of 2011 was in many senses "Unique". The world had witnessed the Japan Tsunami, Hosni Mubarak resigning in Egypt, Earthquake in New Zealand, in the national events we had A Raja being arrested in the 2G case, historic results in the West Bengal and Tamil Nadu polls, Saina Nehwal winning the Swiss Open, Vishwanathan Anand regaining his world no 1 title. There was one more  thing which was notable in the last summer. Cricket's biggest spectacle had landed in the sub-continent for the third time.

         

         

 The world cup was set up perfectly with great anticipation, with ICC's campaign-"The Cup that Counts" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhrUpmjFY5E)showing 14 captains walking on a tight rope to get their hands on the trophy which also showed the sub-continent street culture, pepsi too didn't stay away, it came up with its campaign- "Change the Game" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFzQUZTuw5Q), which featured the likes of  Dhoni, Pieterson, Bhajji, Sehwag, Shakib, Dilshan ,Malinga and my personal favorite Billy with his "tedhi ungal", Nike also came up with the "Bleed Blue" slogan, and later on released an exciting commercial during the tournament (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvRPz_zoTK4), and how can we forget "De Ghuma ke" - the official theme song! In short, the anticipation of the event was reaching a new high with each and everyday building up to the countdown.