Bouncing Red Ball

The other day I was watching a Japanese bangumi where they feature famous athletes attempting to perform tasks given them according to their specialties. One of the guests was Shunsuke Nakamura (中村俊輔), the Celtic midfielder. He was tasked to shoot 10 soccer balls over a wall into two rings (one on each upper corner of the goal) barely the size of a basketball ring. (The other guest was a famous sprinter who ran the 50-meter dash against an Enzo Ferrari driven by a professional race car driver. Guess who won? Hint: it’s red and worth $1,000,000.) But Shunsuke Nakamura was impressive, bending no less than 4 soccer balls over the wall and into the rings.

Perhaps Nakamura’s most famous goal on the field was the spectacular 30-yard free kick against Manchester United (video above) in the 2006 Champions’ League which eventually eliminated Manchester United. With that wonderful goal, he became the only Japanese to score in the Champions’ League. He is also sometimes called the “Beckham of Asia” and although he doesn’t have Beckham’s looks, he can probably bend it better than the former galactico. The J-League coach Steve Perryman once said Nakamura was so good he “could open a tin of beans with his left foot”. Click here for a collection of Nakamura’s free kicks at YouTube.

The main reason I read British news sites is because I follow the latest news on the Premiership League. The big four English clubs are of course Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea. But I’m an Arsenal fan and it’s always a special occasion when Arsenal and Manchester United clash. Yesterday Manchester United got unlucky and was sunk was a great header by the Arsenal striker Henry. Video below, (watch out for the sound!).

It looks like the division of INQ7.NET into Inquirer.net and GMAnews.tv have gone according to plan and both new websites look better than the original. So what’s this annoying message that displays when right-clicking the graphic on Inquirer.net? Reminds me of javascript trickery employed by websites of the last century. It’s not like people are going to download the picture, right?

The Wijk aan Zee chess tournament has started (actually, round 3 had just finished) with 14 supergrandmasters in group A, including the Norwegian prodigy Carlsen.