Champions League

If you see some people walking like zombies today, they must be football fans.  The reason for such is the UEFA Champions League final early this morning between Manchester United and Chelsea.

Man U is considered by many as the favorite in the match, but it’s hard to count Chelsea out this early.

In fact, although I’d be rooting for Man U, I have a feeling that Chelsea would win its first UEFA crown.

Two of us at home would definitely be up at 2:30 a.m. to watch the match, as my son Nico is a huge Chelsea fan.  You’ll see a huge banner of the team at the door of his room and luckily it’s not off limits to his dad who is a Man U fan.

Maybe Human Resources people of companies can also check employees who would call in sick today.  If they’re football fans then they probably also woke up very early to watch the game and went back to bed right after it.

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Luckily we don’t have the rowdy football fans yet who would wreck havoc if their team loses.  If their team wins, they also do the same though.

This is the reason why security has been tightened for this championship match as hooligans are expected to cause trouble.

English fans are not the only one who are notorious for trouble as recently there have been a few football riots in South America.

In the Philippines, the last major melee in a football match must have happened back in the very early 1990s at the San Roque Parish field in Mandaue City.

It was a game between a team called Palestine and a local squad that could not be finished when trouble erupted.

Palestine was a team composed mainly of students from the Middle East mostly from Southwestern University.

I got word about the melee from one of the two Filipinos in the squad, who was our neighbor at Aznar Road.

I’m happy that we did not have anything as serious as that even if there were a few incidents of fisticuffs in recent events.

It pays to be cool when things start to heat up in a game.  There will always be players, who play dirty and would feel bad if they are hurt in return.

If you want to fight, try mixed martial arts and I’ll personally recommend you to train under some of my friends.

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With the start of school just a week or two away, I hope that you can still allow your kids to enjoy the sport they learned during the summer.

One way of doing it is by talking with the child about schedules of games or practices so that they would not interfere with their classes.

I have talked to parents of kids who are in the varsity teams of their school and they share all sorts of tips on how to keep the kids academically fit despite having to spend an extra hour or two in school for sports.

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Here’s a lesson we can learn from Pete Carrill, former basketball coach of Princeton: “The strong take from the weak and the smart take from the strong.”

Stay smart.

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