Steven Gerrard: the legend

Any football players have their own story to tell. From a controversy one to a majestic counterpart. Eventually, some stories are too proud to be told again and again. This story is one of them. Steven Gerrard is a popular figure and a captain for Liverpool. Even though, he is not there challenging for titles anymore, he is still our legend. With his undoubtedly amazing technique, his profound contribution, and winning mentality, he is arguably one of the best player in the world this era.

                                                                          

Loyalty is something not a lot of players have. Steven Gerrard especially is part of Liverpool Football Club. Evidently, He spent a total of 27 years at the senior and junior level of the club. That is a pretty astonishing record, is it not? Arguably however, Francesco Totti might spend more year at Roma than Gerrard did. Be that as it may, Gerrard might still have a whopping 504 appearances for Liverpool alone, a lot more than Ibrahimović or most of the other players have. Loyalty is important in relationships, even more in professional football. Leaving club after club may have rough result with the fans since leaving a club might be seen as betrayal. Gerrard is undoubtedly our legend not only for his loyalty, but also for his professionalism. He trained really hard his entire career at Liverpool with a mentality to reach higher level. He was the first to arrive at the training complex and the last to leave. This evidence further proves how much of a leader he is. Yes, football talents do not necessary mean he will become a world-class player. As a result, you need to train, train hard to get ready for games at a highest level. Steven Gerrard has done exactly that; he is a model for players to look up to. Up on the pitch, he is a leader and a motivation. Remember the historical comeback against Ac Milan in Champion League 2005 at Istanbul? He inspired them for that comeback. The first goal is always important for a comeback to happen, he did just that. With intense pressure, he calmly rose up and nodded the ball into the back of the net. Incredible, eh? In the end, he spent more than 20 years with Liverpool as a leader, a motivator, and a model. Some may argue he still has not won the Premiere League and his slip against Chelsea was costly; however, everyone can make mistakes and he has one of those, but few could blame him after what he has done for us. It would take forever to talk about his legacy, Steven Gerrard’s own legacy after all.

Steven Gerrard is loved by Liverpool and by most football fans around the world. He may not have won the ultimate prize of English Football, The Premiere League, but he has won a place in my heart and my admiration.  His time will not be forgotten, at least while I am still here, but indelible within my heart. Thank you Steven Gerrard, you will never walk alone!

"Cut my veins open and I bleed Liverpool Red", Steven Gerrard.

Picture 2 from http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/stars-pay-tribute-steven-gerrard-8371549   

Picture 1 from https://justfootball.in/2015/05/19/farewell-steven-gerrard/

How come Pokemon Go hasn't disappeared even though the hype is slowly declining

Yes, unless you suddenly disappeared from the world, the game phenomenon from Niantic -Pokemon Go is invading the world with all its hypes. The game is ultimately a dream comes true for all of the people watching Ash's adventure when they were young. Little Ash gets his first pokemon - a cute little Pikachu and travels around the regions trying to be a Pokemon Master. Fast forward to summer 2016, you and your friends can enjoy our own adventure by playing Pokemon Go.

However after 2 weeks of slowly releasing around the world, the game has some profound issues that players have encountered. The server crashed regularly has been a common issue last week. Well, the server issue has been an ongoing problem that keep the players from going back to the game. 

Mass amounts of complaints though have been redirected throughout the internet the last two weeks from nostalgic players, realizing their dream might have been shattered before it even starts. However, they can rest assured knowing the lack of server stability was just a result of mass releasing, in which Niantic is trying to fix. Some people even make an app online to check the stability level of the game. This week however, the game has been more stabilized than ever, creating optimistic around the players again. According to some people, the game might seem boring with the lack of features happening in the game beside walking around catching pokemon, hatching eggs, or challenging gyms. However, Niantic has promised the current game is only 10% of what they will do so new features like trades will be available soon. Be aware though "soon" might not close. Some people might think this is a piece of business in which will close soon enough after gaining enough revenue.
However, the company is planning to update with more features and pokemon to come, further put this theory into myth. However though, players can spend real money to get more advantages in game. This is a flaw of free games since players can win even though they are not skillful.
These issues have caused the hype to wane away, however though, the game has not disappeared yet. It is a promising piece of application, in which can develop even better. Ultimately, it is the dream most of us have while watching the show when we were young. Even with errors like that, we won't simply delete the game, in which our dream is comprised within. Once simply cannot delete dreams, and we certainly will not. Even with little errors people are complaining about, the game is still young. With a little bit more works, the game will be a huge success. For some people, the dream has already been captured. For other people, the dream has just started. For some people however, the dream is still awaiting, download the game, and let your own adventure begin...

Football vs Soccer

Name are important in our life. We have our own name that no one else have, even sports have different names as well (baseball, basketball); but, why the Americans change the universal name “football” to “soccer”, is it fair for the sports itself and to the fans loving the sport.Whether you care about this topic or not, the truth is it does matter.

In present time, if you ever asked an American about the sport we all play and love, they will call it “soccer”. I cannot count how many times I have spoken to an American and feel the urge to bang their head into the wall so they can figure out that they have been wrong the whole time. I would rather die than listening to them talking about soccer. In fact, all we, football lovers, can feel when they, the Americans, refer our beloved sport, football, “soccer” is pain, the pain that we experience every day in life. Okay, maybe it is not really painful but the way they refer to the sport is simply unjustified. As such, their inability to understand the spiritual value of the sport, causing them to call football “soccer”.

This can be a hard idea for many of you to perceive, as most of you have been referred to this sport as “soccer” for your entire time, which is fine since you guys live in North America, where most of you care about is ice hockey or basketball. Why does “soccer” become the name for the sport? Why does “soccer” get to be so popular amongst the world? Why does “soccer” have a huge impact on the globe?

To begin, if someone said the word “soccer” is better than “football”, they are not only lying to you, to everyone in the world, but also to all the football fans around the world, including me.  “Soccer” has never been a popular word amongst the people around the globe, it is not the one, it will never be the one. The Americans seem to have a great influence on the world, simply because they have a large amount of coverage around the world with a large amount of journalists travelling around the world spreading out the wrong idea about the sport.

Some may argue that the reason behind the Americans calling this sport “soccer” is because they have their own favourite sport “American football”, so their own Medias and articles cannot refer “football” to both sports as it will cause confusing. However, ladies and gentlemen, football is invented way before “American football” in the year 220 to be exact; Meanwhile, American football is invented in 1869. The point is therefore invalid in a process because they could call their own sport a different name, instead they used the name “football” which was invented way before then.

Basically, all of you can see quite clearly, “football” can be divided into 2 parts “foot” and “ball”. Our beloved sport’s purpose is to pass the ball using our feet, cross the ball using our feet, and score the goal using our feet.  So then, ladies and gentlemen, it is just plain suitable to call the sport “football”. Folks, let me ask you this, what does Americans football’s ball look like? Well, it does look like an egg, does not it? By definition, a ball is “an object with a spherical shape”, a football ball is a round shape; however, the American football’s is not a sphere shape by any mean so it does not qualified as a “ball”, but we can call it a “handegg”. Meanwhile, ladies and gentlemen, American football mostly uses arm muscles to overpower the opponent and throw the ball around so they can a point by having the ball in the arm, racing to the end of the field.

Some may even argue that American football also uses feet to kick the ball up field or score a field goal.  So technically the players still use their feet, so “football” is valid. However, the game is hardly ever played with foot nor with a ball. I have not watched the game that much, but I mostly see players try to outmuscle the other team, carry the ball around, smash for a few minutes, and onto commercial break – the most annoying period of the game. Also, a few punting is not enough to be called “football”. In contrast, the game of real “football” is played exclusively with legs and a few moment with head and chest just to control the ball. Ladies and gentlemen, if Americans call their sport “American rugby” or even “handegg”, I doubt there will be any complains.

The word “soccer” is not even a unique word from Americans. In the past, the United Kingdom loves the word ended with “er”. As they called rugby “rugger”, they want to have a nickname for “football” as well, so they made “soccer” as a nickname for it. Back to the present, Americans used the word “football” to call their own sports, and used the nickname of it “soccer” to call the universal sport. It is really interesting to know why they call that as “soccer” is a really old nickname and it has been forgotten by the British. After all, it is not a good name nor significance to the game itself.

To conclude, “soccer” has been increased in popularity over a couple of years and Americans are responsible for this with all their medias and coverage of the sport. Furthermore, the Americans have given a name to a wrong sport. Finally, the originally of long forgotten word “soccer” has caused the stir on why Americans insisted on using that word. I cannot help it but fear for our beloved sport, or must I say, the word “football”.  After all, we, football fans, do not wish to be in a world with “soccer” as there is only one sport, football existing on this planet. Knowing the influence of Americans have on the world, my fear are undeniably justified. I want to end this with a quote from a British guy Daniel Gooch, “Okay, you can call your sport football, but when it comes to our “football”, don’t call it soccer”

Fika - A meaning of life

While surfing the net and reading articles, I have reached a really strange word with no translation, Fika. What is Fika? Where is it from? Why is it important to the local people?

By definition, Fika is "having a break, most often a coffee break with people" . It is not just coffee break, it holds a larger significance to the tradition itself and to the local people. It is a social experience, setting aside the stress of work, school, and life to enjoy a quality time with friends, family, or even colleagues. It can be anywhere as well: home, cafe, work, etc. I have spoken to a lot of my Swedish friends and I have learned that they prefer getting Fika from Ikea - weird, huh! 

Imagine yourself walking down the street, you see a beautiful girl standing outside of a cafe, your first pickup line will be "Hey, you mind having a fika?" Swedes love Fika, they absolutely love it. Oh, forgot to say Fika is originated from Sweden, a relatively large country in Northern Europe. Swedes prefer not to have a translation for Fika, they wanna keep the significance and the traditional meaning of the word Fika, even more than the term "coffee break" alone.  

Swedes love sweet, haven't I told you that... Cakes, Cookies, name it yourselves. As statistic has shown, Swedes are amongst the top consumers of coffee in the world. Sweet can have a lot of different meaning but for Swedish, it can mean appreciation of good things in life. They even have their own recipe to make these type of sweet foods, showing their appreciation and the importance of fika to Swedes. 

Okay, look delicious, hmm!! Try it out for yourselves!!!