Thursday 14 April 2011

The living Legend that is Paul Scholes

Tribute to Paul Scholes .



Micah Richards : "He's always in the right position, always seems to be at the end of the box when the ball drops in. The complete midfielder - when he's fit, he's the best. Some go missing but he's in the right place at the right time. He's my favourite player of all-time, unbelievable. If you give him a chance it's a goal, isn't it?"



Glenn Hoddle : "There isn't a player of his mould anywhere else in the world."



Terry Venables : "He's the best one- or two-touch passer in the country. He sees the game unlike any other player."



Alan Shearer : "If you ask footballers to pick out the player they most admire, so many of them will pick Paul Scholes. He can tackle, and his passing and shooting is of the highest level. He's the most consistent and naturally gifted player we've had for a long, long time."



Eidur Gudjohnsen : "I'm more an admirer of Paul Scholes than I am of Ronaldo. Ronaldo is a fantastic player, but he has 10 other great players around him every week...Scholes is one of the most complete footballers I've ever seen. His one-touch play is phenomenal. Whenever I have played against him, I never felt I could get close to him."



Edgar Davids : ""Every one of us (midfielders) is just trying to become as good as him. Everyone can learn from Paul Scholes."



Edgar Davids : "I'm not the best, Paul Scholes is."



Tony Adams : "I really rate Paul Scholes, because he hasn't got the high profile of many of the Manchester United players, he doesn't get too much attention, but he is one very good player. He is an intelligent player, he works hard and he scores some great goals. He is not flamboyant and is a quiet lad off the pitch but he is a tremendous asset to Manchester United and to England. He has already got my vote as player of the year."



Cesc Fabregas : "He is the one whose level I aspire to. He is the best player in the Premier League."



Patrick Vieira : "The player in the Premiership I admire most? Easy - Scholes."



Thierry Henry : "I can't understand why Scholes has never won the player of the year award. He should have won it long ago. Maybe it's because he doesn't seek the limelight like some of the other 'stars'."



Zinedine Zidane : "My toughest opponent? Scholes of Manchester. He is the complete midfielder."



Zinedine Zidane : "Scholes is undoubtedly the best midfielder of his generation."



Sam Allardyce : "There is not a better midfield player in the world."



Kevin Keegan : "What United have got that Chelsea haven't is Paul Scholes. I think he is different to anything else in English football."



Marcello Lippi : "Paul Scholes would have been one of my first choices for putting together a great team - that goes to show how highly I have always rated him. Scholes is a player I have always liked, because he combines great talent and technical ability with mobility, determination and a superb shot. He is an all-round midfielder who possesses character and quality in abundance. In my opinion, he's been one of the most important players for United under Sir Alex."



Ray Wilkins : "I'm saddened because I think we as spectators, not only in this country but right through out Europe and the rest of the World, will be missing one hell of a footballer."



Gordon Strachan : "Paul Scholes has been the best England midfield player for 30-odd years. You'd probably have to go back to Bobby Charlton to find someone who could do as much as Scholes. When the ball arrives at his feet he could tell you where every player on that pitch is at that moment. His awareness is superb."



Veron while at Chelsea being asked in an interview who's the best english player : "Paul Scholes."



Peter Schmeichel : "People say he is a great player, but you have to define what a great player is, For me, it is a player who has a bottom level that means his worst performance is not noticed.If he is having a bad game, a team-mate might feel Paul Scholes is not quite on his game, but a spectator wouldn't notice. Scholes, of all the players I have played with, has the highest bottom level. His reading of the game is unsurpassed.He has an eye for a pass, for what the play or the game needs at that precise moment, that I have never seen anyone else have. He controls and distributes the play and the game better than anyone I have ever seen."



Laurent Blanc : "Scholes is the best English player. Intelligence, technique, strength... all the attributes are there. At Manchester United I saw what he could do on the training field. Phew!"



Laurent Blanc :"I tell anyone who asks me - Scholes is the best English player."



David Beckham said that, among his teammates at Real Madrid, which included Zinedine Zidane, Raúl, Ronaldo, Luís Figo and Roberto Carlos, Scholes was the most admired opponent : "He's always one of those people others talk about. Even playing at Real Madrid, the players always say to me 'what's he like'? They respect him as a footballer, and to have that respect from some of those players is great." 



"I have no hesitation in putting a name to the embodiment of all that I think is best about football," said Sir Bobby Charlton. "It's Paul Scholes.

"Many great players have worn the shirt of Manchester United. Players I worshipped, then lost with my youth in Munich.

"Players like Denis Law and George Best who I enjoyed so much as team-mates and now, finally, players I have watched closely in the Alex Ferguson era. And in so many ways Scholes is my favourite. I love his nous and conviction that he will find a way to win, to make the killer pass or produce the decisive volley.

"When a game reaches a vital phase, these qualities seem to comeout of his every pore. He's always on the ball, always turning on goal.

"He's always looking to bring other people into the action and if he loses possession you think he must be ill."



Zidane :

"It's only natural to want to select your best players and there is no doubt for me that Paul Scholes is still in a class of his own,"

"He's almost untouchable in what he does. I never tire of watching him play. You rarely come across the complete footballer, but Scholes is as close to it as you can get.

"One of my regrets is that the opportunity to play alongside him never presented itself during my career."

"He was an extremely tough opponent to play against. You didn't get any time on the ball when he was around. He would close you down and make your life terribly uncomfortable.

"He is the type of player you want on your side, not in opposition because he could do so much damage.

"He is very gifted. He makes the game look easy because he's so much natural ability."



Michael Carrick : "Paul Scholes is just fantastic. When you play alongside him, you realise what a special talent he is."



Michael Carrick
: "He is a legend and he's going to be remembered for a long time. Just to play alongside him and learn from him has been an absolute pleasure. I think he is a footballer's footballer; he has been at this level for so long. As long as he is part of us we always feel we have a chance. We appreciate the way he goes about his business. I have never met a character like Scholesy; certainly not someone who is that good."



Park Ji Sung when asked by the club's official home page which United player he would like to see in the red shirt of the Taeguk Warriors : "It has to be Paul Scholes."



Brian Kidd : "Paul Scholes had the best football brain I'd ever seen in a kid. Let's face it. Paul Scholes is in a class of its own."



Rio Ferdinand : "I can honestly say Paul is the best player in the England squad. For me he is the complete player."



Rio Ferdinand : "For me, it's Paul Scholes. He'll do ridiculous things in training like say, "You see that tree over there?" - it'll be 40 yards away - "I'm going to hit it". And he'll do it. Everyone at the club considers him the best."



Phil Neville : "Paul, for me, is the best player in the England team. It worries teams. Speak to any other international team and they will single Paul out as England's key player. For me, he doesn't get the full credit that he deserves. He is a world-class player and deserves to be up there with the likes of Zidane and Figo."



Gary Neville : "I wouldn't swap Paul Scholes for anybody. He is quite simply the most complete footballer I have ever played with. He is the best."



Gary Neville : "Paul Scholes is the best player I've ever played with. There's talent in every part of his game."



Steve Bruce : "He's the best player in Britain in my opinion and he has to get himself fit just before we are due to play at Old Trafford. I cannot pay Paul a bigger compliment than to say that he's the most complete footballer in the country. The best bar none."



Roy Keane : "An amazingly gifted player who remained an unaffected human being."



George Best : "To be honest I think England have lost their best player. Certainly he's the most consistent and naturally gifted player we've had for a long, long time."



Sir Bobby Charlton
: "I am sorry for England because they don't have any player like him. You can talk about others but there is no one else like him. He is the best technical player England has without any question. He could have had a lot more caps if he had carried on. And if I was the manager he would have ended up with more than I did – easy"



Sir Bobby Charlton : "He's always so in control and pinpoint accurate with his passing – a beautiful player to watch."



Sir Bobby Charlton : "Paul Scholes is my favourite player. He epitomises the spirit of Manchester United and everything that is good about football."



Sir Alex Ferguson : "Very few players can do that, but Scholes is one of them - and I knew he was one of them. That's why, without question, I think Paul Scholes is the best player in England. He's got the best skills, the best brain. No one can match him."



Sir Alex Ferguson : "He has an awareness of what's happening around him on the edge of the box which is better than most players. As a kid he always had a knack of arriving in the penalty area just at the right time, but he's proving just as effective from outside the box because he's using his experience in the right way. It doesn't matter who I am thinking about bringing into my midfield, Paul Scholes will be included, as he would in any side in the world."



Sir Alex Ferguson : Sir Alex Ferguson gave evidence in court on behalf of one of his former trainees and listened to the prosecution barrister's list of United's top players.

"You've missed Paul Scholes - and he's my best player," Ferguson chided her.



Van Nistelrooy :"You have a special chemistry with certain players," explains the Dutchman, "and with me, at Manchester United, it's with Wayne Rooney and Paul Scholes. Things just seem to click. What I like most about Paul, though, is that he is the epitome of a professional footballer, He comes to training, then goes home and spends his time with his family. He doesn't like all the hoo-ha outside the football, the interviews with papers and on TV. He prefers to just live his own life and he refuses to be a media object or a public figure. I have nothing but admiration for him."


Arsene Wenger : "Paul Scholes was, and still is, one of the greatest football players in England. His contribution to the success of Manchester United is huge. The regret I have personally is that he was not always the fairest player.He d...id not get completely what [credit] he deserves as a football player, because he is not someone who runs after the media to be in the papers, and I respect that a lot. There is a little bit of a darker side in him, that he sometimes did things which I did not like. I would have liked him here. Who would not want Paul Scholes? He is a fantastic player.When he has the ball at his feet and you are a central defender, you have to be on your toes because he can still today find anybody in the box."


Xavi : "In the last 15 to 20 years the best central midfielder that I have seen — the most complete — is Scholes. I have spoken with Xabi Alonso about this many times. Scholes is a spectacular player who has everything.He can play the final pass, he can score, he is strong, he never gets knocked off the ball and he doesn’t give possession away. If he had been Spanish then maybe he would have been valued more."

Tuesday 12 April 2011

Good Post

I am writing this because I am annoyed and fed up. And because some people just don't get it.
Here goes

Like all things in life, this was about money, 20,000 money.

Short Film contest at Annual University Event. Make short film, win 20,000. Seemed simple. Its not.
I could not find a camera, actually I did, but the owners didn’t find it in their heart to lend it to me.
However, before I would look for the camera, I had to have a story. So I thought and just like that I came up with a stunningly typical story. My arsehole friends rejected it outright. I thought again and came up with another pretty lame ass story. However, if made well, it could have turned out to be entertaining. All this happened within an hour or so.

It was supposed to be about a typical guy; he cleans up a little and burgerizes himself, i.e. puts on glasses, talks with a weird accent and turns into a complete sissy, to get a girl. Girls seem to dig that. However, the girl turns out to be pretty annoying, the guy goes broke taking her out all the time and doesn’t get any “action”, if you know what I mean. Being a typical guy, he decides it’s not worth the hassle and turns back to his old self and old friends.

I thought this could be done in a funny way. I had not thought about what message it would send out to the audience. As I said, this was about money. If anything it’s a critical comment on the guy for being shallow and the girl for being, well, a girl.


Enter my friend, for convenience and because I want to live until this season's Champion's League Final ( Its in Wembly ), I will not disclose her name. We shall call her 'X'. So, one happy, expecting to be showered with praise, me, casually told my grand story with all its subplots and twists and what not to 'X'. What followed was unasked for.


'X' thought it was such a wrong message and it was demeaning to women and I was a horrible person for treating women like that and all guys are sick and it’s just pathetic that the girl is being shown in a bad light for not making out with the guy and on and on and on. I tried to say that that’s not the message I am sending, that I am just not the message sending type, but all I managed to say was, nothing really. What can you say when an angry woman is on a roll.

You see I had, unknowingly and very, very, unwittingly, incited the rage of a scorned woman. The tirade took another direction with me foolishly trying to justify my story and 'X' going into the whole dynamics of guys ditching girls for no reason and their lies and stuff like that. It ended with her shouting at me about the hard to believe, but with a slight chance of being true, fact that I once had a relationship, I like to call it an affair, with a girl!! We will call her 'B' for no apparent reason.

The story goes that I was really casual about my relationship with 'B' and seemingly 'B' wasn’t exactly in the Juliet category herself. We had some fun, she even bought me some stuff, I didn’t really reciprocate, because I didn't want to. Time passed and I decided to end the thing when she got a serious marriage proposal. As we were of the same age, I wasn’t earning and she needed to be Wed. It was logical. She dragged her feet, but in the end she didn’t have any other option. That seems an ok story to me. Short, to the point.

Now our dear 'X' has a friend, called ‘Y’, who had a similar experience. Only, she went bezerk on being said goodbye and hasn’t forgiven the boy for the “betrayal”. ‘X’ has taken her friends pain to heart. Therefore she painted me as the monster that had "used the poor 'B', gotten all sorta gifts, had your fun and then dumped her”.

I have long pretended that I was wrong and I should take blame over that chain of events. I don’t want to pretend any longer. I have had it with these angry stupid women. I wasn’t the only one having “fun” in the relationship. I did nothing wrong, nothing more than what the girl did, and in the end I absolutely, positively 100%, did the right thing by telling the young lady to buzz off, and although it pains me to say this, so did the boy who used to date 'Y'.

Let me now explain why.
When the guy and the girl/the other guy, not judging, are of the same age, in out part of the world, 90 % of the time it will not fucking happen ! It won’t. People with ultra rich and/or ultra lib parents would disagree but I would kindly ask them to shut the fuck up. This is not about you. This is about normal people.

By the time girls get a complete set of teeth in the sub-continent, their parents start worrying about getting them married. Even if they don’t, society does. So when they finish their studies they have to be married. “Completion of studies” varies from Matric/O-level to Bachelors. Now girls should understand, although I know it’s hard for them, that their respective beau's are not responsible for this.

They were born into this world, just like the girls. They did not cause this situation to arise, so please, please don’t blame them for being young and not earning. Girls have to be married ASAP and to a wealthy "khud ka kamata hai, with property here or job abroad” type. And they don’t come this side of 26. Now here's the tricky part , the boy that you are dating, from your college, university, tuition class or school bus( happens) is almost the same age as you are and in the same situation, i.e. , studying !

You see, that often is an issue overlooked by many of our top of the class, smart, confident girls out there. If you have a head, and if there is a working brain in said head, do not date guys your age. Do not decide the name of your 3rd child, who has to be a girl because you already have 2 boys, within a month of starting the relationship. It is that simple.
Girls following this advice, which, if they have a head with working brain as mentioned above, shouldn’t have to be given to them, have reported a far lower percentage of the “ Bastard left me” syndrome.

Now we come to the question that what should be done when the situation arises of same age couples, and what goes wrong. Mad angry women, who were all probably once mad happy women, often point to the cowardice of the ex-boyses. They argue that if they were "ready to face the world" than the boy should have stood by them.

A noble and heroic thought, born out of mislead self confidence and denial/ignorance of the realities of the world they live in for some, while for most its the bollywoodistic belief that their Amresh Puri Father/Father In-Law would let their hands go just in time for them to catch the train with their own Shah Rukh Khan.

What the dumb fucks fail to realize, is that their life is not a movie, that closing your eyes won’t make your problems disappear and your best laid plans coming together is much more likely not to happen than to happen. And what then?

Now ours is a most beautiful and respectful culture. Once the whole affair is out in the open and the ever wise elders have sent you to your fucking room, or the boy has shown no common sense at all alongside balls of steel and agreed to elope/court marry, I say agreed because the girls, God bless them, usually come up with the idea, people start to talk about all this. People might be nice one at a time, together they have quite the potty mouth. Well, not for the guys. The Guys really don’t have a tough time. There transgressions are forgotten almost immediately, they get a sympathetic pat on the shoulder and often receive admiring “Jawaan larka hai bhai" type glances. What is far more interesting is what happens with the girls.

I have always been a supporter of girl-girl love. By that I mean women kind coming together and supporting each other in tough times, also, some good girl on girl action. So you will understand my frustration because I have yet to see either.

In the pre-mentioned scenario, while the boys are let off scot free, the girls are crucified. Particularly by their own kind. The lovely neighborhood aunties pretty much call them Whore/Slut/Tramp/Bitch etc depending on the severity of the offense, their localities perceived outrage at it and the aunties’ own personal standard. If they don’t do it out in the open they do it behind closed doors. But they all do it. Actually, there are some good women as well; they only strongly imply that the girl involved is a Whore/Slut/Tramp/Bitch etc.

The father of the bride weighs up killing himself over killing the girl if she has eloped. If it’s just that affair has gone public, he just goes into depression or turns into angry tyrant type. The girl has also set such a horrible example for the rest of the children. The house is tense and the mother cries as often as she can.

All this really is unnecessary and the risk should never ever be taken. But women are too thick to see it. They would face it all rather than bear the pain of a love lost. Bla bla. Now before some emotional type stands up to say that a low life like me could never know their pain, they should know that I have been hit on the crotch. It’s a killer.

However, there is one thing that kills a person more than any other, guilt. And that’s what a normal good boy in a normal relationship faces. Girls are idiots. They cannot think. They only know how to be dramatic and how to cry. They would do anything and everything when in a relationship. I repeat: anything and everything. Their mind goes numb and nothing fazes them. And if there is a chance of all the above mentioned shit happening, and there is always much more chance of that than you riding into the sunset together, then the guy is the one putting the ugly crying machine through all of it. It’s his fault and it’s his guilt. For anyone, let alone a person who cares/pretends to care about the girl, it is just not right to stand by and watch these events unfold, and the only way to avoid it is to stop it before it reaches this point, i.e. dump her.

Make it cruel, let her shed her tears and act cold and unconcerned. Also, don’t ever come back, because she will be ready to rekindle the romance.

If you are a decent human being, and find someone who is him/herself a decent human being and it’s his/her first real relationship that they seem genuinely committed to, the right thing to do is to end it. Making fun of their feelings always adds a nice touch.

Find some new chick who’s been through all this before. They are awesome. They understand that one gets bored of the constant texting. It’s the first timers who fuck your brain.

I can’t really argue about the morality of all this in too much detail. I have just stated how things are and what the best way to deal with them is. I did not make them like this and I did not wish for them to be like this. If there is somebody who won’t shut up about the rights and wrongs in all of this, I would like to point out that nobody can judge nobody. You don’t know their side of the story and even if you did, you are still no one to decide what’s right or wrong. That issue really is irrelevant because everyone who’s ever been in a relationship is wrong from the start. The final word on morality rests with religion and most religions say pre-marital relationships are a no go area. So please don’t tell me that it was right and pure when you did it because, basically, you really wanted it to happen or you would have seen it through.

That would be all.

For the naysayers, here’s a real life story, I had a very dear friend, called ‘C’ ( real name!). She was the good old lovy dovy type. Got a boy, he two timed her and dumped her when she moved to another city. She didn’t let go, kept in touch one way or another. When she was moving back to his city, the boy became interested again. Her parents, friends and random people off the street told her to stay away from the lover boy, however ‘C’ thought “ to hell with them, he obviously loves me soo much and I love him and no one understands “ . If she were too ask me I would have said he sees you as his meat ticket. No one listens to me btw. So she went back and I saw her completely submit to the guy, I saw her go past the lines she had once preached, to the always immoral, me, never to cross. She went against her family, against her friends, she was forbidden to talk to any guys, so I didn’t have any contact for around 3 years.

The guy was older and had a job, I think, but his parents had said no, but the blind in love girl would not hear reason, and you can’t really blame her, as I have elaborated above, girls are not capable of putting 2 and 2 together. If it had been a bad guy the likes of girls hate and tell sad stories about, he would have let her go then and there. But he wasn’t a bad guy. He was a good boy, the sort that girls want. He kept at it for years, treating her like shit, ’C’ would hate me forever for saying this, but she was pretty much like his personal slave, “wear this, go there, talk to him, don’t talk to them, do this , do that” and she was happy with it, even though she confesses herself that he used to hit her. It finally came to a head with the families having a heated confrontation. The guy had an altercation with her father as well.

It ended, after a few months of him harassing and hounding her. She’s much better now, but she isn’t the same person. There’s bitterness and hate in her, you can’t really talk about anything from the last 5 years with her and she still doesn’t blame him. That’s what men are capable of, that is what women give them the power to do.

So please, if you are heartbroken, be thankful.