Daniel Pacheco signed from Barcelona in 2007 and has just been promoted to the Liverpool first team with shirt number 12. This shows how people at Liverpool think highly of him.

During the UEFA U19 Championship held in France in July, Daniel played brilliantly and won the Golden boot after scoring four goals and helping Spain get to the final. He was chosen as World Player of the Week by Goal.com because of this.

I feel 2010-2011 will be the year of Daniel Pacheco. This kid has real talent. Of course, he lacks experience but he’s lucky enough to have Fernando Torres as mentor… Maybe not getting a striker during this transfer window is a blessing in disguise: this will force the Manager to play Daniel Pacheco more often and, consequently, give him the needed playing time to further his development.

Who needs big-name players when you have a 19 year old gem in your side?

I’ve just watched my team, Liverpool, get beaten 3-0 by Manchester City. I was watching the match on Canal+ Sport and the commentators said two interesting things:

1. Manchester City has been assembled using hundreds of million of pounds,
2. Manchester City played very well as a team.

On hearing this, I realised that English football as a game is dead. Arguably, it died as a game the day Abramovich bought Chelsea. Football has become a show. And, consequently, everything is showbiz now.

I am not Steven Gerrard. But, right now, 15 minutes after the defeat, he must be wondering whether the only solution is for Liverpool to be sold to a billionaire. Maybe that’s the only rational solution. But, sincerely, I would prefer Liverpool to remain as it is. We, Liverpool supporters, are very patient. And I would like to think that we still have some love for the game…

Don’t watch it a lot though. Remember, it has probably been censored… Must be for a good reason. Maybe because Shakira sings badly, cannot dance and, dare I say, looks fat.

I have just released my first ever Android application. It’s called World Cup 2010 TV Guide and is available in the Android Market (do a search for World Cup 2010 TV Guide or, better, just scan the above QR code.)

I got my Google Nexus One exactly two weeks ago (Thanks Alam and Dassen!) and I became a fan from the very first sight. The hardware is fantastic and the operating system, Android, which I upgraded to the latest 2.2 version on the same day, is excellent. It is built on Linux and provided all the features one can dream on a smartphone. Let’s just say that it easily matches whatever exists elsewhere…

Android software development

Android smartphones are programmed using Java using the Eclipse IDE. As you all know, I am somewhat of a Java buff myself and I love Eclipse and all the Java opensource ecosystem. The application itself is not very complex yet I had to spent a few days to understand how Android deals with user interface layouts (DroidDraw helped a lot) as well as with the built-in SQLite database.

Interestingly, I never felt constrained even though I was programming for a phone instead of a PC. The Nexus One is really a powerful device. And it runs Java so well that, now, I know why I spent all those years reading Java books and programming for fun up to 2am

What next?

Who knows? When I bought my Amiga 500 around 1988, it came in a box on which was written “Your Imagination is the Limit” and this really made me understand how malleable and powerful a computer can be when programmed correctly. I am really looking forward to learn how to develop more powerful Android application.

In the meantime, download “World Cup 2010 TV Guide” in the Android Market. And have fun with it!

As you all know, the World Cup is starting in a few weeks in South Africa. I spent a few minutes today identifying some world class players from popular teams and this is what I found out.

Spain

According to me, Spain has the quality to win the World Cup: the goalkeepers, midfielders and strikers are fantastic even though the defense is not as good as the rest. David Villa and Fernando Torres play excellently together but, for me, Andrés Iniesta will be the key player.

• Iker Casillas
• Pepe Reina
• Sergio Ramos
• Xabi Alonso
• Cesc Fabregas
• Xavi
• Andrés Iniesta
• David Villa
• Fernando Torres

Brazil

Brazil has a lot of talented players but not as many as the other top teams. Alves is arguably the best right wingback in the world and, well, Kaká is magic (most of the time.) Most pundits say that Brazil will play in the final because Dunga, the coach, has managed to build a very fluid team using innovative tactics.

• Dani Alves
• Kaká

Argentina

A lot of people have already discounted Argentina but I’m not so sure. Mascherano is a formidable defensive midfielder and captain of the team (yes, I know, he gets booked too many times… but he is just being like Roy Keane) who can protect and let Messi, Agüero, Higuaín and Tévez do their usual magical stuff in front.

• Javier Mascherano
• Sergio Agüero
• Gonzalo Higuaín
• Lionel Messi
• Carlos Tévez

England

England has crap goalkeepers and will not win the World Cup… But, of course, being Mauritian, I would like England to go as far as possible in the tournament. Maybe England has a slight slight chance of winning if and only if (i) Rooney, who is the best English player this year, stays fit and (ii) Gerrard rediscovers his potency. Interesting how England’s future lies in the hands of two Scousers.

• John Terry
• Steven Gerrard
• Frank Lampard
• Wayne Rooney

Portugal

Can Ronaldo, who is the best player in the world, win the World Cup by himself? No. But he will try nevertheless.

• Cristiano Ronaldo

The others…

Patrice Evra (France), Samuel Eto’o (Cameroon), Didier Drogba (Côte d’Ivoire), Michael Essien (Ghana) are world class players but, unfortunately, they play in somewhat worse teams than the ones I have mentioned above.

The outsider

Every four years, one small country (in the footballing sense) exceeds all expectations. Who will it be this year? Maybe the United States who played against Brazil at the last Confederation Cup final but who lost by a slight 2-3.

STOP PRESS!

Liverpool Football Club has just announced that, as from the next match against Fulham, the Liverpool players will wear blue outfits (as too many people mistook them with players from a somewhat less successful club operating in the same country) and will be proudly sponsored by American International Group, Inc. (AIG)

Steven Gerrard, the captain, says: “I am delighted. Blue is easier to wash. And AIG is easier to spell.”

I wrote my first post, Noulakaz.net Weblog online!, on 16 March 2004, exactly five years ago. Since then, the following took place:

• I wrote 456 posts,
• containing 146,141 words,
• received 6,115 comments (13.5 comments per post on average),
• with 438,726 words in them (exactly 3 times more than what I wrote myself.)

I would like to thank all of you who have contributed to my blog. I sincerely think that without your insightful comments, it would have made no sense for me to continue writing.

Someone once asked me: “How can I create a successful blog?” I gave that a thought and rapidly came up with: “A successful blog is one which is read!” with its corollary: “A successful blog is one which is read because it has interesting posts!” and its uber-corollary: “A successful blog is one which is read because it has interesting posts which prompt people to leave comments!”

As this is a special birthday post, I’m going to revisit some posts I wrote from 2004-2006 (say 2 per year to keep the length of this post reasonable.) They are not necessarily interesting but they count for me:

25 March 2004: Kill Bill

The European Union had just fined Microsoft 497.2 million euros (more than Rs 15 billion at that time) for using its monopoly to hinder the progress of competitors and this was my first anti-Microsoft post. Of course, I was already a geek at that time having founded the Linux User Group of Mauritius around 2000 but still…

Since then, nothing substantial has changed. Microsoft is still hindering the progress of humanity by harming competition and Bill is still one of the richest guys on the planet. Fortunately, we Apple fanboys and *nix geeks have found a way to limit our exposure to Microsoft and we are very happy. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of people suffering…

Naturally, the title refers to Quentin Tarantino’s two masterpieces as well as the infamous William Henry “Bill” Gates III.

15 September 2004: Kyan is here !

Our son, Kyan, who is four now, was born in the morning and I wasted no time making the whole world aware! In a certain sense, this was a first. It was the first time (I think) that a dad in Mauritius blogged on the birth of his son on the very same day he was born! And I have to tell you all that that photo was made using my previous film camera, a Canon EOS 500N, and I had the film developed on the same day, dashed home, scanned the photo and wrote the post. Things are much simpler now with digital cameras but I’m sure Kyan will love that story when he’ll be a bigger boy.

Interestingly, Kyan was a name Christina and I came up by simplifying Keanu (Reeves.)

28 February 2005: A new adventure begins

I left the Mauritius Chamber of Commerce & Industry on the 28 and started at the University of Mauritius as a lecturer in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering the next day on the 1st of March.

The reason why I left the MCCI was that I felt I had done everthing that I could have done there and that I wanted a fresh challenge. The reason I opted for the UoM was that I really wanted to be in an environment full of intellectuals, both academics and students. Unfortunately, I got bored after less than three years. I was disappointed to discover that some academics were not really intellectuals. I was also disappointed to discover that some students did not really care about acquiring knowledge. And I was also disappointed in the lack of support and facilities exiting there for academics to do their work properly.

So, last year, I decided to quit the University and try to obtain a visa for the USA. Of course, that didn’t work out but I never thought about going back to UoM. I belong elsewhere I guess.

25 May 2005: Liverpool King of Europe

Liverpool is the most successful football team in England and I’ve been a Liverpool fan for at least 20 years now. On 25 May 2005, something magical happened: Liverpool won the Champions League for the 5th time after having been down 3-0 at half-time.

How? By combining the brains and brawns of two special persons: Steven Gerrard and Rafael Benitez.

The match was practically lost at half-time. And then something happened: the Liverpool right back got injured. Normally, when this kind of thing happens, a manager tends to ask a defender to come on. But Benitez did differently. He introduced Hamann, a midfielder, to mitigate the effect of Pirlo et al and asked Gerrard to help the (now) three man defense cope with the AC Milan attackers. And Gerrard did something only a handful of players throughout history can do: he did everything. He headed. He tacked. He marked. He passed. He shot. And he scored. From every position on the field. And, of course, he won.

Zidane was god. Gerrard is next to godliness. Zidane says so. And who am I to argue?

18 August 2006: Hello World! My MacBook has arrived!

I finally got an Apple computer after years and years of craving. When I was still at college, I discovered screenshots of the NeXTstep operating system and it was love at first sight. When Apple acquired NeXT and Steve Jobs announced that their new operating system, Mac OS X, was going to be NeXTstep and Unix based, I knew it was time for me to make the plunge. And still it took some years before I actually did it.

But now, after having used a Mac for about two and a half years, I can say that there is nothing comparable on the desktop: neither from Microsoft and, unfortunately, nor from the open source world. In fact, I can safely say that Mac OS X is the best desktop operating system ever and Linux (et al.) is the best server operating system which can be easily obtained and installed on commodity hardware.

I love both.

29 November 2006: We are going to India

I don’t like watching Indian movies a lot. I feel most of them have feeble scenarios and I find the actors very caricatural (the actresses are beautiful though…) So, I had a somewhat distorted image of India, partly caricatural (because of the films) and partly frightening (because of what people have told me of India over the years.)

But when I went there, sponsored by Data Communications Ltd, for the ACM Inter-Collegiate Programming Contest to accompany three UoM students, I found out that India was just a great place to visit! I loved the people, the food, the trains, the auto rickshaws, everything! And I loved the fact that I felt practically at home all the time even though I didn’t understand a word of Hindi.

Incidentally, I have just watched Slumdog Millionaire and I think it is a very good film. Not exceptional but very good and which gives a relatively true image of India as far as I know.

~

Once again, thank you a lot for your participation on my blog. Let’s hope we’re all still around in 2014 to celebrate the 10th anniversary. (Tomorrow, I’ll do the same exercise for posts written from 2007-2009.)

Bloody hell!

I can’t watch Liverpool vs Chelsea right now because G-Sport 1, the channel on Parabole Maurice which was supposed to show this match, has stopped broadcasting because Gateway Broadcast Services, the company behind that channel, has been put in liquidation since yesterday presumably because of “the current financial and global crisis.”

Of course, Parabole Maurice  has forgotten to announce this to its paying customers.

I hope that they fiind a solution to this or else bye-bye…

Holy crap!

… but I can distinctly hear some Manchester United and Chelsea supporters condescendingly saying that this won’t last as they are the only ones to have the divine right to win the Premiership.

Winning the Premiership is easy:

• Your team must be among the top four (sorry…) and
• It must win most of its matches especially those against the three others (as each match is then a six-pointer.)

This year, Liverpool is playing very badly against weaker opposition (outside the top four) and is winning. But more interestingly, Liverpool is also playing much better than its closest opponents when facing them (for instance, the second half against Manchester United was close to perfection and yesterday’s match against Chelsea was a lesson in nullifying opposite attacking players.)

It seems that Rafael Benitez is reproducing what he did in Spain a few years ago with Valencia: build a team (and not 11 individuals) capable of winning against its closest opponents (and this included Real Madrid and Barcelona in Spain.)

Whether he’ll manage to make Liverpool win the Premiership is another story as there are about 30 matches left. Personally, I’m confident as I know there is no such thing a divine right to win the Premiership. We all know Chelsea bought that “divine” right with Russian petrodollars. So there isn’t anything divine involved.

Simply said, the best team will win.

Rendez-vous around May.

Today is, for me, the most important football match of the whole season: Liverpool against Manchester United at Anfield!

Of course, year in year out, I blog about Liverpool being the most successful english football team and about how I’m sure that Liverpool will comprehensively beat Manchester United at Anfield. Except that I was right only for the first part. Liverpool is still the most successful team in England. But, unfortunately, since 2001-2002 where Liverpool won 3-1, my team lost against Manchester United at Anfield last year (0-1), in 2006-2007 (0-1 again), in 2004-2005 (0-1 once more), in 2003-2004 (1-2) and in 2002-2003 (1-2 as well.) Liverpool only managed to draw 0-0 in 2005-2006.

So it seems the odds are against Liverpool winning today. Five defeats and one draw in the last six years do not look too good.

Reading the match reports reveal the main reason behind this run of defeats: terrible defensive mistakes which Manchester United players were quick to capitalise on. In 2002-2003, the match was even until “[Diego Forlans]‘s 65th-minute opener came after an abysmal mistake by Jerzy Dudek in the Liverpool goal.” In 2003-2004, “[Ryan] Giggs’ wicked left-foot cross evaded [Ruud] Van Nistelrooy, but also deceived the diving [Jerzy] Dudek and flew into the far corner.” In 2004-2005, “[Jerzy] Dudek allowed Wayne Rooney’s tame 25-yard shot to slide in after 22 minutes to gift the former Everton striker a goal in front of The Kop.” In 2006-2007, “substitute [John] O’Shea pounced after Liverpool keeper Pepe Reina fumbled Cristiano Ronaldo’s free-kick.” Last year, “[Carlos] Tevez was lurking to turn in Wayne Rooney’s driven shot from a Ryan Giggs corner three minutes before half-time.”

Three mistakes by Jerzy Dudek. One by Pepe Reina. And, last year, a goal from an unmarked player during a corner kick.

Apart from those dreadful moments, the matches have been fairly even as can be seen in the one goal differences. Liverpool was unlucky at least once or twice in the sense that they dominated the game but lost because of one terrible mistake. But losing is losing. Manchester United has won five times during the past six years and this is a fact.

So why do I think that Liverpool will win today?

At least for two reasons. First, I am a Liverpool fan and I can’t be rational today. Manchester United is THE enemy and every single drop of blood in me wants Liverpool to win. Call it blindness. I call it passion.

The second reason is that Rafael Benitez knows that Liverpool’s failure to win over Manchester United at Anfield was mostly because of defensive errors. I’m sure he has worked on that part a lot with the players. Liverpool has an excellent defense and, with Javier Mascherano, a world-class defensive midfielder. Defense also starts from the front and Fernando Torres, Robbie Keane, Xabi Alonso and Steven Gerrard have enormous work rates. I’m, of course, assuming that Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard are starting today but they are our two best players and can be rested later…

My prediction for today’s match is 2-0 for Liverpool.

An update:

I was wrong. So wrong. And I apologize. Liverpool only won by 2-1

The beauty of the match was that both Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres started on the bench. Liverpool managed to completely outplay Manchester United during the second half. Once more, Robbie Keane failed to score but he worked a lot. I was impressed with Albert Riera. He was first-class today and his dribbling mesmerized the Manchester United defenders. His crossing and physical presence were also very good.

I watched the match with my father (who is a die-hard Manchester United fan) and I was telling him that the big difference between Liverpool and Manchester United was the price Liverpool could buy players. For instance, the $9m Dirk Kuyt has a bad first touch compared to the $31m Dimitar Berbatov but the only way to mitigate that is to buy more expensive players…

The best thing that can happen now (following the massive influx in money at Manchester United, Chelsea and Manchester City) would be that Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Prime Minister and Vice President of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Dubai, finally buys Liverpool and injects the cash which is needed to compete at the very top every season.