Why Twitter Has Been Down Since the Beginning of the World Cup.

If you’re on Twitter then you’ve probably been seeing more of the Fail Whale than your family lately, I think it’s World Cup-related, why? Let me tell you:

1. On the opening day there were too many tweets from excited football fans all over the world. Twitter failed.

2. During the opening match Al-Jazeera Sport viewers suffered from the very poor signal of the channel because someone (God knows who) tried to sabotage their authorized transmission of the FIFA World Cup and there were too many tweets from people either complaining or predicting who did it, everyone had his/her own theory. Twitter failed.

3. The second match was France vs. Uruguay. The French have really, really long words with unnecessary extra letters, this called for more tweets since the characters are limited to 140, too many French tweets. Twitter failed.

4. Next match: South Korea vs. Greece. I’ll list the names of the Greek team from FIFA.com:

Konstantinos CHALKIAS

Giourkas SEITARIDIS

Christos PATSATZOGLOU

Nikos SPIROPOULOS

Vangelis MORAS

Alexandros TZIOLIS

Georgios SAMARAS

Avraam PAPADOPOULOS

Angelos CHARISTEAS

Georgios KARAGOUNIS
Loukas VYNTRA

Alexandros TZORVAS

Michail SIFAKIS

Dimitrios SALPINGIDIS

Vasileios TOROSIDIS

Sotirios KYRGIAKOS

Theofanis GEKAS

Sotiris NINIS

Sokratis PAPASTATHOPOULOS

Pantelis KAPETANOS

Konstantinos KATSOURANIS

Stelios MALEZAS

Athanasios PRITTAS

Now such names call for longer tweets, again, too many Greek tweets. Twitter failed.

5. Argentina vs. Nigeria: Well just consider the populations of both countries plus Argentina fans all over the world plus Messi fans that know nothing about football but are supporting Argentina because he's with them. Too many Tango tweets. Twitter failed.

6. Next: England vs. USA, 1-1, the American goal was clearly the English goalkeeper’s (or the ball’s) fault, English supporters were very unhappy blaming their goalkeeper for costing them 2 points, and you know when English people are angry they’re really angry. Too many angry English tweets. Twitter failed.

7. Algeria vs. Slovenia: Algeria, the only Arab team to qualify to the World Cup after a vicious battle against Egypt for the last African spot in WC, lost 1-0 to Slovenia, now Algerians were “shocked” and all the Egyptian supporters were talking about what Egypt could’ve done had it qualified instead. Too many Egyptian what-ifs. Twitter failed.

8. Serbia 0-1 Ghana: Twitter was fine at the time of this match.

9. Germany 4-0 Australia, too many tweets because there were many goals, the match with the highest number of goals so far. Too many happy Germans (and German football fans) tweeting times four goals. Twitter failed.

10. Netherlands 2-0 Denmark: angry Danes because of Daniel Agger's own goal, long Dutch tweets because of, well, long Dutch words, (according to Google Translate, the words “Dutch football” translate to “Nederlandse voetbal” in Dutch, also, with names like Giovanni Van Bronckhorst and Maarten Stekelenburg in the Dutch team, you need longer tweets. Twitter failed.

11. Japan 1-0 Cameroon: everyone was talking about how the Japanese player who scored the goal is called Keisuke Honda and making jokes about cars :) too many Honda jokes. Twitter failed.

12. Italy 1-1 Paraguay: well Italians talk too much and too fast so they probably tweet like that too, also, too many happy Italy-haters out there. Twitter failed.

13. New Zealand 1-1 Slovakia: well Twitter was also fine, although I guess some people tweeted when New Zealand’s Winston Reid scored during the additional time, but not too many.

14. Côte d'Ivoire 0-0 Portugal: upon seeing Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo, and what with the lack of goals, people started discussing their favorite shampoo brands and some actually defended Ronaldo’s choice: Johnson&Johnson's No More Tears. The heated argument caused the overload. Twitter failed.

15. Brazil 2-1 Korea DPR: all those Brazil fans were tweeting their disappointment with the Brazilian team’s performance against a team that qualified for the World Cup twice since the beginning of the tournament in 1930. Too many Brazil supporters, too many Brazil haters making fun of sad fans. Twitter failed.

16. On top of that, tweets about how annoying (or awesome) the Vuvuzela is, people asking FIFA to ban it because it’s too loud, others saying it’s cool and they like it and other Vuvuzela-related tweets. Too many loud tweets. Twitter failed.

And that's just the beginning, we haven't even seen the big matches yet, I hope the Fail Whale survives this month.

Note: no offense intended to any of the nationalities I mentioned, this is just for fun and all the teams and their countries are good people :)

UEFA Champions’ League Gone Argentine

Photo source: Corriere Della Sera

Now we’re talking!

Diego Milito, who scored both of Internazionale’s goals in the Champoins’ League finale against Bayern Munich, gave Argentina fans another reason to look forward to June 12th, the day of Argentina’s opening match in the World Cup against Nigeria.

I can’t wait to see him play :)

Who are you looking forward to see?

15 Reasons Why I Should Have These Guys' Job

1. I would be the first female sports commentator in the Arab world.

2. I love football, but I’m not one of those girls who watch football to look at the players, true, it started out that way when I was 13 but then I discovered my love for the game.

3. I would kill to go to Italy,

4. And watch a game at the Giuseppe Meazza Stadium in San Siro,

5. And talk while I’m at it! I love to talk, and once I start there will be no stopping me.

6. I speak Italian so I can interview Italian players :)

7. I also speak a little Spanish so I can interview Spanish players too :)

8. I’m Paolo Maldini’s biggest fan so having his father Cesare as a guest would be so cool for me.

9. I’m very lazy so I don’t mind sitting in the same chair for two hours.

10. I’m probably the only Valencia CF fan in Jordan and the only girl who wouldn’t mind watching Valencia vs. Sporting Gijon in the middle of the night.

11. I might also be the only girl who ever watched a Bayer Leverkusen match, and hoped they win.

12. It’s not official but I think I set a world record with the loudest screams during the WC2006 game of Argentina vs. Serbia and Montenegro (it ended 6-0 so you can imagine why). I also skinned my knee after Italy’s 2002 defeat in South Korea, by South Korea. That’s how excited I can get.

13. I’ll say the players’ names right and I won’t mention the fact that David Beckham is married to Posh Spice “motazawwej men moghanneyat fareeq fatayat al tawabel” unlike all other Jordanian commentators (but that’s a whole different post I’m writing someday).

14. I won’t talk about pasta or pizza in an Italy match because I understand the fact that pasta has nothing to do with Italian football just like Mansaf has nothing to do with Jordanian football (except that maybe you should play a game after a Mansaf meal in order for you to digest it) and just like no one mentions sushi when Japan is playing.

15. And finally because I really, really want to :(

Milan Vs. ManU

AC Milan will play Manchester United in the first knockout round in Champions’ League tonight. I can’t wait for the frickin’ match to start :) I’ve been waiting ever since I watched the draw.

I’m a Die Hard AC Milan fan (although I'm very uncertain they're gonna be any good tonight) so I’m gonna be jumping up and down during the 90 minutes and maybe even between the two halves, which always makes my mom go crazy and then she plays that same old record “shw beddek b hal shaghleh, ya3ni shw estafadti gher enno bensamm badanek kol ma yeeji fihom goal, majnouneh, btes.hari w btet3abi bas 3ashan mbarah, hada hw Maldini?…etc”.

Anyway, so far, these are the confirmed squads for tonight’s match:

AC Milan:
IN: Abbiati, Dida, Abate, Antonini, Bonera, Favalli, Jankulovski, Kaladze, Nesta, Oddo, Thiago Silva, Ambrosini, Beckham, Flamini, Gattuso, Pirlo, Seedorf, Huntelaar, Inzaghi, Pato, Ronaldinho.
OUT: Borriello, Zambrotta

Manchester United:
IN: Van Der Sar, Foster, Kuszczak; Neville, Brown, J Evans, Fabio, Rafael, Evra; Valencia, Park, Nani, Obertan, Scholes, Fletcher, Carrick, Gibson; Rooney, Berbatov, Owen, Diouf.
OUT: O'Shea, Vidić, Giggs, Anderson
And Ferdinand is still unconfirmed

Let's go win this thing.

Please Don't Go...

 

According to Goal.com, Valencia star David Villa insisted he is happy at the club and not looking beyond the end of the season, El Guaje, as they call him, said he is committed to achieving Valencia’s goal in qualifying for the Champions’ League.

That’s just the kind of news that scares me :( I’m a huge Valencia fan; yeah Spanish football fans in Jordan are divided into three categories; Barcelona fans, Real Madrid fans, and yours truly, possibly the only Valencia fan out there, well let’s not exaggerate, there are probably another two or three :(

Back to the original point, usually (from my point of view) when a player postpones his answer to rumors about a transfer it’s usually true, I hope not though, he did say that his contract doesn’t end in 4 years, but that’s never an issue.

I hope I’m just being my pessimistic self :’(

Egypt to Final of CAN 2010

Egypt qualified to the final match of Africa Cup of Nations last night, after a 4-0 win over Algeria, I think the team deserved to win, not only because of the four goals, which I found amazing by the way, but also because they played fair compared to the Algerians.


Coffi Codjia, the referee from Benin, managed the game pretty well considering what everybody had expected.
I'm not sure whether this win will put an end to the Egypt Vs. Algeria saga, or do just the opposite and make it worse!


Personally, I think I prefer CAN 2008 and 2006, mainly because this version started out with the deadly attack on the Togolese team bus, while the only attack that I wanted to see was something that would end in scoring a goal, or even a missed chance! 
However, I'm glad that a new Egyptian star is rising, Mohammed Nagy 'Gedo' scored his fourth goal in the championship last night, and it has been reported that the English club Fulham is interested in him.
Here are the four goals :)