Daily Lessons from Life 20 May 2012 - Weird Incident and Football Destiny

1. Weird Incident

Forgot to relate a strange incident yesterday when I went for my regular jog and walk routine at the stadium track near my home. A regular jogger whom I do not know but can recognised suddenly explored on me as he felt my constant clearing of my nose was directed at him. At least that was his perception. He even said he had been bottling up this resentment since the day before, which I had no idea what he was talking about as I did not jog on Friday.

I was glad that I apologised to him and shared with him that the clearing of nose was never meant for him. I shake his hand and told him I am good with this and that we should go on our healthy pursuit of exercising. I left it at that. I was pleased that I managed to exercise self-control. :-) Strange but something I need to be aware and not clear my nose whenever I jog passed other joggers to avoid misunderstanding.

2. Football Destiny

One of the BIGGEST stories in sports today has to be the unlikeliest team to win the European Champions League (CL) at Bayern Munich's home ground - Chelsea, otherwise known contemptuously by me as Chelski due to the hundred of millions dumped on it by its Russian oil oligarch owner.

He is obviously into football as he has spent a lot of money to build a club and buy successes with highly talented players and coaches and managers. But despite all these money, he never succeeded in landing the CL title. Last night, his team did it. A team with ageing players and a care-taker manager. A team that had destiny written by some higher order that it is THE TEAM to win this CL trophy this season. How else can one explained the Houdini-like escape in that quarter final against Napoli of Italy trailing 1-3 into the 2nd leg, which they won by 4-1 to force extra time and won it! How else can one explained their conquest of Barcelona, ex-Champions, with their best player had his penalty saved and the Barca players hitting the cross-bar and goal posts not once but 4 times in total in the 2-leg semi-final. How else can you account for the penalty by one of Bayern Munich's star player's penalty save by Chelsea's goal-keeper during the 2nd period of extra time? And then, the biggest mystery of Drogba, the ageing Ivorian striker who scored the equaliser in the 88th minutes after Thomas Mueller has fired Bayern Munich into the 1-0 lead on 83th minute of the regular game; and then scored the winning penalty at the penalty shoot-out after the 4th penalty taker of Bayer Munich hit the goal post!

Based on statistics alone, Bayern Munich should have scored 50 to 70% more than Chelsea as it absolutely dominated possession, number of corners, and number of attempts on goal! Not forgetting to mentioned the goal bound football in the 1st half that somehow hit the upright and bounced out into of into the net!

I am one that believe in 'we make our own destinies'. Yet, it humbled me that perhaps, just maybe, there is such a thing called FATE. Thankfully it only happened in football, where victories and defeats, glories and quit-exit, joy of winning and the sorrow of losing are mere fleeting moments in life, that really has NO permanent impact on life itself. No life and death were involved.

Hopefully my belief in 'we make our own destinies' still hold true for many other important life events! :-)