Here are some highlights from the eyes of Stampede’s two biggest football fans, Iwan and Shaiful.

Iwan

Most High Tech World Cup

Referees will have GoalControl watches in Brazil. Photograph: Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters

This is the first World Cup featuring goalline technology that helps deciding the goal. FIFA approved 4 kind of goalline technology to be use in World Cup 2014. They involve camera and chips embedded in the ball itself which uses the magnetic field sensor for detecting goals. While using camera is just as simple as watching replay, embedded chips come quite handy as well. FIFA also equipped referees with smartwatches that not only tell time, but will buzz when the ball crosses the line.

Another high tech gadgets is the ball itself. “Brazuca” is designed from scratch, thanks to 2010’s “Jabulani” failure.

Luis Suarez’s Choppers Strike Again

Looks like he didn’t learn from the past because Luiz Suarez bit again. Doing the offence for the third time this time, Suarez decided to bite on Italian defender, Giorgio Chiellini’s shoulder. While no actions were taken on the field, he was found guilty by FIFA and currently serving a ban for nine Uruguay matches and from all football activities for four months. He also apologised for the bite. Despite this biting saga Barcelona still signed him from Liverpool with a fee believed to be staggering 80 million euros. That’s 14 million less than Real Madrid paid for Christiano Ronaldo’s signature on June 2009. Crazy!

Neymar Jr’s injury

There is no doubt Neymar was Brazil’s best player throughout the World Cup 2014. Unfortunately, during the game where Brazil played against Colombia on quarter final, Colombian defender Juan Zuniga kneed Neymar’s back within the last 2 minutes. Nobody expected the worst. He was seen sobbing soon after, complaining to fellow teammate and defender Marcelo that he could not feel his leg. Nursing a broken vertebra, that was the end of his journey for World Cup 2014.

New Scoring Record

There are several records broken during World Cup 2014. On top of the order is World Cup’s all-time leading scorer. Owned by Brazil’s Ronaldo previously with 15 goals, the Germany veteran, 36 years old Miroslav Klose surpassed him by scoring his 16th goal when Germany defeated Brazil by 7-1 on the semifinal. His own teammate, 24 years old Thomas Müller also make the top ten by 10 goals.

Both have one more game to play on this World Cup – the grand finale – the one we all look forward to.

Shaiful

Spain’s Early Exit

They say the bigger you are, the harder you fall. The demise of defending champion and two consecutive European cup holder Spain marked the end of an era for Spanish football. No doubt they still have the same ‘dream team’ lineup on paper but it’s just not working on the pitch anymore this time. The rise and fall of a golden era is not uncommon in the football world with France as another good example. Anyhow, credit where it’s due, they held it for 5 years and boy, were they invincible!

Brazil & Germany Making It To The Final Leg

This is a trend that we don’t expect to end anytime soon. For every generation of players, these two teams would consistently make it to the playoffs. The squads ‘star power’ may not be as intimidating as Spain or England but they certainly have proven over and over again that they can score goals. The Germans fielded mostly similar faces from the last world cup except now they have matured and really mean business. And despite Brazil’s scorching unearthly defeat by Germany in the semi, we know that it will always be the greatest football nation in the world.

(Update: Brazil, the host team was convincingly beaten by the Dutch in the third-place playoff yesterday.)

It’s GER vs ARG tonight. Who are you rooting for?

The post World Cup 2014: The Talk appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.

Me attempting the soul grind technique

During the weekends, I spend most of my time inline skating with my friends. We are part of an official inline skating club established in 2010 based in Langkawi, Malaysia called SKROLS. Most people thought SKROLS is a combination of the word ‘skate’ and ‘rolls’, but it actually stands for Sukan Kasut Roda Langkah Sukar.

Anatomy of an inline skate

If you must know, there are several types of inline skating:

• Aggressive
• Roller hockey
• Artistic
• Freestyle slalom
• Downhill
• Recreational
• Speed skating

When I first started skating in end of 2010, I chose to start with recreational skate. Recreational skate is a basic skate method with flat setup where all wheels slot are filled with same size wheels. Skating method with flat setup have more stability and speed compared to banana setup. As a newbie before, I played recreational inline skate a lot on a flat surface, just as a way to build up skills.

After about 1 year recreational inline skating, one day I decided to attempt to play freestyle slalom. Turns out that I liked it.

If you must know, freestyle slalom skating is a highly technical field of skating that involves performing tricks around a straight line of equally spaced cones. Freestyle slalom uses full rocker setup, a.k.a banana setup. This makes skating much easier to turn and also easier to perform tricks but it lacks in the stability department. Just like recreational skating, the best place to attempt freestyle slalom is a location with a flat and smooth surface. It is definitely not recommended for a newbie because it is hard to maintain balance while attempting it.

After about 2 and half years which is about last two weeks, I attempted to try aggressive inline skating. I have to learn basic movement again using flat setup. It would be completely different to turn and build speed from using full rocker setup, and I fell many times trying to get the flow before I finally was able to master it. It was all worth it.

Different types of skate wheel setups

My next goal would be to attempt much more complicated inline skating methods, probably roller hockey or artistic? We’ll see.

Like many other new things to try, inline skating requires a lot of courage to start. I guess it is safe to say that to play inline skating, skaters must always be prepared to fall many times, being laughed at by friends and at times, get injured.

If you have been inline skating before, what skills have you mastered? Comment below!

(Sources for reference and images: Wikipedia and Inlineskating.about.com)

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