Random and Slightly Random Thoughts

I may not be with my gulag for long. My senior said she would be going for her second interview with another gulag. She said that the interviewer liked her and said that people with her attributes (coherent communication skills, finance and IT trained) are hard to find in this market. If she is selected, her salary will probably be a lot more than what she is earning now. I don't thank my gulag is going to match her asking price of $5k, which is very reasonable, considering that she has to handle several projects and resolve calls from countries across Asia. When she goes, I'll tender my resignation as well. Even if they double my slave wages, there is absolutely no way I can handle so many calls and so much project work alone. And given the size of our systems support department (just me and my senior), things will simply just be impossible after she is gone. So, the beautiful and inevitable thing is that she embarks on her new career; I concentrate on staving off relegation in my final season. No big loss except my income, which is shite anyway.


It occurred to me that there is a pattern to the winners of the World Cup.

1990: Germany played dour, mechanical football.
1994: Brazil probably played their most tactical and defensive side ever.
1998: France came good with Zidane-inspired attacking play.
2002: Brazil and Ronaldo scored goals for fun.
2006: Italy defended their way to the title.
2010: Spain passed their way to glory.

Notice the pattern: defensive > defensive > attacking > attacking > defensive > defensive*

The next World Cup winner will be an attacking side. What do you think?

* For all their possession and dominance in the opposite half, Spain should be regarded as defensive despite initial impressions. Traditionally sides pack their defences in their own half. Spain's pressing and high offside line may appear offensive, but this is in reality an inversion of positioning rather than of mindset. In other words, they defended by suffocating their opponents in their own half and stopping their attacks from forming instead of using the more traditional and common mode of allowing their opponents to start their attacks and then sitting back near their own goal to defend. To somewhat bolster my argument, Spain scored the least number of goals among past winners of the World Cup and conceded only one throughout the whole tournament.