I was on holidays in China and I found out that screening of world cup matches are totally free and live on their local tv stations like CCTV.
CCTV opened a online streaming site which allows the people to watch the matches online as well.
When I tried to access it in Singapore, access was unfortunately denied and they claimed that it was only opened to people accessing the net from China.
The newspaper in China had many articles on the World Cup, with a time table of the matches, stating the date and time of the match and on which channel can you catch them.
I watched a few matches during my stay in China.
Well, the Finals are approaching! Some results along the way were quite surprising, with some teams making substantial improvements from their last World Cup in 2006, their standards raised so alarmingly! These teams include Uruguay, Netherlands and Paraguay.
Many were in total shock when they witness how Netherlands denied Brazil their entry into the Semi-Finals. Brazil lost their cool when the opposing team scored their first goal, where a defender made a mistake to challenge the ball with the goalkeeper. The first goal was counted as an own goal by the defender, while Robben was the one who lobbed in the ball.
The Brazilians panicked and lost another goal, for which they will have to say goodbye to the World Cup.
Personally, my favourite team was Germany, who had always been a power house in international soccer. I admire their style of play, which is flexible and steady.
They proved their power by defeating Argentina, whom many thought had a chance for the champions. It was no ordinary victory, it was an overwhelming, all out victory of 4-0.
England was also a well-known team, who had an interesting journey out of the World Cup.
They supposedly scored a goal against Germany in the Round of 16, but was not spotted by the assistant referee, as the ball bounced out after crossing the line. This goal could have been an equaliser for them which will boost their morale before half time.
David James was the goalkeeper for this match, after Robert Green was substituted out of the team after his tragic mistake of letting a harmless ball into the net.
I will be going to Penang next week for the Inaugural Chung Ling International Camp, probably will miss the Finals.