2012: Year of Underdogs and Unpredictable

I think this year, 2012 can be known as the year of underdogs and unpredictable. In sports, we saw one yesterday, and a week back. In politics, we also saw two countries whose ruling party losing in the election.

Yesterday, Chelsea captured the Champions League by beating Bayern Munich in penalties by 4-3 after finishing in extra time by 1-1. What made the result looked brilliant was the fact that Chelsea played at his opponent's home ground, the Allianz Arena Stadium. Besides, they played without six regulars, was scored against in the last 10 minutes of the game, and they missed out the first penalty kick. Chelsea is also famous for utilizing the most of their little chances. They did it against Bayern, when the goal scored by Didier Drogba in the 87 minutes came from their first corner kick. They also did it against Barcelona in the semis when the scored the only goal from the only attacking chance.

A week ago, we saw how Manchester City came back from trailing 1-2 to Queens Park Rangers, and fought back in injury time to score another 2 goals to finish the game by 3-2. This was unbelievable, when everyone was seeing them struggling to score until the 92nd minutes. Though they were not the underdog before the start of the game, they were made one by QPR especially until the 90th minutes when it was known that Manchester United was leading 1-0 and on the verge of winning the Premier League. If the results did not change, Man Utd would have won the Barclays Premier League. However, with positive attitude and strong self believe, Man City got the last goal at the last minute with the last kick by Sergio Aguero.

Two weeks ago, we saw the lost of France President Nicolas Sarkozy in the presidential election, and a week ago, we saw Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats party lost in a state election. It seems like there is a trend going on in Europe that the head of government will be kicked out if the economic crises was not handled correctly, as seen in Ireland, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Spain, Slovenia, Slovakia and the Netherlands.

Well, these interesting development that happened so far in the first half of the year is really pointing to the fact that more surprises will come. This is also a sign to show to our government if the General Election should be held this year. Are we going to see the same surprises as in France??

Besides, we are also hoping that our badminton Datuk is able to beat the odds and overcome Lin Dan to be the undisputed and rightful world number one. He will surely start as the underdog if he meets Lin Dan in the final.