Sports Star Exhibit
Todays Profile Kaka
By Quazi Zulquarnain Islam
Description
A tireless worker who is blessed with creativity, good passing skills and a stunning shot, attacking midfield player Ricardo Izecson Santos Leite, aka Kaká
, moved to Italy in the summer of 2003 vowing to "combine Brazilian fantasy with the tactical discipline of European football". Kaka is midfield cum forward par excellence and has filled the considerable boots of the legendary Rivaldo with aplomb. He is also part of Brazil's famed triumvirate that also includes Real Madrid's Ronaldo and Barcelona's Ronaldinho.
National team
After representing Brazil at the 2001 FIFA World Youth Championship, he enjoyed a memorable breakthrough year in 2002: making his international debut against Bolivia before playing for his country at the FIFA World Cup. Since then he starred in the Brazilian Under-23 side that lost the 2003 CONCACAF Gold Cup final to Mexico scoring some spectacular goals and appeared regularly in qualifying for the 2006 World Cup, although he was not selected for the 2004 Copa América.
Club
Born in Brasília in 1982, Kaká is a product of the Brazilian giants São Paulo FC's youth system. He played 56 league games in three seasons for São Paulo, scoring 22 goals. With his São Paulo contract due to expire in 2004, Kaka completed an €
8.5m move to European champions Milan in June 2003, after months of speculation that linked him to amongst other clubs, Chelsea. He however signed a four-year contract with the Italian giants.
2003/04: Kaka excelled in his first season in Serie A, quickly establishing himself as regular and scoring ten times as Milan secured their 17th Scudetto. He was also an ever-present in their UEFA Champions League campaign that ended so spectacularly in the hands of Deportivo La Coruna.
2004/05: Kaka suffered a slight dip in form during the middle part of the season but he was back to his best as he ushered his team into the finals of the UEFA Champions League, providing the cross for teammate Massimo Ambrosini to head home the winning goal against PSV.
Name Kaká
Full Name Ricardo Izecson Santos Leite
Birthdate 22.4.1982
Place of Birth Brasilia
Nation Brazil
Position Attacking Midfield/Forward
Height 183 cm
Weight 73 KG |
Did you know?
· With his first kick of the game, Kaká
scored Brazil's winning goal in their opening 2006 World Cup qualifier against Colombia.
· Unlike most other Brazilian players Kaka's roots are not in the famed favelas of Brasilia. Rather he is the son of one of the wealthiest man in all of Brasilia.
As usual mails, suggestions, requests and the regulation howlers are all welcome at ( zulquarnain.islam@gmail.com ). For requests, I will try to get to them ASAP so please have some patience.
By Lancer
Some things never change.
For one, the propensity that a rather surprisingly large number of people have for pouring substantial sums of money into cosmetically corrupting their cars to the consternation and considerable discomfort of a larger number of people who have to bear witness to the fruits of such malevolent evolution seems to be adequately constant.
Or, more simply put, the aftermath of the Fast and the Furious, and us mere mortals caught in the wake of people with too much money stacking plastic skirts, heaps of stickers (termed decals, failure to remember which is sacrilege), and extremely loud (and generally not-so-flattering) exhaust pipes onto their ordinary, perfectly serviceable garden-variety Toyota Corollas and Honda Civics.
Add the requisite amount of grotesquely overdone sound systems designed to give the faint of heart coronaries about a hundred times a minute, and the "music" designed to achieve just that with the maximum efficacy.
Seriously speaking, now, what's the point?
Is it (the heavens be praised if so) to enhance the performance of said cars? If so, it's rather sad to load up the poor things with extra weight and leech away valuable power from the actual engine to driving "boom-boxes." A shame, indeed.
It might even be conceivable that said people intend, through various twisted means, to achieve some kind of aesthetic benefit. which must necessarily entail the adornment of the defenseless vehicles with enough plastic to equip a small army with body armor, and a tail wing from the back of a jumbo jet. And advertising stickers (coupled with the ubiquitous flames, dragons and/or wild beasts along the sides) from a million and one brands, half of which don't even make automobile material. Which, once again, somehow seems to defy the point.
Benevolent altruism to fill the world with music, perhaps? Indeed, such a noble cause stands by its own merit… if the "music" in concern wasn't necessarily of the kind dedicated to slay an elephant at a hundred thousand paces. It genuinely is that bad, infallibly consisting of either the latest "yo da black man he got bad-posterior rap, maan" or "yo da Indian dude he done do da black man with rap, maan" or, failing all, the techno you think you'll never grow out of… when you're twelve.
Of course, there is the faint possibility that the endless work that goes into shaping one's car along such creative lines might, hypothetically, have such a down-to-earth purpose as merely flaunting one's ample reserves of money. Dear dad, and all that. Which, while understandable, is hardly forgivable on counts preceding above; adding to which, one's ability to pour the "dosh" into junk seems appears most definitely to reflect a most pitiable lack of taste. And sense to go with it.
Ouch, to be sure, but if the same money got you a suitably corrupted (read, ruined) Honda Civic with "all of the works" and a bigger, better Honda Accord (sticking to the same brand for comparison's sake)… which is about what it does… blimey.
And for those daring, or merely ignorant souls out there who proceed to go "street-racing" (as they term stepping on the gas on a long straight patch of emptiness and screeching for a grand fifteen seconds at a time down Gulshan) in such beautifully riced vehicles, smoking on the go-fast pipe requires that you have the brakes to stop fast while you're at it.
If you haven't a clue, the advice that you'd get from most decent, professional racer-type people would be to go home and play more Need for Speed on your Playstation 2s. Instead of cutting a rather ridiculous scene in every mildly sensible way imaginable. Unless, of course, the latter seems preferable.
Of course, some things never change.
