8 July 2010, Singapore – Recently I went for the blogger engagement event for the launch of www.CASTROLFOOTBALL.com at Brewerkz at Riverside Point to find out more about the football/soccer fanaticism and predictive modelling in an iPhone application.
I blogged about this event and the application to my readers on SUPERADRIANME.com and through my twitter account and to my pleasant surprised I won the category on Interaction and amount of conversation generated! Wow, simply amazing. CASTROL sponsored the pizzas, beer and Vuvuzelas for the 2 hours of early morning fun. So I rounded up a couple of cousins for this party. Thought it would also be a great time to catch up with them since we rarely meet during occasions such as Chinese New Year, the occasional parent/grandparent birthdays, weddings, 1 month old parties and Christmas.
Anyway, I pulled out my iPhone and checked out the Castrol F’Ball application to see my odds for the two competing nations. Instinct also told me to expect the unexpected. Before the match, I hadn’t heard of Paul the Octopus! So I didn’t know he had picked Spain. If we had Paul the Octopus earlier, who’ll need the Match Predictors from this application.
I did further homework before driving over to my cousin’s place. Since I was not really a fan of the Worldcup, I picked up my copy of FourFourTwo Complete Guide to The World Cup to read up about the 2 teams. I didn’t want to look ignorant in front of my cousins who were all avid soccer fans.
I learnt that the Germans have not beaten any of the big footballing nations – Argentina, Brazil, England, France, Holland, Italy or Spain – at a tournament in regulation time or after extra-time since 1990. Wins against Argentina in 2006 and England in 1996 were both on penalties. Another interesting fact for Spain – They set a new record during qualification for this summer’s World Cup since no country has ever qualified for the finals with a perfect 10 out of 10 record.
Some of us were talking about Paul the Octopus, others arranging their next soccer game which they play quite regularly on weekends and some were getting ready their side bets on which team would win the match. I had my bets on Spain! I realized as I watched the match that the Germans were relatively taller than their Spanish counterparts. However, that didn’t put the Spanish team in a disadvantage. Their flexible, nimble movements were rather impressive.
I was getting fidgety waiting for either sides to score a goal! My cousins were getting hungry. We had ordered our Pizzas at 2am but it didn’t arrive slightly after half time!! But boy, were we glad when the food came.
Unfortunately, we were rather muted as Uncle Roy and Auntie Phila were sound asleep in the room behind the television!
Check out my tweets, as I documented the night through my iPhone.
Here you go. Paul the Octopus picks Spain for the finals. Let’s watch tomorrow and see whether he’s accurate or whether Mani the Parrot is more accurate.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya85knuDzp8]
Competitive as we are, we just had to introduce Mani the parrot in Singapore who has to pick the opposite of Paul.
Let’s see if the match predictor on CASTROLFOOTBALL.com will work again for the finals.
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