Grace Under Pressure

Today I looked for the quittance of the postal office in order to verify my claims for the money from the Keane-ticket I had sold four weeks ago. With its help I was able to look up the way of transportation of the ticket via the Internet-page of EMS. And guess what – I was right and he was wrong, the ticket had been delivered right in time, 30 minutes before noon on the 18th of March. Well, bad luck for him, but as far as he completes the bank transfer I am quite satisfied.

Tomorrow I have got an appointment at the oral surgeon, he has to remove the sutures deriving from my wisdom teeth surgery last week. Furthermore I will arrange an appointment for the next surgery – the one of my left jaw, which will be great fun because my wisdom tooth in the lower left jaw underlies the gingival. That means he has to cut it off with a scalpel first – another job for those marvellous painkillers I will get by recipe again. Alright, have to stop talking about it now, since the pain descending from my right jaw has disappeared some days ago, I can enjoy everyday life pretty well again and so I wanna do until the next surgery.

Right now I am back in Ried – because of the reason mentioned before, but I have to get back to Salzburg tomorrow at about 10am again because of some lectures. After that we’ll practice for the OÖ-football-tournament next week in Hagenberg, where our FH will participate as a guest team from another federal state. I am looking forward to playing out in the grass again – football in the hall is quite funny, but it’s just – as said before – football in the hall. As you may have already recognized, football plays some role in my life. I watch approximately 250-300 matches every year, a combination of live football and football on TV. If somebody would ask me for the best three matches I have ever seen, I gave him following answer:

Live at a stadium:

1. SV Ried vs. FC Tirol Innsbruck 5:0 (1999 – Tirol was leading the table and unbeaten since that day, the standing at half time break was 0:0 – in the 2nd half we sent them back to the Alps)
2. GAK vs. SV Ried 3:2 (2004 – although we lost, it was a heroic fight against 12 opponent players, including the referee, against the later Austrian champion and cup winner)
3. SV Ried vs. FC Linz 1:0 (1995 – maybe not a great match, but maybe the most important in the history of Ried, a thrilling game that secured us the place in the Austrian Bundesliga)
4. LASK vs. SV Ried 0:1 (2004 – first victory against the arch enemy on their own territory – sealed by a header after a corner kick in the first minute of injury time – right in front of the fans from Ried)
5. SV Ried vs. Austria Wien 1:0 (2003 – the big city against the small village. 25 millions against 4 millions. glorious win against the later champion, even if it was a bit lucky)

Live on TV:

1. Chelsea vs. Vicenza Calcio 3:1 (1998 – cup of cupwinners, semifinals. Chelsea needed a 2-0 after a 0-1 loss in Vicenza. At the standing of 1-1 it was maybe one of the fastest played games I ever saw)
2. Czech Republic vs. Netherlands 3:2 (2004 – the best game during the EM in Portugal – by far – after trailing a 0-2, our neighbours came back and turned the game to their favour)
3. Arsenal vs. Manchester United 2:4 (2005 – unbeaten at Highbury, the Gunners suffered a defeat that was highly impressive because of the strength and the will United had shown that day)
4. Manchester United vs. Bayern Munich 2:1 (1999 – the legendary Champions League final where the Germans were in front until injury time – losing it thanks to two goals after corner kicks in the 91st and 93rd minute)
5. Can’t think of a fifth match right now, probably I will complete this line later.

Gotta go now, need to see Bayern Munich losing against Chelsea (even though I don’t like the Blues neither).

* quotation in the topic by Ernest Hemingway