That Damned Anh Jung-Hwan
I would never ever forget it, on June 19th 2002 that dawn…. that damned Ahn Jung-Hwan. I could never forget his name. The first Korean name that I remembered clearly. My Papah, my sister, and I, we were watching Italy vs South Korea, I was crying when Anh Jung-Hwan scored that damned goal!
The dawn was breaking with my crying, I was such a fanatic Italian football fan, I am still a football fan. It’s FOOTBALL, I don’t give a Shh- what you Americans want to call it, It’s football for me.
Papah spent the entire morning trying to console me and he got really firm when he told me to stop crying and go to school.
That was what happened when your papah gave you his ‘You’re a football fan-you’re an asian football fan-you have the strength to stay up all nite just to watch football’ DNA.
At age 10, I was the only girl in the school who knew what Offside was and The Dutch ‘Total Football’. Agus, my classmates was offside, I shouted at him telling him that he’s offside, he got upset and said, “Apaan si Sully opsait-opsait sok tau!” ^.^
19 years later, I realized. My papah must be very lonely in his old days, he had no friends, so he talked about football to his youngest daughter. Sharing all the things about football that he would share with his friends if he had any. Thankfully, I was such a great friend to him, I became a friend that he wished he had. We watched football, F1, Moto GP, badminton, and other things that he had an interest in.
Football was like a religion for him, he resented it when I was 14 and came home wearing AC Milan jersey, he was a Juventini and his daughter just disgraced him ^.^ Nothing broke his heart like the Calciopoli Scandal. He mumbled, “That’s not how you play football” while watching the news about it.
My sister stopped watching football as she grew older, but not me. I used to spare some of my pocket money to buy ‘Bola’, ‘Soccer’ or ‘Top Skor’ every Thursday and Friday. I would buy it, read some on my way home then gave it to my papah to read. I would read the it after my papah had finished it, usually on Saturday morning. I would ask him, “Malem ini bola apa, Pah?” then we would bet and bicker over our own favorite teams.
I stopped watching football in 2010. The best year because you had Vuvuzela, Jabulani, and Waka-Waka by Shakira. Watching the 2010 world cup was suffocating, I sat alone, turned on the TV, watched the game, commented on the game, and got no reply. He was supposed to reply, for every comment every rant that I said, he was supposed to reply but he didn’t because he was not there. He was not there with me, he was not watching football with me. He SUPPOSED to watch football with me. God took him from me in February 2010. I couldn't stand the pain, I turned the TV off and stopped watching football for years just like how I stopped eating mango and Sate.
June 19th 2002 was a painful memory back then, I still hate Ahn Jung-Hwan up until now hahahah I know it’s irrational, but that’s the beauty of being a football fans. At that time, we (the Italian football team) had Del Piero, Pippo, Vieri, Totti, Cannavaro, Nesta, Maldini, and the Great Gigi Buffon, for crying out loud — THEY ARE GODS! There ain’t no waaaayyyy the South Korean could beat us, but they did! The friggin referee was unfair! (I forgot his name tho! I swore that I was gonna ‘Santet’ him along with Jung-Hwan)
19 years later, I still believe that the South Korean team didn’t deserve to win! Me, currently typing while listening to BTS :P , scooping my Haagen-Dazs using my Park Jimin spoon, and just watched Vicenzo-Song Joong Ki 3 hours ago.
PS: But for real tho, I love the Korean culture and its variety shows now, but every time the name Ahn Jung Hwan is said, I just pout right away :D