Rugby World Cup 2011

The most spectacular competition started this week. Rugby World Cup 2011 is happening in New Zealand this year. This is a great opportunity to find out more about this wonderful sport and not only.

For instance, there are 20 national teams in this World Cup. New Zealand was the first national rugby team which introduced a short dance in the opening of every game. This dance is called Haka and comes out from an ancient Maori ritual. Another teams like Tonga or Samoa followed this example and now you may see a tribal show at the start of each rugby game.

The specialists are saying that Haka must be not longer than 2 minutes else this ritual can open the gates to hell. Anyhow, let see some about sport.

On 9th of September was the opening ceremony in Auckland. The show was great and the former New Zealand captain, Jonah Lomu, was the most important figure. He earned the first World title for his country at the first Rugby World Cup, 24 years ago. There is a bookmaker quota of 1,55 for New Zealand to repeat such a great performance.

Another facts: the first rugby game played in New Zealand was in 1870 at Nelson ( Whakatu in Maori language). On May 12th 1870 was founded New Zealand’s first Rugby Football Club (continuing today). In the same year, Scotland national rugby team plyed their first international game.

Romania - France 0-0

Romania met France in a game for Euro 2012 - Poland & Ukraine qualifications. This is all. :) No, not really. Because there were no goals scored in this game but, at least, Romania has gossip. A lot of rumors showed up thanks of this event.

First of all let's see the game. It was not spectacular. Nothing extraordinary happened. Just a boring football game without goals and without anything else. France had 74,5% ball possession , Romania had the ball 13 minutes from 90. There were 51 minutes of effective game, actually.

This was the first game played on a new Romanian stadium. The name of it: National Arena. It was played in front of an audience of 55.000 people. The well known Romanian pop singer INNA, had a mini concert at the begining.

After this, Marcel Pavel, a great voice of Bucharest, sang Romanian National Anthem. Actually he did it bad and he get a fine of 1.500 Euro because of missing the song. This may happen... but FRF - Romanian Football Federation get the same fine for hiring the wrong person to sing the anthem.

A great stadium, which costed 250 million Euro, but a very bad football field. The grass carpet was totally damaged after 90 minutes of using it. It must be recovered until September the 14th when Steaua Bucharest wants to play a game in Europa League on the same stadium. The cost of reparation is 360.000 Euro.

The teams:
Romania: Tatarusanu - Luchin, Goian, Chiriches, Rat - Nicoita, Cocis, Bourceanu, C. Lazar ('43 B. Stancu), Tanase - Marica ('88 G.Bucur)
France: Lloris - Evra, Abidal, Rami, Sagna - Martin, Cabaye ('75 Nasri), M'Villa - Ribery, Benzema, Valbuena ('71 Remy)