How the English Press Covered the US Win
The United States 2-0 win over Spain in yesterday’s FIFA Confederations Cup semifinal has sent shock waves through the UK based football media. While some genuinely objective journalists exist at the UK based papers most have nothing but a biting contempt based on ignorance towards Football in the USA.
The UK based punditry has also elevated Spain to world power status and bookmakers have installed them as the World Cup 2010 favorite while ignoring Spain’s poor World Cup history and the tradition of bad performances of European national teams in competitions held outside of Europe.
The Guardian, always more cosmopolitan and fairer in their coverage ran this story by the always interesting Amy Lawerence atop their football page. (It’s now buried due to today’s transfer news and sad passing of Steven Wells, another person who stood up for the US in the English footy press)
The Times buried this story on their football page. The piece was written by Gabriele Marcotti who grew up in the US.
The Telegraph ran this story focusing on the Spanish angle.
The Independent ran a story in the morning UK time but by the afternoon it was gone.
The Mirror ran this story featuring Tim Howard near the bottom of its Football page.
The Mail completely ignored the result inspite of running several transfer related stories about Spanish players.
The Sun? Don’t ask. But since you did here was the writeup in classic Sun style.
We’re not all bad, Kartik. If I ever get into a position of influence I’ll be singing US praises all over the place!
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Thanks Chris!
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Kartik – I was following the soccernet.com blog-gametracker and it was obviously at Brit with the way he would phrase things. I couldn’t believe the stuff he was saying under the auspcies of ESPN. It was funny but sarcastic and rude. Like in the beginning, “welcome to Spain trouncing the Americans blog” or something to that effect.
The funniest line was when Fabregas went off he stated “I’m sorry everyone, I didn’t know that he had a yellow streak down his hair until just now like a moron. I’m sorry I hadn’t disclosed that to you until now.”
But at the end he did give the Nats credit for the way they played and a couple of times he mentioned it should have been 3 or 4 nil. Crazy Brits.
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Btw, just to make clear — the soccernet guy was referring to Fabregas as the moron not himself, LOL. The transcript should still be up on soccernet.com. What a great day for US football.
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One more post – what was with all the empties at the stadium? I thought it was an MLS match.
David Villa was so chippy the whole game. Fabregas is all class – he always tries to be the peacemaker and he’s like that at Arsenal too.
I thought DeMerit could have been called for a PK when he locked arms with Ramos. Ramos didn’t make too much fuss, which was surprising, so that’s probably part of the reason why no PK.
Feilhaber made that Dempsey goal happen. He had to deke a couple of times to free himself in the middle and then sent a ball through to Landon in space. Landon got totally lucky on the cross and Dempsey made a meal out of it. But that dangerous play is because of Benny. Is he not fit — is that why BB only uses him for 30-40 minutes? Otherwise, he’s the QB a la Claudio Reyna that we’re lacking most of the time. Pls play Benny more.
And while you’re at it BB, please play more guys who hold the ball, don’t panic, and have an idea where the run of playing is going — I’m talking Torres and Adu. Since it’s a 99.9999% it is not going to happen on Sunday, I hope they get to play in the Gold Cup.
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Finally getting our due!
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Those wankers (wink wink) are envious of us!
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Btw, what is Bradley’s reaction to all the red cards — 2 out of the 3 were undeserved. Even Sasha’s could have been yellow carded. Doesn’t FIFA want games to be decided meritorious rather than have the complete shape of the game change with one red? I hope the refs are told to be conservative about flashing the red in South Africa next year or it’s going to be an absurd display — much like that Portugual v. Netherlands match last WC. Give some warnings. Talk to the players. Don’t just be Draconian at the first instance.
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