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DEL.ICIO.USIf it’s not about us, we don’t care
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
AP / England fan Gary Kitchin says there's nothing to fear from his lot.
That’s the gist of what you’ll be reading from American sports pundits, particularly over the next week before the World Cup starts. Here’s one of first examples of what will become a very tiresome meme. The AJC’s Mark Bradley, who happens to like the game of footy rather well, will offer his thoughts on the subject when our World Cup page goes live this weekend.
While Yank media types can’t compare to their overseas brethren when it comes to speculation or hyperbole, this is an interesting rumination: What if our greatest athletes played soccer? All this misses the point: Instead of athleticism, what about skill? We’re producing terrific athletes, as Oguchi Onyewu, the lead example, personifies. What’s longer in the R & D tank is the kind of playmaking and instinctive play that we’re going to see in buckets in the coming month.
To me, the jury’s still out on whether we can crank out top footy players the way we do gridballers, hoopsters and sluggers. The systematic, coach-oriented approach doesn’t lend itself to permit creative, improvisational play. The last guy who graced SI’s World Cup cover, that lad Mathis from Conyers, has been out of the loop for some time now, primarily for not tending properly to that rare gift he was given.
Cranky Yank hacks who have adopted “soccer is the sport of the future in America and always will be” as a mantra will snort about the system of player development in the U.S. for different reasons. To be fair, what we have now is vastly improved from where it was even a decade ago, And not just the birth of MLS and the Bradenton U-17 program as well as the league’s newly-created reserve teams, all of which will continue to be very important.
If you are a Yank and you can make an impression in Britain, they’ll treat you rather fondly, as is the case here regarding the rise of Bobby Convey. I’ve got a hunch he could make an even bigger impression in the coming month, before he makes his Premier League debut with Reading next season.
In the world of footy, the Brits have a long rep as the kings of jingo, but the ever-clever blokes at The Guardian have some fun mocking self-absorbed American politics and pop culture, which isn’t all that hard to do. But they do it very well.
In-gerland is always trying to put up a wholesome front because of a band of marauding fans always much smaller than the attention they derive. Tens of thousands of them are going to descend upon Deutschland, most of them without tickets.
Allright, this all too serious and ponderous stuff. Want some early predictions? The Onion’s stellar site offers a few likely scenarios for the Cup, and strangely some of them might have to be believed.
Comments
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By p
June 3, 2006 9:19 AM | Link to this
the ‘our greatest athletes’ line is always funny. our greatest althetes wouldn’t pass FIFA’s drug testing, that’s why.
By Bill Willen
June 3, 2006 1:31 PM | Link to this
Unbelievable that a newspaper like AJC not only arroganty ignores the worlds #1 sport, but they even ignore to write about the new Atlanta Silverback stadium. How low can you get ????
By Wendy Parker
June 3, 2006 2:06 PM | Link to this
Bill — Check out the metro section of Saturday’s newspaper about the Silverbacks’ new home.