The "all-encompassing" France National team WC 06 chat [R]

[ilv2]

good lord. do they just write whatever comes to the top of their head regardless of their utter ignorance?

actually did i really need to ask that question?

as you pointed out this little gem is just pure farce:
Crime-ridden estates such as Clichy-sous-Bois — comparable to America's own disastrous experiment with project housing such as Chicago's notorious Cabrini Green — ring the capital of the country and have become huge dumping grounds for unemployed immigrant youth. Many of these youths became further radicalized by extremist imams and the areas as a whole have provided a number of terrorist insurgents.

ugh!!! why?!!
*sent those idiots at fsc some feedback, please feel free to join in.

[ilv2]

Ok, i know i've been posting up links to quite a bit of video recently, and well... here's another one:

Arret Sur Images did on sunday a big edition on les bleus including the relationship between Domenech and the media, Domenech and the players, the players, the ambiance in the vestiaire and everything else. Interesting viewing:

http://www.france5.fr/asi/

[guignol]

Easy, Ganu, breath. Lalas is a former pro player, and wrote some nice stuff on mls.net . Probably he could check some data better, but soccer in north america needs people like him.i don't want to argue, but SI, despite being the preeminent american sports publication, has always had perfectly woeful soccer writers... there used to be a guy named gabriel marcotti... i don't know if he was italian or just his name, but his football world seemed to begin and end with the seria A, which he understood about as well as i do...

wow! a quick look around SI shows me this hack STILL HAS A JOB! :eek: and look at this http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/jonah_freedman/06/05/cup.rankings/index.html

his 1-10 are subject to argument but hey, everyone's entitled to an opinion, even if that opinion is that mexico is better than the dutch or the czechs, or that the germans beating luxembourg makes them second favorites... but after that it gets silly... saying that the US lineup is "pretty damn good" (look out world :rolleyes: ), that croatia is 20th because they have tablecloth kits, that T&T is better than japan, angola or togo...

And yes, Jerry Lewis was never popular in France. It was a commercial hoax.well, P-H, for someone who's never loathe to look grim hexagonal realities square in the face, you bottled here. the institut lumière just had a jerry lewis festival with the great man in attendance, and everything was sold out before my wife (a big fan) could get a seat for either film or conference.

[guignol]

Crime-ridden estates such as Clichy-sous-Bois — comparable to Chicago's notorious Cabrini Green... :confused:

i wonder if as many people are murdered every year in all of france as in cabrini, where the unpleasantness in the cités last november would represent a period of relative calm.

this is sports reporting? :confused:

their take on ligue 1 may have a certain tenuous relation to reality, but it's viciously negative, just like the rest. even marianne gets a raking over. and france has 40% chance to get out of their group?

it says faux all over it. they even find ways to lance barbs at the cheese eating surrender monkeys in the articles for poland, ivory coast and togo...

[Nanbawan]

well, P-H, for someone who's never loathe to look grim hexagonal realities square in the face, you bottled here. the institut lumière just had a jerry lewis festival with the great man in attendance, and everything was sold out before my wife (a big fan) could get a seat for either film or conference.

It's true that Mr lewis earned some kind of recognition in France for his shameless burlesque antics attempts ; he has been quite popular too which -I can understand- raised an eyebrow or two in the US at the time. Yet, stating the fact that French are (still) completely crazy about him and considering that as a major defining fact about all of us serves another purpose...

To prove that we have sh_tty taste while being proud of our so-called cultural grandeur, blah ! Blah ! Blah ! I easily imagine them picturing a French minister honoring Jerry lewis with all the ridicule pompe of our decaying society...Which might have happened BTW. Anyway, I'm still amazed that this particular cliché pops up somewhere near the pole-position !

[guignol]

then how do you explain louis de funès? :confused:

i think there's something about that type of comedy that the french appreciate, and if others find it woeful, well, les goûts et les couleurs...!

after all, the americans laugh at everybody loves raymond! (and that's just for starters!) :p

[Lensois]

i don't want to argue, but SI, despite being the preeminent american sports publication, has always had perfectly woeful soccer writers... there used to be a guy named gabriel marcotti... i don't know if he was italian or just his name, but his football world seemed to begin and end with the seria A, which he understood about as well as i do.

Marcotti is Italian born, US raised and educated. His main job is actually for the UK's largest commercial radio station TalkSport.

As for SI, what do you really expect from a publication that covers the game maybe once a year? It may be the preeminent US sports publication (American might be stretching it as I don't know it's popularity in Latin America) but you'd have to add that it's the preeminent US sports publication covering US sports. Once it leaves the comfort of the big three sports here you're bound to run into problems. No one in this country looking for real, in depth football news is going to SI for their fix.

[Grell]

I agree Lensois, Sports Illustrated is a terrible magazine that fawns over american football and baseball, they know nothing about true Football and they hire hacks that think they know what they're talking about but really haven't a clue.

Regards,

Grell

[Metropolitan]

I agree that Josephine Baker, the British Petula Clarck or even Woody Allen were/are more famous in France than in their respective countries, but about Jerry Lewis I have strong doubts. Probably he was well-known in the 50's, but he quickly disappeared from people's memory. Actually, I'm not even able to remember any of his songs...

[Nanbawan]

Not Jerry Lee 'Great Balls of Fire' Lewis, we were talking about the comedian Jerry Lewis...Hmm, unless you were talking about the same.

then how do you explain louis de funès?

Oh, I've never said we did not like this type of humor, it's just Jerry Lewis is not a model role or a hero for French people as some people might claim...:rolleyes: Now, de Funès ! If Americans were making fun of us because he is utterly popular, at least that would be true! I wonder how the French haters would make it coherent with our über sophisticated reputation. Bah, with a little bit of luck their head -full of scum- may explode as a result ! :D

[Metropolitan]

Jerry Lewis isn't the singer ? Than who is he ?? :confused:

[Nanbawan]

Jerry Lewis isn't the singer ? Than who is he ??

See, guignol (the poster) ? :p

http://www.autographsuccess.com/jerry_lewis3.jpg http://www.brownsteins.net/Ulpan/Images/JerryLewis.jpg

[gaijin]

The Nutty Proffessor ffs.

Come on guignol, you know who Jerry Lewis is.

[Nanbawan]

Come on guignol, you know who Jerry Lewis is.

I said : See, guignol (the poster) ? because Metropolitan struggled to remember about him which seems to impliy that he's not that popular in France in opposition with what guignol was stating.

BTW, I apologise for bringing this topic for the last pages...:o

[Gabriele Marcotti]

i don't want to argue, but SI, despite being the preeminent american sports publication, has always had perfectly woeful soccer writers... there used to be a guy named gabriel marcotti... i don't know if he was italian or just his name, but his football world seemed to begin and end with the seria A, which he understood about as well as i do...

wow! a quick look around SI shows me this hack STILL HAS A JOB! :eek: and look at this http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/jonah_freedman/06/05/cup.rankings/index.html

his 1-10 are subject to argument but hey, everyone's entitled to an opinion, even if that opinion is that mexico is better than the dutch or the czechs, or that the germans beating luxembourg makes them second favorites... but after that it gets silly... saying that the US lineup is "pretty damn good" (look out world :rolleyes: ), that croatia is 20th because they have tablecloth kits, that T&T is better than japan, angola or togo...

well, P-H, for someone who's never loathe to look grim hexagonal realities square in the face, you bottled here. the institut lumière just had a jerry lewis festival with the great man in attendance, and everything was sold out before my wife (a big fan) could get a seat for either film or conference.

Umm... I didn't write that. Somebody else did. (the name at the top of the page is a give-away...)

But thanks for the vote of confidence... though you'll have to point out other ludicrous things I wrote if you want to have a go at me...

[guignol]

Umm... I didn't write that. Somebody else did. (the name at the top of the page is a give-away...)

But thanks for the vote of confidence... though you'll have to point out other ludicrous things I wrote if you want to have a go at me...

mr. marcotti,

i apologize if my post led anyone to assume you wrote that article, something i never meant to imply.

i didn't realize i would be called upon to support my opinion of your writing, and am not well prepared to do so. the articles i took issue with concerned the champions league 2004-5.

to the plebe in forums like this, players, coaches and sportswriters are public figures, and fair game. i would never permit myself to be so unkind to a fellow poster; now that i realize that you are one, i regret having spoken so harshly.

please accept my most humble apologies.

brian priddy

[Lensois]

Umm... I didn't write that. Somebody else did. (the name at the top of the page is a give-away...)

But thanks for the vote of confidence... though you'll have to point out other ludicrous things I wrote if you want to have a go at me...

I for one was clear on the fact that guignol was writing about two different things. Perhaps his organization wasn't the greatest but it was pretty evident, to me at least, that he wasn't claiming you were the one who wrote the article to which he provided the link. Even if it wasn't, it was also made evident by the fact that your name was not the name or picture at the top of the article.

Since that misunderstanding is entirely cleared up, why don't you drop by to our little forum more often Monsieur Marcotti? I was unaware you were a BS member but I see you spend a lot of time in some other forums, why not spend a bit more time letting us have a go at, er I mean chatting with us?;)

[sl7vk]

Umm... I didn't write that. Somebody else did. (the name at the top of the page is a give-away...)

But thanks for the vote of confidence... though you'll have to point out other ludicrous things I wrote if you want to have a go at me...

I don't see any reason for Guignol to apologize. This is a message board and all is fair game. I also did not interpret that article as being by Marcotti.

With that said, I went back and read a bunch of your archived SI stuff, and there were no glaring issues, or anything ludicrous at all. But Guignol is one of the top 3 posters on the French board so he gets the benefit of the doubt.

If you want an easy story though, just write a piece on our beloved astrological National Team manager. Talk about a low hanging fruit!

[guignol]

i took a little look through the SI archives, and confirmed what i already knew was my beef with marcotti's columns. it's a petty but understandable one: olympique lyonnais has always got very short shrift from him.

here it's fenerbahce getting through the group instead of lyon, there it's calling our backline shaky, or stating that OL's firepower is on paper. even when the pronounced subject seems tailor made for a nice blurb about us, there are none. a kind word for nilmar or PAF (neither of which were ever able to hold down a spot for long) is about all OL has ever seemed to merit in his eyes.

biased i may be, but i feel that a club who, on a budget that has only slightly, and recently, gone over 100M€, has been in three straight CL quarters and not done shabbily in them, that has had the kind of healthy, focussed and responsible management of funds, resources, transfers, players that has brought them for D2 to G14 in a decade... well, that they deserve a bit more respect.

[Gabriele Marcotti]

i took a little look through the SI archives, and confirmed what i already knew was my beef with marcotti's columns. it's a petty but understandable one: olympique lyonnais has always got very short shrift from him.

here it's fenerbahce getting through the group instead of lyon, there it's calling our backline shaky, or stating that OL's firepower is on paper. even when the pronounced subject seems tailor made for a nice blurb about us, there are none. a kind word for nilmar or PAF (neither of which were ever able to hold down a spot for long) is about all OL has ever seemed to merit in his eyes.

biased i may be, but i feel that a club who, on a budget that has only slightly, and recently, gone over 100M€, has been in three straight CL quarters and not done shabbily in them, that has had the kind of healthy, focussed and responsible management of funds, resources, transfers, players that has brought them for D2 to G14 in a decade... well, that they deserve a bit more respect.

I do occasionally post here because I was a fan before I had the good fortune to do this for a living. And because I think too many sportswriters isolate themselves in an ivory tower. And also because I think being forced to defend your opinions (and admitting you're wrong when factually incorrect) is a healthy thing.

Incidentally, there is no reason for Guignol to apologize... I just wanted to make clear that I had nothing to do with the rankings. (BTW, making a world ranking is something I would never want to do -- it's tough, it's divisive and it's bound to spawn endless argument and ridicule)

On the subject of OL, I have the utmost respect for Aulas (who I interviewed last year and - unlike many club presidents - actually has a coherent plan). OL is accepted as a legitimate football power and that's quite a feat when you consider that, before the current streak of titles began, they had never won a single French championship.

You have to remember that I write for SI.com twice a month: there's a lot of stuff I simply don't get to cover in that column. I do write about world football for The Times of London and have praised Lyon on numerous occasions, writing about - among others - Abidal, Juninho, Clerc and Diarra (as well as a piece about Cris relaunching his career after disappointing at first in Germany).

Of course, I've also criticized Lyon when I thought it was right to do so. I don't particularly enjoy watching Lyon play (especially now under Houllier) and I wonder if, perhaps, it isn't counter-productive in the long run. I don't like Houllier as a public figure and I think his attitude stinks (I thought so at Liverpool as well). But he was smart enough - from what I can see, you guys obviously follow Lyon more closely - to maintain the basis of the work that Le Guen did and that served him well (well done to him for doing so).

Anyway, I'll let you all get back to the subject of this thread and wish Les Bleus good luck (especially against South Korea... I'm Italian after all).