Wow. I was thinking before I read the article that Rio would say the usual stuff about Tim being talented but young and that if he works hard, blah, blah, blah. Instead, Rio states how "brilliant" it is that Tim is commanding his box and how much confidence the players get from Tim. Tim's success at ManU is truly a great story. I wish more of mainstream AMerican media picked up on it. I guess Tim will just have to continue to impress everyone over there until more people here (outside of BS) notice.
"When you have someone who comes out and claims crosses and corners like he does, it is brilliant for the defenders. It gives the whole back four a lot of confidence and we have been feeling that throughout the season." Obviously, Rio F. doesn't read Big Soccer, where we keep a running tally of every cross he's missed.
i'm a brit but i've been a fan of tim for a while now and i can understand rio's love for tim and his command of the box considering the way mad fab commanded his box or shall we say lacked command of it, rather preferring to come out and try a fancy trick or two outside the box and end up looking foolish. oh and by the way, tim's wife has got to be one of the prettiest ( i didnt say sexiest as sexy doesn't neccessarily mean pretty ) epl wives. i saw a pic of her in the manutd team mag. she's fit as a fiddle.
The mainstream American media doesn't consider playing soccer to be much of an accomplishment. that said, this isn't a mainstream media piece from england, either. Be nice to see him hang around for a decade, though.
High praise for Tim in this thread at the BBC.. http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/h2/h2...m3.mh.bbc.co.uk>&board=sixosix.manutd&sort=Te Sample: "As for his athletisism, he's a yank, while the image of them over here is that they are all fat, the athletes, the top ones anyway, really apply themselves to be the best." Hee hee... Did you know we are all fat? Except for some atheletes, of course.
Sorry you disagree. The epitome of fitness: http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/moresports/wallpaper/0705larryallen_s.jpg The Fridge http://images.sportsline.com/u/photos/football/nfl/img5827407.jpg Sure, not all of football players are heavy but it's a long shot to say that most lineman aren't overweight.
This isn't the best pic of her. It is a great article though... http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/local_news/article/0,1426,MCA_437_2397690,00.html
Sentiment very much agreed. It would be very cool to see him there at Old Trafford for the better part of the next ten years-- say, seven or eight years, at the very least. However, I do see this as a mainstream story in an overseas source. If an article of the matter appeared in the Manchester Evening News, which has a pretty wide circulation, I'd consider that to be "mainstream", certainly.
I don't know about the article being so great - I'd have gotten quesy if they squeezed in one more reference to either God or Memphis. Especially since they seemed to rate the two as being at about equal power. Really, what does memphis losing to villanova decades ago have to do with anything? Especially anything about Tim?
Local newspapers are not really considered main-stream media here. We tend to have national papers, i.e. The Guardian, The Sun, The Times, The Telegraph, etc. In the States I believe you tend to have regional papers, i.e. The LA Times, The New York Times, etc. If you refer to 'The Times' in Britain no-one would ask you which one. Nice articles - but they do smack a bit of team-mates support of each other. I tend to see the same thing on Chelsea TV where everyone goes around telling everyone else how great they are. It gets a bit boring, actually, and doesn't really examine anything in any depth.
Haven't been in the States for a couple of years, Andy, but you're spot on about that. The Australian media's pretty much the same way, with local papers in Melbourne, Ballarat, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, etc., and The Australian being a Sydney-based and Sydney-biased paper (despite what its title might suggest). However, I would insist that with the advent of the internet age, regional papers overseas such as the Manchester Evening News do thrust themselves more into the mainstream than they used to. And therefore, stories such as the one where Rio Ferdinand is praising Tim Howard gets more attention to the masses than it would otherwise. Nothing wrong with that... Fans of those players or teams don't seem to mind. They eat it up like a Thanksgiving turkey or a Christmas ham. It's good PR all the way around, and harmless and light info-tainment as well. Not to mention good for morale around the club as well. No harm's ever been done by stroking a teammate's ego in the manner in which the Rio & Timmy story was told.