Some early stocking stuffers: #2 on the Top Stories-- Net Gain Grant Wahl's Ups and Downs on Soccer-- Wahl on Soccer If you click long enough, you get pictures of Brazil and LA in the Champions Section, but I'll be damned if I'm linking those pics And, as always, get out the vote-- We have the facts and we're voting yes
And don't forget Frank DeFord doing his obligatory blow-a-booger-at-soccer schtick in his commentary on Sport in 2002.
Just bumping this up to the top so everybody remembers to rock the vote. We need all the support we can get!
All the soccer categories seem to be doing well right now, but there are only about 50 total votes per category.
Stupidity, ignorance, and prejudice should always be confronted, attacked, and destroyed regardless of whether it's a broader societal issue or sport "journalism."
To be deleted by the first mod here How did Grant miss out on the obvious match fixing, not to mention flag stealing during the WC. Those Korean fans were not nice at all.
If you are honestly going to compare a rant from a dying breed of sportscaster to, say, ethnic cleansing, racism or homophobia, well then, I think we are operating on different levels. Hell, this isn't even Andy Rooney railing on women sideline reporters. If people are allowed to dislike certain sports. It's how they voice their displeasure that matters. Don't look at Deford's one baseless paragraph, look at Grant Wahl's articles or the fact that SI recognized the US team as one of the biggest stories of the year. The positive from the same source far outweigh the minor negative. Check out ESPN, the favorite whipping boy around here. Did you watch PTI last night? They mentioned Arena's new contract just like all the other bits of news. Did you watch Sportscenter last night? They reported on Landon Donovan's signing just like the rest of the stories that night. No snide remarks, no bickering, no sarcasm -- just legit reporting. I understand sticking up for soccer, but choose your fights wisely.
It's a shame the latest crash ate the Monday Night Football sucks thread over in Other Sports. That way we could've seen how tolerant soccer fans are of other sports.
I like Grant, and I enjoy his writing, but to lump in Spain's reactions to the S. Korea game where some admitted mistakes were made (I mean, if you bring up the non-call in the Germany match, you can't ignore the several in ESP-KOR) as opposed to Italy where their objective seemed to be not to play, and not to allow the Koreans to play, either...it's just wrong. Portugal were poor sportsmen. So were Italy. France went out bickering with each other. But you can hardly place any blame on the Spaniards, whose leave of the tournament was not far different that the Irish that you so upheld.
That was the one thing that rubbed me a little wrong about Grant's article. Spain really did deserve to beat Korea, with two legit (called back) goals. Don't get me wrong, I like Grant and he's entitled to his opinion, but Spain's exit from the Cup was a low point as much as Korea's success and fans were a high-point. Just checked the votes and they are significantly in favor of all of the soccer categories, which is funny because I don't even agree with some of them, namely that France's exit from the World Cup was the biggest flop. Give that to the US Basketball team, they are more of a dynasty in basketball than Brazil is in soccer. That was a flop!
Bump. We're doing well in the poll. Keep it up. Here is the link again: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/2002/year/yourchoice/
I know everyone was waiting to hear what I have to say on this. Deford and Bryant Gumbel will pobably do a piece on HBO about how soccer is for cromags.
Your right we shouldnt care. But then there would no posts in the Business and Media section of Bigsoccer.
I wondered about that. There have been between 300 to 400 votes (depending on the category), and soccer is winning every category its in. BS folks have tried to bitch-slap many, many polls before, and it has almost always failed. However, with such a small number of votes, it's entirely possible that BS has significantly swayed the results.