Frank Deford, USA-Today and others sound off about soccer

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

Sirs, Madames,

Background: I played soccer before I ever played football. Jesus, I played cricket before I played baseball. I follow Man U and Inter, Ireland and Italy. I don't have a rooting interest in cricket.

I have no idea why this, uh, "debate" rages. You can say that you don't like or follow or play soccer. Fine. But you can't make a case that there's nothing to like about it or that people who follow it have it all wrong or that it's a game without nuance (which is a hard case to make if you don't follow it). You don't like it. It doesn't appeal to you. You're not wrong. But neither are those who follow it, who see something more in it, who have come to respect the game and its players.

Soccer isn't the Canada of sports. It's the Kyoto of sports. The US won't sign up for a global deal. Doesn't mean the deal is wrong.

YHS, etc

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

Veritas.

Shame that attitude won't get you anywhere on talk radio.

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

Wow, that Deford sure is a funny guy when he writes satire. Man, what a humorist.

I mean, that column just had me in stitches as he did a dead-on impersonation of the more ignorant soccer bashers. Because of course there's no way such a great sports journalist could really feel that way about the "American-ness" of a sport and pen such bitter comment on it. Right? No, he's simply being funny! And succeeding with flying colors!

Ahem.

If it took all the repeated soccer threads to finally get friend of the friendless' excellent take, I submit the beating of dead horse was well worth it.

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

Senor Bari,

What is this talk radio you speak of?

YHS, etc

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

This:


could be inferred, though I was mostly talking about there not being much room for rational, well-thought-out stances such as yours among all the talking heads.

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

Here's my question: sports journalists are paid (umm ...) to write about sports. To inform, to entertain, to make us think, or to give us insight about sports. Ideally.

So why do so many columnists use their platform, and abuse their job description, wasting their time writing about sports they a) don't care about; 2) don't think you should care about; and c) and most egregiously, sports they don't know anything about (and they BRAG about not knowing!)

If your JOB is to be informed, and to inform readers, about sports, why do I read so many sports writers who seemingly go out of their way to show off their lack of knowledge about a certain sport (particularly soccer and hockey, in the U.S.)? I consider that not doing your JOB, if you're writing about soccer, even in an opinion piece, and you admittedly don't know or don't like anything about it.

I don't think it's admirable for a sports writer, who is going to take the time to write something about a sport, not to inform him- or herself about that sport before spouting off an admittedly uneducated opinion about said sport. Frankly, I don't think that's a good thing, and it pisses me off when I read shit like that. But I see a lot of it.

That's what doesn't make any sense to me.

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

It makes the majority of the readership feel safe in the beliefs they already hold. How can they possibly lose?

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

Xenophobia -- it's the new American way. At least under the fraud currently in the White House.

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

What does Ozzie Smith have to do with the 1991 series?

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

Then I'll repeat something I wrote on another thread tonight.

Intellectual incuriosity is an unforgivable sin. The world is full of wonderful things, and you don't need anything but your mind to learn about all those things.

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

But ... but ... that actually would require people to think on occasion about things with which they are unfamiliar. :

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

George Bush hates soccer.