I love these articles - this was fun. FYI - we tried many times to get the text thing to work - it never did...
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Sarah Lyall's article was very funny except that it could have been applied to any type of sports reporting: the art of saying nothing to satisfy the demands of the post-mortem win or loss. However, I think there are two important questions soccer reporters should ask: 1) Why can't professional soccer players who are paid millions target the goal with their kicks? It seems to me that many of these kicks go over the goal cage or off to the side, even when the player is free for half a second which is an eternity in soccer.
2) Why can't the clock be stopped whenever there is a stoppage in play or a substitution (as in basketball or hockey) so that drama queens such as Neymar not flop on the ground for 14 out of a possible 90 minutes in a recent game? A constant ticking clock while players hug and kiss each other and walk slowly off the field during substitutions is ridiculous.
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This falls in the category of both recitation of facts and sycophantic grandstanding, but Sarah Lyall is a brilliant writer and this article was one of the best I've read on the World Cup.
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This is a wonderfully observed piece. I actually laughed out loud at numerous points. I reckon it's the funniest piece I've read at the Times.
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Back in the days that leagues were not played on total points and had a final championship game, much like the World Cup, I sat down to watch the league final.
Before the game started, a reporter asked the best player of a team: “are you going to try your best to win this game?”
The player looked amazed at the question and replied: “not today. I’m going to just walk on the pitch and watch the butterflies flutter around. Finishing second place is great, and I don’t want my opponents to feel bad.”
Needless to say, the team lost and the player was crucified by the media and fans for giving the game away.
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These players and coaches shouldn’t even have to sit in these interviews in the first place. I’m a huge fan of the cup and watch it every year. I know I don’t watch the series to see the players talk, I see them to play. They didn’t Train for questions and making comments,they trained to play the game tic the best of their abilities. I love the intensity of the matches and the heat of the games, but not the questioning of the results. These reporters should leave the teams alone and let the scores speak for themselves.
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The best was four years ago when the mayor, of the city in the jungle, had to deny that snakes fell out of trees onto the sidewalks.
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I don't see why you are criticizing players and coaches for "disguising banalities as deep truths." In most cases I find that the things they say make sense given the context. Players don't have time to rest and digest the events of a match, before a post-match press conference. So you get what you pay for. After a hard fought match you need time to chill and unwind before you can comfortably share your thoughts with people outside the team.
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I just LOVE the Russia coach's response to the Danish reporter:
“You would be hard-pressed to know the labyrinths of the Russian soul.”
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The mindlessness of sports is echoed thoroughly through the mindlessness of sports press conferences.
Folks, never listen to pre-game or post-game interviews or press conferences. Enjoy the match/game. Then Turn off TV. Its all nonsense, crapolla and commercials.
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This piece by sports reporter Ms. Lyall -- which probably played football in high school -- is evidence number one why football never got a firm hold in the US.
Ms. Lyall simply doesn't get what football is all about, the true nature of the game.
A heads up to Ms. Lyall and future football reporters: 20 players kicking the ball is only part of the whole experience of football. Post game interviews are also part of the fun.
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That was my first thought. Americans just don’t get football.
Of course journalists from Colombia will root for Colombia in the World Cup. Nothing wrong with that.
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“You would be hard-pressed to know the labyrinths of the Russian soul.” Somehow, I think we will hear these words again soon in some Trump-related context...
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awesome article, probably the best writing i have read from NYT in years.
to the writer of this piece: please tell your other colleagues/writers to stop whining about trump/human rights/data privacy, not to write more pieces on how to do a complete workout in under one second/best meals from scratch in under two seconds/how to be really really smart in one easy step/three easy steps to immortality through diet and exercise and sleep hygiene--pretty much many of the articles NYT loves to churn out, and realize life is just one big joke.
I can't stop reading the NYT same way I can't stop looking at Fox, it's like watching the thermite reaction or a very fat man eating a very large cheeseburger. I just can't look away.
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This is really cracking me up.
In 1982 George Vecsey was covering the World Cup in Spain for the NY Times. He complained repeatedly that FIFA didn't set up press conferences for athletes after the match, and noted that European reporters were supposed to be "critics" who wrote about the game on the field.
I had lived through two World Cups in Europe by then, I had read European coverage, and I thought it was, for that very reason, far superior to standard US sportstriter locker room journalism. I wrote Vecsey a letter to that effect. He sent me an abusive letter back, and then, without identifying me, wrote a whole column about my letter and how dumb he thought it was. I contacted the Times sports desk and sent in a reply. They never printed it.
Well, Vecsey has gotten his wish. They have press conferences now. And surprise, surprise--this is what they are like. I feel vindicated.
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I'm a bit sad that this article didn't mention the delightful story where before Argentina's pivotal last group stage game, an Argentine reporter gave Messi a little blue bracelet he said was his mother's good luck charm. After the game, he asked if Messi remembered his mother's bracelet, and Messi simply asked him to look, lowered his sock, and revealed he had been wearing the bracelet the entire game. The reporter couldn't believe his national hero had been wearing his mother's bracelet on the feet that scored the goal to put them through to the knockout round!
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This piece gives you wonderful insight into the concept that, globally, not every self-described journalist really fits the definition. I learned this years ago when I was doing international PR and discovered that in some cultures, it’s customary to give gifts to members of the media in order to obtain coverage.
But if these “reporters” are not fair and unbiased in their work, maybe it’s time they be called something other than a journalist. Perhaps we could get some ideas from the amateur bloggers out there, who deem themselves journalists because it sounds important, but who can’t report or write their way out of a paper bag. Or we could ask the folks over at Fox News.
Reinforces my belief that most sports journalists are simply lazy. "Talk about this so I don't have to think of an actual question."
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Would be a real sport if it got rid of all the embellishment and the pretend injury drama...
Players begging for a penalty kicks is such a turn off that no amount of talent and mastery can ever over weigh... in case of Neimar and Brazil' squad there's gotta be a level where team gets DQ'd out for the pretense of injury.
Sad show of lack of sportsmanship...
Will stick to hockey and football for now...
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Pane e circus. Insanity. Craziness. Enormous sums of money.
I didn't attend a single match and I was once ...Argentinian.
Please!!!! don't tell anybody, OK?
These days don't know where to hide. Turn right, soccer, turn left the soccer team in a flooded cave showing every single detail of the kids life.
Somehow, somewhere else children are being massacred, raped, bombed or sexually abused and nobody cares.
What's wrong with us?
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Soccer (or football) is unfortunately one of the few things that can bring the world together, for that it deserves attention. But it is more than a game, the cultural nuances and international humor, the interviews and press conferences, the international news coverage, the human interest stories, even the wildly varying ways that different countries judge diving, help bring us together, crying and laughing, wondering and taking baby steps to understanding each other.
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The article makes it all seem immeasurably more pleasurable than anything connected to a press conference in Washington about anything.
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I agree with you. I dunno, I actually found myself a little peeved when reading this article. Yes, of course it is well written; would’t one expect that from any article in a major newspaper?
What grated at me (and what prompted me to write my first response to any article) was this: We know the World Cup is bread and circus. It gives us some reprieve from the cosmic joke that is politics. Harry Kane is a striker, not a historian. Are you seriously suggesting that the former World Cup Champions (and current World Cup finalists, France) went easy on the former European Champions (Denmark), and graciously let them through to the knock-out stage because of their pretty blue eyes? Some watch the abridged game for the goals only, others enjoy all aspects of it.
Criticism is certainly due (of, say, FIFA, Russia...), yes, but isn’t it worthy of praise that sports journalists acknowledge the common purpose, and the journalist’s rôle within it, that football itself, ‘The Beautiful Game,’ seems to suggest for us mere mortals?
It's probably Babe Ruth's fault. Or maybe Lou Gehrig's. I mean, at what point in history did somebody decide that a sports figures opinions or feelings on anything were important?
There was an English cricket writer who simply made up stuff about the players. As far as he was concerned, their job was to play and his job was to write, and the public had to be happy with what it could get. Live coverage has destroyed so much.
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Maybe the author thinks she stands above all this and considers herself unbiased, but the subtext of this article shows that she is anything but. Calling it bizarre and trying to show the US readers how crazy people from other countries are hardly passes as unbiased journalism.
To top it off, none of what's written here is worse than the standard interview fare of US sports. Anyway, remind me where the US men compete internationally? Baseball? Basketball? Those competitions are lucky to have any news reporting at all. Olympics? Questions there are just as sycophantic and the soft-focus background segments make me puke while we miss the actual events on TV.
I don't know. Guess you had an off day with nothing much to write about, just to ridicule the rest of the world.
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This was a wonderfully hilarious article, thank you.
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What other sport, than soccer, inspires spectators to trample each another to death and players to kiss the ground as if in prayer and act out a bruise as if it's a mortal wound? I can think of no other.
Here in the U.S., when a national team loses (whether in soccer or hockey, baseball, etc.), we mourn, yet not to such a degree that our lives seem to be ending.
8
Ken,
Good point about the US.
In the sports crazy USA we have 4 major professional leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL) as well as collegiate football and basketball. We often, if not usually, have multiple allegiances not necessarily to our "home town" teams.
Perhaps this is why the pain of a loss is not as intense.
Ken, we do not mourn in the same way because we have several professional sports. We think that makes us special, but I think it separates us from other countries. THE sport in practically EVERY other country is soccer. It unifies countries and encourages diplomacy on the field.
The US arrived a bit late to the soccer party.
5
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Bulls_Championship_riots
I would love to see a variation of this at NFL press conferences (or in fact any US sports press conferences).
Bill Belichek receives a Tom Brady doll with an oversized head-Bill how do you feel about Tom’s gigantic head (i.e ego).
Or Popp-Tell us how you really feel about Kawhi?
Or LBJ-what is your favorite restaurant in LA?
I think that would be fantastic and so much more entertaining than the platitudes of today.
However,having said all that,I do love Herm Edwards’ immortal voice bit-YOU PLAY TO WIN THE GAME.
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Dan, I agree with you regarding the comment by Herm Edwards. Unfortunately that quote/mindset would be out of place in soccer and certainly at the World Cup. Where a tie is often times the preferred outcome. Also with Japan not even trying to advance the ball in their final group stage game so as to avoid a penalty that would have cost them the tiebreaker to advance, winning was not even a consideration!
1
I think the worst should be saved for the white house press corp Q and A, or the shameful spectacle called the correspondents dinner.
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Well said! Yes, there are the hard-working types that tell us stories around the world, and then there are those that Lyall who have a superiority complex about the silly stuff they do.
1
It's more entertaining than the endless repeat of the same questions you hear at every NFL press conference.
I can't imagine a reporter asking the droll and boring Bill Belichek what, if anything, he finds redeeming about Kansas City.
So, the weird World Cup press conferences score for offbeat diversion, if nothing else.
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