Opinions are like...

Well, we all know what opinions are like...but I'm getting sick and tired of part-time soccer "journalists" sweeping in to cover the U.S.., only to brand any success we have as "ugly" or "undeserved" or "lucky." In this latest installment of soccer by dummies (no doubt a wire story reconstructed from post-match comments), the "writer" for PA Sports Ticker states in his lead that, "The United States has no interest in playing the beautiful game when it meets Austria in the quarterfinals of the FIFA U20 World Cup on Saturday." Using as his basis for this hypothesis, he quotes several Americans discussing the "ugly" nature of their win over Uru-crybabies. Here's one quote:

"Americans teams have heart, American players have heart," midfielder Danny Szetela told FIFA.com. "You need to play with guts sometimes and find a way to win that isn't pretty."

Certainly the win over Uruguay was ugly, no doubt about it. But the U.S. weren't responsible for the state of that match. No it was the good ol' Uruguayan tactics of "slash and spill" that destroyed the beauty and creativity that could have been. If the writer of the piece had bothered to watch the game, he/she/it would have seen that Uruguay continued to dive in with reckless, two-footed challenges (slash) and then, fall at the slightest contact with an American player (spill). No, sir/madam/other, it wasn't the U.S.'s style that made the match ugly; it was the Uruguayans and the awful referee. But I wouldn't expect most North American mainstream journalists (or even biased European journalists) to understand that there is a difference in the way a Brazil plays versus the way Uruguay plays, even at the U-20 level.

But I do expect "journalists" to pull their heads out of their asses to take a look at some of the other matches that this team of "ugly" Americans has played in. You want the beautiful game, check out USA vs. Poland or USA vs. Brazil from the first round. Or better yet, do yourself a favor and avoid writing about a sport that you obviously know nothing about. Oh, and if you didn't know, opinions are like assholes.

Click here for an example of poor journalism

Click below for an example of the "Beautiful Game" used on its creators.