How North American Journalists Are Trying To Spoil Football For Us All

With the FIFA U-20 tournament and David Beckham pushing football into the North American media limelight, it's interesting to see how sports writers are undermining the growth of the biggest sport in the world in what has been a perpetual backwater.

Exhibit A: The article published in the L.A. Times on July 13 by award winning writer Bill Plaschke.

Clearly, Plaschke is not much of a football fan. He spends much of the piece portraying Beckham as a sideshow amidst the other, more worthy, more American stories flying under the radar because of a "celebrity" not an athlete. At the same time, Plaschke shows that on this day he's not much of a reporter either.

His opening dig at Beckham involves pondering why the new L.A. Galaxy midfielder took so long to come to his new home. The Spanish season ended almost a month ago, Plaschke points out.

Uhhh, Bill, I think that he was still in Madrid because they still owned him. Unlike North American sport, where free agency occurs on a set date for all players, Football contracts have varying termination dates. Yes many of these dates are the end of June, but Beckham's ended in July. He arrived in L.A. when he was no longer employed by his previous club.

That doesn't seem unreasonable to me, but seemed to escape the venerable Mr. Plaschke.

Exhibit B: Where are the stories?

If Toronto FC play a mid-week game, particularly out of town, a sports section is likely to run a inch long brief about the result at most. Pundits on the radio or TV will then talk about how football doesn't capture their or the general public's imagination like the domesticated sports.

How do you generate interest if there is no outlet to spread the word about football? 20,000 people go out to BMO field every game, and that's at least 20,000 people who would read an actual story about TFC, not to mention stories or at least briefs about other MLS teams. Fans are cultivated by learning about a league, not just one team.

Yes, highlights on the nightly wrap shows on TV help, but the context that is provided by well written news stories is invaluable.

Exhibit C: News is not made, it happens.

Just because the 40 - 60 year-old writers who dominate the sports writing industry dislike "soccer," doesn't mean it can be ignored. More people play football in Canada than any other sport, and by a large margin at that. This means there are thousands of football stories out there. Go find them. That's your job.

Stephen Brunt of the Globe & Mail is an exception to this trend. He also happens to be the best sportswriter in Canada and one of the best on this continent. Many of his colleagues would do well to follow his example.

A new player comes to TFC or a young Canadian player goes overseas, interview them. This is news. Simply ignoring this sport because you've been coddled on a strict diet of American football, baseball, hockey and basketball doesn't mean you're right. Editors and journalists not paying attention to the world's game is a failure of the profession.

Fortunately there are great online outlets for Canadian and American football fans. We can only hope that the mainstream will catch up some day with the rest of us.

FIFA U-20 World Cup: Argentina 1 - 0 Mexico

Argentina was able to comfortably hold off a dogged Mexican team after scoring almost on the stroke of halftime. A deflected Maxi Moralez strike from the top of the penalty area wrong-footed the keeper and stood up as the game winning goal.

Mexico pushed hard for most of the first half and slightly edged their opponents in the tightly contested midfield. But Gio Dos Santos, the prolific Mexican striker, was unable to break free of tight marking by Fazio and Mercado in the heart of the Argentine defence.

Once they were a goal down, Mexico added an attacking player early in the second half, but even with three up front, chances were few and far between. Once again, Argentina looked the most composed and competent side in the tournament.

Argentina was content to sit back and stymie the Mexican attack, leading to some dry football, but this largely failed to dampen the spirits of the crowd.

Mexico, going into the match, looked to be a side that could challenge for honours at the tournament. It is truly to Argentina's credit that they made the match look rather easy.

I was fortunate enough to be in the stands for this quarter-final match between these two Latin American powerhouses. Frank Clair stadium here in Ottawa was packed to its 26,500 capacity and both the Argentine and Mexican fans were in full voice.

The stadium proved to be an excellent venue for football, with the stands close to the touchlines and partially covered, amplifying the noise of the crowd. It's a shame that there's no permanent resident for the old ground by the Rideau.

FIFA U-20 World Cup: Austria 1 - 0 Canada

Can't say that I caught the whole match, but from what I saw this was a very similar result to the match from Sunday. Austria is not Chile, but certainly proved themselves the more competent side.

What Canada lack is a central midfielder to run their attack. They have decent forwards in Ricketts, Lombardo and Johnson, but outside of Peters down the right wing, the only service to the strikers seems to come from long balls out of the back line.

A player in the middle of the park who could feed the wingers or play a well timed ball through the middle would be the difference between the Canada that looks like bowing out in the group phase and a Canada that can at least hold its own against the best young squads in the world.

With that in mind, the Canadian keeper, Begovic, is a class player. He was hung out to dry against Chile, but came up with some great saves. Against Austria he put in a similar top-drawer effort, only to be let down by the other 10 players once again. Plying his trade professionally with Southampton of the League Championship, he has the makings of a senior Canadian stalwart in net. Look for more out of this youngster.

Finally, for those who missed out, do yourself a favour and track down the highlights of the American's 6 - 1 drubbing of the Poles. Freddy Adu had a barn-burner, particularly his first goal. Perhaps the guy has something to prove after all.

U.S. vs. Brazil tomorrow should be the match of the tournament so far. Adu v. Pato? We'll see who's left standing after this one goes down at Frank Clair...