4.07.2007
German Soccer
I was sipping my gin and tonic tonight (heavy on the Bombay Sapphire, mind you) and thinking about how much I respect German soccer. See, culturally, there is some perverse tendency among English announcers (both American and British) to take sides against the Germans, whether it be in the World Cup or just Champion's League matches between German and Italian/Spanish/English squads.
What particularly irks me is that you can be sitting there, watching a match between Bayern Munchen and AC Milan this week -- a big match, mind you, between two powerhouse teams -- and the announcers are just so obviously in favor of the Italian team, Milan. I mean, the game is tight at 2-1 (Milan winning) towards the very end and the announcer is already declaring Nesta, a Milan player, the player of the match. Then BAM! Bayern scores with seconds left in stoppage time, and it is 2-2, a huge upset for Milan. Too bad the announcer barely registers the significance of this. In any event, I was pissed. This seems to always happen when you catch games with German teams playing non-German teams. What I would not give for a German announcer!
And at the World Cup this past summer, none of the big commentators expected the Germans to do very well, even though it was in Germany! Unfortunately for the lowered expectations crowd, Germany went on to finish Third, trouncing -- nay, destroying -- Portugal, the team of the ever-popular Christiano Ronaldo (who is highly overrated). That's right, Germany did better than Brazil.
I just think that German players are some of the least self-satisfied, harder working players in the world, unlike the overrated Brazilians, the diving Spaniards, or the dirty-playing Italians. I've no beef with the English, other than that their national squad cannot play for the life of them right now. If I had a good picture of me in my official German team jersey, I think I would post it. For now, you will have to settle for this...
What particularly irks me is that you can be sitting there, watching a match between Bayern Munchen and AC Milan this week -- a big match, mind you, between two powerhouse teams -- and the announcers are just so obviously in favor of the Italian team, Milan. I mean, the game is tight at 2-1 (Milan winning) towards the very end and the announcer is already declaring Nesta, a Milan player, the player of the match. Then BAM! Bayern scores with seconds left in stoppage time, and it is 2-2, a huge upset for Milan. Too bad the announcer barely registers the significance of this. In any event, I was pissed. This seems to always happen when you catch games with German teams playing non-German teams. What I would not give for a German announcer!
And at the World Cup this past summer, none of the big commentators expected the Germans to do very well, even though it was in Germany! Unfortunately for the lowered expectations crowd, Germany went on to finish Third, trouncing -- nay, destroying -- Portugal, the team of the ever-popular Christiano Ronaldo (who is highly overrated). That's right, Germany did better than Brazil.
I just think that German players are some of the least self-satisfied, harder working players in the world, unlike the overrated Brazilians, the diving Spaniards, or the dirty-playing Italians. I've no beef with the English, other than that their national squad cannot play for the life of them right now. If I had a good picture of me in my official German team jersey, I think I would post it. For now, you will have to settle for this...
Labels: soccer
# posted by Vanity @ 00:24 
