I don't read the daily telegraph, and haven't done since the Tim Cahill affair, but I was at the local Cafe this morning when I saw the sports section of the Daily Telegraph. On inside of back page, a full page spread no less, I found this piece of 'jornalisim':


"An ordinary display Rebecca Wilson
From: The Daily Telegraph June 26, 2010 12:00AM

WHAT is it with soccer fans? The moment it all goes pear-shaped, anybody who is not a true believer is forbidden from saying a word against the sport.
Let's face it, when Australia were flogged by Germany all hope was gone for this bunch of blokes who appear to have let themselves - and us - down very badly at the World Cup in South Africa.

Thousands of words have been written about what Australia, Pim Verbeek and the rest did wrong in that match. But not a single accredited journalist, commentator or expert who was sent to South Africa told the real, hard truth.

They skirted around it, claimed the wrong team played against Germany and that the referees were to blame. They did not say the Socceroos were not as good as four years ago, the old blokes were too old and the young ones were just not good enough. We did not have the cattle to challenge at this level.

Furthermore, it appeared to outsiders like me that if this was a harmonious team, then I was watching an entirely different sporting event. Not one of our big three - Tim Cahill, Harry Kewell or Lucas Neill - enjoyed being photographed together.

That surely must have set alarm bells ringing among the true believers.

Mind you, none of them minded being photographed alone - as long as it was in sponsor's clobber for a hell of a lot of cash.

Harry Kewell's glamorous personae in those interminable (sponsored) fashion spreads we have flicked through in recent months belied the real Harry who turned out at the post-German media conference.

"Youse blokes are all to blame," said the eloquent Harry to the stunned Australian media. "It's all of youse."

According to fanatics, we were red-carded out of the tournament. But impartial types who watched Harry Kewell's arm form the last line of defence against Ghana agreed that Kewell received the appropriate penalty.

In fact, they pointed out, if a Ghana defender had done the same thing, we would have screamed blue murder if no red card had been issued.

The World Cup is no doubt a huge event. We can see why it is called the world game when everybody turns up at this four-year celebration of the round ball form of football. It is a genuinely massive sporting festival.

But not everybody has to love it. Many of the games are tedious, played by robots who have absolutely not one ounce of attacking flair in their bones.

Anyone who doubts this should have watched the Netherlands, Slovakia or Slovenia play this week. If these teams are among Europe's best, heaven help us all. They are boring, boring, boring.

For someone who likes to go to the footy to see points scored, soccer can be truly terrible. Only sides like Portugal, Argentina and Uruguay appear to be playing it with any degree of flair.

Please don't email to tell me I am a soccer illiterate - I already know that. I don't get the nuances or finer technical points of the game but I do understand when I am watching great, compared with good, compared with ordinary.

Let's face it, the Socceroos were ordinary until the last match against Serbia when we had to have a real go or face oblivion.

Many sports fans in Australia venture into this crazy soccer world once every four years. When you watch two full weeks of it and your pulse rate increases just three times out of 30 games, you are entitled to an opinion.

Most Australians would secretly agree with me about all of this but are unwilling to express an opinion because the "football" fanatic is a beast who refuses to entertain the code being criticised from the outside.

While league and AFL fans are quite happy to bag their code and everyone else's, the only souls allowed to venture into criticism of soccer are the diehard fanatics who have been to every game for 20 years. "It's our dog and we will kick it," they say.

Sadly, they are the same types who believe the A-League will eventually be a viable and competitive national code.

A penny should have dropped in the last few weeks that players coming out of the A-League have not got a hope against the world's best.

The next two weeks may be a redemption of sorts as we watch the world's best crank it up a gear in the round of 16.

But the fact remains - soccer is not at the forefront of football codes in Australia and no amount of propaganda will convince the doubters that the future of our children is at stake if we do not secure the World Cup in 2022 (this is, unbelievably, what former Socceroo and commentator Craig Foster said).

Somehow I think our kids will be just fine without it."

I haven't provided any links becuase I don't want anyone clicking on it and giving them the traffic they want.

Now I know she is an imbicile who come out with utter garbage but there is something about this article that really gets under my skin. The fact that she dismiss the boys in the way she has when they have probably created one of Australia's finest sporting moments in boucing back the way they after Germany against both Ghana and Serbia under the hardest of circumstances without their best players and when a lot of people had no belief.

They deserve alot more respect for what they have achieved and should be put on a pedistle for the way they carried themselves and the Australian name. There has been a trend in the media to start reporting the entire cup as a failure when it couldn't be anything further from the truth and it pisses me off to no end.

Rebecca Wilson in the words of Ron Burgendy:


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