More Brilliance in American Sports Journalism

This time, it’s Dan Wolken, national sports columnist for The Daily.

I swear, these idiots probably have a file folder labeled “Insulting Things to Say About Soccer” that they pass down from writer to writer like some kind of ancient book of useless wisdom. Kind of like “that” book in American Pie.

Dan, we soccer fans are used to this nonsense and while I can’t stand giving you unnecessary attention, I think it’s important to highlight when you idiots pop out of the bushes and take uneducated cheap shots at our sport.

If you want to criticize Tim Howard for his comments concerning the CONCACAF trophy presentation being entirely in Spanish, that’s fine. To claim that Tim Howard is not a “legit athlete” is just dumb.

This is the core problem with American sports and the journalist that cover them. The American sports complex seem to think that the USA is the center of the sporting universe. This belief is completely absurd, but we perpetuate this line of thinking by having the gall to claim winners of our domestic football, baseball, hockey and basketball leagues are “world champions”. The winners of the EPL, Bundesliga, Serie A, La Liga, etc. are not “world champions”, they are league champions.

All those leagues feature players from around the world playing in them and just because the NFL, MLB, NHL and NBA might be the top leagues of their type in the world, that doesn’t make their playoff victors world champions.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised when people like Dan Wolken open their mouths and say something stupid, probably I should ignore it; but I can’t and I don’t want to. One day, these neanderthals will figure out that there’s more to the world of sports than what’s happening in America and the long held derogatory stereotypes about soccer will go away. Maybe that’s a pipe dream, but these days, anything is possible.

Until then, if you only want to talk about soccer when there’s a story you can use to insult the game, the athletes who play it and its fans, go find something better to do.

Sometimes after a long rant, you get reminded that the proper response only takes 140 characters. Nicely done @Kevin_Dooley