The thing I find offensive about the Ronay piece (which I just read) is the shockingly long-winded and tedious way in which he goes about it. Exercise in linguistic fukkery, it is.
That and he is a Premier League apologist. When people talk about the best league in the world every day and you get a high profile 0-0 all of a sudden it's okay and part of the fabric of the game
His Friday pieces are always those long-winded, vocab lessons. They're actually his best pieces tbh. He's pretty boring when he's actually doing his job and he's boring on football weekly.
I thought it was a pretty good slant on things though. People in the US, especially those getting into soccer for the first time, wholeheartedly, never want to admit that it is a bit boring. That you can watch numerous matches that are boring. They never admit this because soccer is still the pariah sport in the US, and being a part of it you are a pariah as well. So you could never admit that something that you're supposed to like is boring, that you've shunned all the other sports (which are also boring, another day, another post) for this boring sport. Some people will admit to it, but most are too prideful for that. And when an actual good match comes about that of course presents the opportunity to say, "Told you so
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I like the comment with the idea of awarding no points in nil-nil draws. Wengbot would cream his pants. I've actually always liked the Emirates Cup way of doing things. And Weng was onto another thing when he was talking about doing kick-ins instead of throw-ins. A man devoid of transfer ideas, tactical ideas, sartorial ideas, but not a man bereft of irrelevant football ideas I'll tell you what.
black excellence
