A roundup of the week’s most interesting sports columns on the Web.
Obsess much?
It’s nice to be reminded, as we work ourselves into a national lather about whether P.K. Subban will make the Olympic squad or how Steven Stamkos’s tibia is coming along, that other countries do this, too. For months, England has been in the grips of a World Cup fever that makes our hockey hand-wringing look, frankly, lazy (decades of international disappointment in the sport you love most will do that to your populace).
This week, Henry Winter’s work provides a particularly great crop of examples of the level of minutiae and emotional investment we’re talking about (answer: borderline psychotic, but endearingly so).
He’s appalled FIFA made the games in steamy Manaus—including England vs. Italy—dinnertime starts instead of setting them for 9 p.m., when the heat and humidity would be slightly less barfy. “Risking players’ health, Sepp Blatter plays the compliant piper to the tune-calling paymasters of TV,” Winter sniffs.
Then there’s a psychiatrist’s couch pep talk from Bora Milutinovic, who coached five different World Cup teams. England needs to look itself in the mirror and recite some affirmations, he tells Winter—especially if they’re going to avoid being blindsided by little Costa Rica, despite the broader horror over landing in what some insist is the Group of Death alongside Italy and Uruguay. “Of course you have a chance. But you need to believe. You need to trust in your character, as players and as a team,” he tells Winter, possibly while baking fresh cookies and pouring a tall glass of milk for all of England. “For me the biggest surprise in world football is that a big country, a great football country, like England, can think it doesn’t have a chance.”
And the national obsession extends to the horrifying possibility of singing soccer players. Winter confirms the squad will release an official charity single in honour of the World Cup, but this time (mercifully) players will not perform. “It is often noted that England’s most successful two tournaments since 1966 have been accompanied by their best two songs,” Winter notes solemnly (he’s talking about “Back Home” in 1970 and the exquisitely 1990 “World in Motion”).
Bayern the benevolent?
David Conn looks at the fascinating ethos of Bayern Munich, reigning European and Bundesliga champions. The team is hugely successful, yet a healthy slice of the fans who pack its gleaming 71,000-seat arena pay just €150 (about $219 Canadian) for season tickets. “We have to care about a football club’s social responsibility,” club chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge explains. “A poor guy, maybe without work, we want him to be able to go and watch football. That is our obligation.”
Even more impressive, Bayern’s 225,000 members own 82 percent of the franchise and vote every three years on its board of directors—a concept that should have North American sports fans drooling (since 2001, the Bundesliga has required that “50 percent plus one” of all clubs be controlled by members, but Bayern has decided that no more than 30 percent of its soul will ever be sold).
But it’s not all sunshine and puppies. Bayern draws in major funds from sponsorship, TV and corporate tickets, making it a wealthy behemoth within the Bundesliga and prompting concerns the league championship is becoming a coronation. “Millions of German football fans do not see Bayern as benevolent,” Conn writes. “The club is regarded by many much like Manchester United were in English football in the 1990s, as a ruthless, over-commercialised, clinical winning machine.”
So you want to be an NFL writer…
Richard Deitsch gathers five NFL beat writers for a behind-the-scenes look at how the job really works. Twelve-hour days are the norm; NFL players are the most forthcoming among the four major pro sports because there are so many low-profile players on a roster; no, they can’t get free tickets to any game for you; and sometimes they feel outright jealous when they see people just watching a game with their kid. Jane McManus, Jets writer with ESPN, muses about the gap between the image and reality of players: “There are a lot who aren’t about clubs and cars and women, but they often get tagged with that stereotype. It’s almost like an NFL fantasy life that gets projected onto them, and maybe an expectation that some players try to fill.”
What RGIII says about Pepé Le Pew
Also on the football front, three Washington Post writers take a run at explaining what exactly is going on with the Redskins, rapidly becoming the NFL’s most fascinating reality TV–ready train wreck.
Jason Reid extravagantly praises Robert Griffin III for “taking the high road” in saying all the right things publicly about his season-ending benching. Of course, that suggests the bar was pretty low to begin with in terms of the expected reaction, and it also ignores the rote vapidity of coughing up the obvious quote.
Mike Wise argues coach Mike Shanahan has finally done what he should have a long time ago because RGIII “needed to be removed from this sorry drama.” He writes, “His body, mind and ego needed to be extricated from a lost year of his career. He has been coddled and enabled. Used off the field, abused on it.”
Sally Jenkins offers the most nuanced look at the unfolding drama. Shanahan has finally forced an answer to the swirling speculation, publicly testing whether his “much-petted quarterback” would go running to owner Dan Snyder, thereby proving Shanahan’s authority is a farce. So far, the answer has been a very quiet and careful backing away on the part of Snyder, but the stakes are high and go way beyond Shanahan’s tenure in the job, she argues. “If Shanahan is sacrificed to Griffin, there won’t be anybody, be it Art Briles or Pepé Le Pew, who can coach this team,” she writes.
Of fun-sucking paranoia
When I was in Grade 5, the school principal—whose name, honest to god, was Mr. Nippers—outlawed sliding on the snow hills in the schoolyard because it might be dangerous. Even at age 10, I knew this fun-sucking paranoia was ridiculous.
This week, Don Banks takes a look at the draconian Super Bowl rules that are the NFL parallel. At MetLife Stadium, there will be no taxi, limo or black car drop-off, parking spots will be so limited that parking passes may be the real scalping market and, in bureaucratic language that would make ol’ Mr. Nippers proud, the Super Bowl host committee’s CEO outlines where, precisely, you may or may not drink a beer, eat some food or enjoy your life (it’s probably best you don’t).
“Just when you thought this game couldn’t take itself more seriously than it already did—see the continued use of Roman numerals, even though everything past Super Bowl V has been way too confusing—we get the anti-tailgating edict,” Banks writes. “I’m pretty sure tailgating is one of our protected constitutional rights, alongside free speech and being able to cut off your fellow drivers in traffic. And you just don’t take that away lightly and expect no uprising.”