So the NY Post debuted this now infamous cover on Sunday after the USA drew 1-1 with England at the World Cup on Saturday.
Now, to say this cover annoyed me initially would be an understatement. I mean, a draw is not a win, not by any stretch of the imagination. That's just reality. A draw does not give you 3 points, but merely 1, and furthermore, the quality of the goal which brought the USA to this point was not one for the record books. At least not for the USA. Robert Green, the unfortunate and villified English goalie decided to give the other team a hand. So in my football circle and in many other circles, where the footballer right now is King, the reality was that the USA was delusional, desperate for glory and sad. lol.
But after a good night's sleep, I overcame my annoyance with the cover, remembering our own "win" in 2006, when though we did not win by a draw like the Americans, Trinidad and Tobago in our very first World Cup ever, bravely and skilfully withstood the roar of the Lions and did not totally embarass themselves with a 10-0 scoreline (good morning Socceroos). Though we did not plaster T&T wins against the English 2-0 on our newspaper, because that would have been a laugh and that sports editor would have been run out of town, it felt good nonetheless.
I guess for the USA, a country that calls the beautiful game soccer and as one tweeter complained on Saturday, is happier to have the tv in the bar on a rained out Nascar race as opposed to watching their national team play football in the greatest footballing show on earth, a 1-1 draw was indeed a victory. A 1-1 draw against a team from a country with one of the best football leagues in the world.
But more than that, it was a sale - a great PR push around a perception that this team had the chops to be a contender. A cover and a headline and an image like this one - happy and exuberant red, white and blue clad "soccer" players celebrating a goal, regardless of its merit, is bound to create some good buzz around the team, so there could be more World Cup on LCDs over the next week or so, and less Nascar. Good news for the sponsors, the advertisers, the MLS and of course the team. It's a good PR cover for a team that does not yet have the same rabid support as the NBA, NFL, or clearly Nascar.
The perception celebrated here is that the USA had "come good" when noone else thought they would, and had proven that "soccer" had a place in the American sporting fabric; that it was not just a thing a bunch of guys did for fun, but a real passion and one which they were getting more competitive at. I cannot fault them for that in the end. It's a win.
But taking off my PR hat and putting back on my boots, the reality however, still remains that a draw in its most technical sense is still not a win and there are more games to come.
In case you missed it the first, second or 50th time...Robert Green.
But after a good night's sleep, I overcame my annoyance with the cover, remembering our own "win" in 2006, when though we did not win by a draw like the Americans, Trinidad and Tobago in our very first World Cup ever, bravely and skilfully withstood the roar of the Lions and did not totally embarass themselves with a 10-0 scoreline (good morning Socceroos). Though we did not plaster T&T wins against the English 2-0 on our newspaper, because that would have been a laugh and that sports editor would have been run out of town, it felt good nonetheless.
But more than that, it was a sale - a great PR push around a perception that this team had the chops to be a contender. A cover and a headline and an image like this one - happy and exuberant red, white and blue clad "soccer" players celebrating a goal, regardless of its merit, is bound to create some good buzz around the team, so there could be more World Cup on LCDs over the next week or so, and less Nascar. Good news for the sponsors, the advertisers, the MLS and of course the team. It's a good PR cover for a team that does not yet have the same rabid support as the NBA, NFL, or clearly Nascar.
The perception celebrated here is that the USA had "come good" when noone else thought they would, and had proven that "soccer" had a place in the American sporting fabric; that it was not just a thing a bunch of guys did for fun, but a real passion and one which they were getting more competitive at. I cannot fault them for that in the end. It's a win.
But taking off my PR hat and putting back on my boots, the reality however, still remains that a draw in its most technical sense is still not a win and there are more games to come.
In case you missed it the first, second or 50th time...Robert Green.
