No Irish, No Yanks, No Clogs - FIFA World Cup 2018

Scholes?

Scholes?

Are English commentators worse in terms of gross bias or saying stupid nonsense than the commentators of other countries? I mean, I only have direct experience of US commentators (and even then only a game or two and years ago) but my impression was they were as bad. Oh and there was that Norwegian fellow about fifty years ago.

England still seem vapid in the middle to me, but it's a different kind of vapidity than we've had in the last 20 years or so - less melancholy and entitled, more workmanlike and unfussy. Neither makes for good football, particularly, but there isn't that heavy sense of loss that's hung around for what seems like ever.

ach even if it was just broadcasting to Engish people i can get behind home team bias but the tone of English bias is riddled with natural order of things greatest nation in the world why isn't this obvious to everybody else bullshit that i can't believe is played out exactly the same everywhere

and WE ARE THE KEEPERS OF CORINTHIAN HONESTY SEE HOW THESE FOREIGNERS CHEAT AND REFUSE TO BE REAL MEN which is ah god sorry yay they're in the quarter finals let's hope we can keep winning on pens

an audience which also includes scotland, wales and norn iron

Who love-to-hate watch England games mostly so they can complain about the inevitable bias. Unless maybe they too support England in these situations which apparently can be a thing too. Always funny to go thru this at every tournament tho - dreaming of the day the non-English Brits can praise the English commentators and pundits for exemplary even-handedness. Independence for every fragment of this embittered isle tho imho.

yeah if they didn't secretly enjoy it they'd watch their own coverage oh wait

ach even if it was just broadcasting to Engish people i can get behind home team bias but the tone of English bias is riddled with natural order of things greatest nation in the world why isn't this obvious to everybody else bullshit that i can't believe is played out exactly the same everywhere

― Neymar, Mr Nice Guy (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 4 July 2018 10:57 (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I could believe that the English are worse than everyone else but I'm not sure about that, I mean it's not commentators but I have a clear memory of a Brazilian headline years ago that was "Brazil will win because God is Brazilian". Doesn't everywhere have its own pathology of (roughly) this kind? Not saying it makes it right, and more than happy to accept that it's particularly unpalatable for England (actually probably any bit of Great Britain) given our history, but I can't believe that's unique.

Apols for garble.

glad england won. but i did have the link to the youtube pizza hut advert from 1996 in my paste buffer, just in case.

I'm saying most places play this kind of thing out in their own way. Football commentators are very often excessive in their opinions and expression; I am not convinced English ones are uniquely offensive.

i get it. i'm not convinced they're *not* the most offensive but i'm theoretically English and also in a sour mood and i'm amplifying the sourness thru too much dwelling on a very limited set of idiots.

I'm Welsh and happy to support England in this.

Also not upset by former English players using "we" when co-commentating, unlike lots of chippy twats around here.

watching (bits of) far-left ENG twitter shouting "down with the england it is imperialist, tonight i support belgium!" has been an education

remember the Congo

yeah it's a terrible arena to play performative politics, my distaste is mainly aesthetic in a "you're making it hard to watch the football without shouting at the TV" way

but i have a kneejerk assumption that as soon as somebody piles in with "this is corrupt and terrible and what about the children" they're probably not really into football which is fine but y'know

I'm pretty sure that Italian football coverage is as bad as England's in this regard.

Almost all of the coverage this time has been based around the relative 'easiness' of England's route rather than a distorted perception of the team's quality. From distance it may not look any different though. 50/50 on whether they create more against Sweden or just revert to type.

[On a side-note, it makes me whenever a player attributes a win or a goal to God - Messi did it earlier in the tournament, saying "I knew we'd get through because I could feel God on our side" or somesuch; Mina was making hand signals after his goal last night which clearly meant "it wasn't me, it was God". I am always very pleased to see such people abandoned by their deity in favour of a team that God values more.}

The UK, and therefore England, is in a unique position, there is literally no comparison that can usefully be made with any other footballing nation.

I'm pretty much certain pundits and commentators are as bad, possibly even worse, all over the world but, people in Uruguay don't have to listen to Argentinian media coverage, for instance.

The obvious solution to this problem is to have a UK team for the BBC to support.

Remind me what the coverage was like during Wales games at the last semi-final?

Last tournament, even. Not with it today.

Like I remember anything at all about the coverage of a Welsh team.

the meltdowns and arguments amongst leftist twitter show how contentious anything involving english identity is in 2018

I've tried to forget it too xp

weren't the irish team looked upon fondly when they qualified and england didn't? something something, jackie charlton. 90? 94?

Yeah, lots of condescending 'Irish eyes are smiling' stuff, plus the automatic assumption that everyone in the UK would be supporting Ireland etc. Admittedly there are hundreds of thousands of Irish people in this country who would have been watching the BBC, but the same is also true that the vast majority of people watching England on either the BBC or ITV are supporting them.

Was there entirely separate Scottish coverage back in 1998 or am I imagining that?

We got separate Welsh coverage for the Euros which was about as great as you'd imagine it to be.

So long since Scotland qualified for anything I'm not sure I can remember. Definitely separate commentary and match summarizers - not sure about different pundits?

Probably different pundits too.

Yeah, think we got Kevin Ratcliffe and Barry Horne

this is currently my fav disgusted tweet about england

U lot enthusiastically jumping on "it's coming home"... meanwhile, Brexit, the Windrush scandal and hostile environment policies expose how the English conception of "home" is based on racialised violence and exclusion 👌🏼

— kerem (@KeremBrulee) July 4, 2018

Jose Pekerman's switch to a 3-5-2 left England bereft of ideas and swapped with crosses which eventually resulting in a late equaliser

Was this subheading written by a neural network?

https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup/colombia-dirty-shithouse-tactics-england-world-cup-backfired/

This sort of reads like a series of propaganda blurbs that would adorn a triumphalist mural of some kind many years later, teaching the youngsters the importance of sacrificing onesself in times of war and not rising to the dirty tricks of foreigners

The pen, the headbutt and the coach barging Sterling all sort of seem pretty straightforwardly daft though, even with limited sympathy for the England national team

Phil McNulty actually referred to "hostile environment" >:[ https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/44706526

LOL lefties conflating England with the UK, one of the all-time bugbears of everyone else in the UK.

“Instead, England won and while there can be no guarantees, being in a half of draw that now includes Sweden, Russia and Croatia is unquestionably preferable to one containing Brazil, Uruguay, France and Belgium.”

Yes it’s good England stayed out of the bracket with Belgium.

“Instead, England won and while there can be no guarantees, being in a half of draw that now includes Sweden, Russia and Croatia is unquestionably preferable to one containing Brazil, Uruguay, France and Belgium.”

Yes it’s good England stayed out of the bracket with Belgium.

would love a rematch personally - wish they'd met in the first group game

I am not much of a football fan, and regularly turn into a prick every four years, so I won't shite up the thread too much, but there were a couple of things. These opinions are probably present elsewhere on ILX, 4 or 8 or 12 years ago - soz.

I followed (from afar) Jack's Army in Germany '88 and Italia '90, and it was great to feel the buzz from scraping through where we clearly shouldn't - the first team to progress to the quarter finals without winning a match in 90 or 120 minutes! So it was bemusing to see how the English team seemed to avoid that buzz in favour of ridiculous expectations.

I mean, I'm 30 years older now, I get it - but it still seems weird.

And of course any competition in 2018 pitting ENG vs BEL has some trails, I saw an article on BBC Sport saying "England are the sole team in their half of the draw to have won the World Cup and only Sweden, in 1958, have ever reached the final. Last-16 opponents Colombia have only been to the quarter-finals once, in 2014" and it's just this still-there nonsense about however long it is since we were on top we're still a big dog.

I realise this disgruntlement is made more awkward by the reports that this is actually a half-way decent team, and I hold you all responsible.

xp okay but if Belgium win a second time Brexit's off, right?

I saw an article on BBC Sport saying "England are the sole team in their half of the draw to have won the World Cup and only Sweden, in 1958, have ever reached the final. Last-16 opponents Colombia have only been to the quarter-finals once, in 2014" and it's just this still-there nonsense about however long it is since we were on top we're still a big dog.

honestly think this speaks more to rolling sports news' zeal for filling bandwidth with pointless historical stats than empty jingoism, altho I don't doubt there's enough of the latter in there also. if Tunisia were in the QFs instead of England that passage would prob still have been written in alternate form

The stats are certainly wasted on the speak-to-gut far-right phonies who don't even remember England winning a single shootout before.

Is there a Nultism for Beginners Guide we can resort to here?

If I recall correctly the BBC's advert for their coverage of Ireland vs Norway at USA 94 was a comedy musical number with When Irish Eyes Are Smiling having the lyrics changed from "sure they'll steal your heart away" to "they'll be sure to beat Norway"

Sort of nominal support but through a lens of comically exaggerated caterwauling Irishness

I remember this, but remember nothing at all of the subsequent goalless draw, which I gather is to my advantage

Scholes, innit?

― The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums (Chinaski), Wednesday, 4 July 2018 11:53 (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Scholes?

― groovypanda, Wednesday, 4 July 2018 11:54 (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Scholes?

― groovypanda, Wednesday, 4 July 2018 11:54 (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Daniel Sturridge has signed for Chelsea

as someone who's been on (very amateur) radio and does a podcast*, i'm EXTREMELY WELL AWARE that the twin dangers are the thing yr trying to say coming out desperately wrong and problematic versus the dead air that results when you try and be careful and clear, so on the whole i'm more entertained than angry at the weird nonsense that pops out of commentator mouths. yes sometimes it speaks to bad stuff and tired unthought clogging up their souls, as often i think it's just inadvertent dada poetry

caveat: i only engage with football once every four years so (a) i'm not jaded but (b) i have no idea what i'm talking about

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