++ [ originally posted by swag ] ++
In the continued discussion of what it means to be a champion NT in this day and age...
One of the more irritating things about sportscasters in general is that they perpetuate this perception that underdogs, particularly ones with great defenses, don't deserve the credit for winning as much as their opponents are guilty of playing poorly.
I could see that argument for the first Portugal-Greece match, as Scolari fielded too much deadwood that he had since corrected. But I heard a lot of comments about how Portugal played poorly yesterday. Aside of a bit of very poor set piece defense (that cost them the title), I would disagree. But even more annoying is that I heard the same of France when they played Greece, I heard the same of the Czech Republic when they played Greece, etc.
Comon! How many coincidental strings of "poor performances" of opponents do you need as evidence that maybe one of the primary reasons those teams looked bad was because Greece made them look bad? The same was true with Porto and the CL this year.
No wonder so many people think that this Euro sucked and that a team like Greece doesn't have legitimacy to their title. The media helps perpetuate this logic that teams like Greece and FC Porto were lucky and merely caught every successive opponent in an off game on the way to their titles. What a wild coincidence that so many would falter in bad form at the very time they played them.
In the continued discussion of what it means to be a champion NT in this day and age...
One of the more irritating things about sportscasters in general is that they perpetuate this perception that underdogs, particularly ones with great defenses, don't deserve the credit for winning as much as their opponents are guilty of playing poorly.
I could see that argument for the first Portugal-Greece match, as Scolari fielded too much deadwood that he had since corrected. But I heard a lot of comments about how Portugal played poorly yesterday. Aside of a bit of very poor set piece defense (that cost them the title), I would disagree. But even more annoying is that I heard the same of France when they played Greece, I heard the same of the Czech Republic when they played Greece, etc.
Comon! How many coincidental strings of "poor performances" of opponents do you need as evidence that maybe one of the primary reasons those teams looked bad was because Greece made them look bad? The same was true with Porto and the CL this year.
No wonder so many people think that this Euro sucked and that a team like Greece doesn't have legitimacy to their title. The media helps perpetuate this logic that teams like Greece and FC Porto were lucky and merely caught every successive opponent in an off game on the way to their titles. What a wild coincidence that so many would falter in bad form at the very time they played them.
Good post.
You know...I watched most of the games on interactive TV...match sound only, without any commentators, sportscaters, etc.
I thought the Greeks played superior tactics in defence (come on people, who can deny that their back four didn't pull off some great defensive individual performances; haven't Porto just bought their right back?), and looked very dangerous on the counter attack.
Then, later, when I watched highlights with commentators, the entire outlook on the match changed. They had me believing Greece had eleven men behind the ball, and never got over half way in the whole match.
Greece did not play attacking football, I'll grant you that...but that was the only negative point of their performances. They asked players earning fifty times more a year to earn their reputations with displayes of inventive, creative, attacking football, and the opposition failed miserably.
I think any team will struggle to break down Greece in WC qualifying, and they could easily get through to Germany in two years.
Why not folks?
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.....may you forever be haunted by that 3 meanless missed chances 