So depressED, ranty columns are a big hit, who would have thought that?
Well, it’s why I wrote them. But on a whole, the sport is amazing, unless you are a Cardiff fan, and you are miserable right now. Ah to digress. Now to start off 2014 on a better note and a positive note. I think we need to focus more on the other leagues in the sport. The so called “Third Tier” leagues in the world or whatever demeaning title it can be used by the pundits.
Something that is good about the sport in Europe is the Champions League and the Europa League (still sounds like a vegan drink to me). So you can highlight so many teams and so many other countries. Yes, it’s hard to watch the Albanian league but then again, how much fun is it to watch Non-League football? As a reference I’ve seen some Fleetwood and Ebbsfleet matches online, and yes they weren’t stellar.
There’s some decent football going on in Ukraine, Belgium and Turkey. That doesn’t mention the absolute craziness that is the Serbian league after all a Redstar v Partizan league derby (the Eternal Derby) the fans set fire to the stadium, think of that. Norway and Sweden tend to have some good young players of every nationality playing in their leagues. And they don’t dump out of the competitions as spectacularly as Italy does. A common thread throughout my time online in footballing media has my hatred of the Italian league and the fans who think it’s still a good enough league.
Also I have a completely irrational hatred of Bolton Wanderers but more on that in a later column.
It’s part of the football ‘snobdum‘ that we have to watch everything, know of every league, and see every player, because we might come up against them in the Football Manager game (other brands available). Also that’s probably the only reason why people in the United States and England actually care about the Europa league. I’ll say this, we do get to see the Europa league here on the Fox Sports networks.
Not every player who will turn out for your national side is playing in the “top tier” league, where was ex-England Goalkeeeper Scott Carson? He was in Turkey last year. Drogba went from China to Turkey, ok for the money, but not top leagues. Well, Beckham being the spokesman for the Chinese league would argue.
Can we admit also that the commentators at the top networks don’t know what they are talking about? They are all about publicising the top leagues and teams that they don’t see the lesser have some really good football. Okay, the devils advocate side of me says that none of these teams in the lesser leagues will win, so why should we care? Because it’s football, you never know when a team will come out of nowhere, or a player will come out of nowhere and do well. It’s all about finding the great in the game and talking about it.
That wasn’t actually hard. I think I might do more positive ones!
Article written by Stephen Brandt
