Re: (Euro '04) RSS Battles!

Paul grave wrote:
> You may have a point, hard to tell from this side of the fence. However, 
> I can assure you the same is true of the English media, in fact in 
> thinking about it, I should say the British media.

As I think I said, I suspect the same is true for large segments of the 
English media, though the papers I read are always pretty pessimistic 
about England -- the "no real flair, miles behind technically, we can 
only learn from the French and Brasilians" type of thing.  I am not sure 
there has been much Scottish triumphalism since the days of Ally 
MacLeod, though I can imagine the Scottish press consistently overstates 
the potential of Celtic and/or Rangers to achieve anything in Europe.
However it was more the lack of grace in defeat that bothered me in 
France, and based on the rugby recently (I happened to be in Toulouse at 
the time) nothing has changed.  It is always "we play so much better and 
more attractive football, they are a bunch of thugs, oh such a cruel 
fate" (plus the weather, goal posts, refereeing, etc). I think the thugs 
and other stuff even used to be relatively true, but the current French 
football team (as its disciplinary record and that of many of its 
members shows) can kick anyone off the park.  Well, almost anyone.

Kicker I found fairly down to earth.  Fairly critical of the German team 
in general and happy to ackowledge talent in other countries.  You could 
learn a lot about Italian, Spanish and French football reading Kicker. 
Maybe it has changed, but when I check out the online edition every now 
and then (mostly to see how poor old Arminia is doing), it seems to be 
much the same as it was.

As I mentioned, I don't read Marca and As here, but I assume that views 
that Daniele and Will have of Spanish "arrogance" come from the Pro-Real 
Madrid triumphalism in those publications.  There is not, as far as I 
can tell from TV and several newspapers, the same view of the national 
team, which tends to take a beating in the press even though it usually 
plays well even when losing.  Most Spaniards (all, I would say) I have 
met are very pessimistic about the national team, and I haven't heard 
anyone predict they will win Euro 04.  IOW they don't seem too 
pretentious, as is fitting in a team that hasn't won anything since 1964 
or thereabouts.  But then Spaniards are a pessimistic lot in many ways, 
and have a serious inferiority complex problem when comparing themselves 
to northern europe - they worry about their schools, Universities, 
roads, infrastructure far too much in stead of giving themselves a good 
pat on the back for all they have achieved since Franco (consitution 
celebrates 25 years this saturday).  The inferiority bit is actually 
quite remeniscent of home (Canada), where the attitude (wrong !) tends 
to be, "if it is Canadian (Film, Book, Food, you name it) it is probably 
crap "

> MH wrote:
>
> > 1) the French media.  I have spent enough time in France and read 
> > L'equipe, France Football etc. enough to put me off French sports for