So a couple days ago I stumbled upon an article in the Globe about John Carver (coach of the TFC) responding to the negative media in Toronto. It took me a while to find it online because it's not linked anywhere on their soccer page for some reason.
Some choice quotes:
"I sit and wonder, why hasn't (Toronto's) hockey team won anything? Why hasn't the baseball team been successful lately? Because I'm coming from the outside and I don't know if you guys get your heads together cause you don't like writing nice things. ... You just want to write sh--..."
"Does Toronto want their teams to be successful? I'm asking you."
""Do you want me to get up and (leave)," Carver asked with incredulity."
Now, the article goes on to detail how he's been suffering under the stress of the media coverage, that in England he only gives weekly updates but in Canada he's expected to appear every day.
We hate on Cox, Simmons, et. al. for their rhetoric and the fact that they always point the finger at their fanbase whenever their idiocy and general negativity is thrown under scrutiny. Rare is it in history that you can continue to be paid not just after you call your consumer base clods, but because you can barely hide your disdain for them. It reminds me of when I used to work in a comic book store.
As much as we hate on them for their opinions of us, what about the players? We quickly dismiss the thought regularly, these are after all adults making millions and they can just fucking deal with it. But whether consciously or subconsciously, what kind of affect does this constant attention have on their psyches?
Players blow it off in interviews but they hardly want to come off as whiners. At the end of the day, is the topic that we blow off as childish in fact the reason for our downfall? Is it because of us, the media that we'll digest constantly, the need for more interviews, more news, that our teams under perform? That our guys choke when it's most important? That losing a few games becomes a losing spiral, that the same problems that plague our teams never get fixed?
Is it odd that it takes someone from England (a football crazy country) to come in and tell us that our ravenous consumption of sport media is ludicrous? Possibly detrimental to his team? Could the media in fact be a major contributing factor to not only the discontented mentality fans have towards their teams, but also to the play of the teams themselves?
I don't like the idea of blaming the media for our teams' woes, there are more obvious factors at play here than a subversive media turning our players all into depressed choke artists. But every Toronto fan knows that the media here does factor in greatly in the lives of our professional athletes. Carver isn't telling us anything we didn't suspect, but a coach from a foreign land playing a game that hasn't yet been embraced in Canada has a bit better of an outsiders' view on this city than we do.
Perhaps more than just the team will need to change in the coming years for success to come our way.
1 comment:
Okay, I agree with some of what he says, referring standards are poor. But then this is the MLS and not the premiership (EPL), where almost every manager blames the ref at some point or other.
However the press intrusion is annoying? John Carver was never a real manager in England. He had one game as a caretaker manager at Newcastle and what, five games at Leeds? So that's six games IN TOTAL as a manger in England. I bet the press attention was crazy.
Finally, Toronto is a mad sports city. But then England is a mad sports country and the press here is just as bad and mad as in Toronto.
Post a Comment