17 September 2009

I love journamalism

Liverpool, Chelsea and United all won fairly uninspiring 1-0 games in the first round of the CL group stage. None of the teams were any great shakes. So let’s compare the ledes in the BBC’s and ESPN’s match reports. I mean, they’re probably similar, right?

BBC:
Liverpool opened their Champions League campaign in unconvincing fashion with a narrow win over Hungarian champions Debrecen.

Chelsea started their quest to claim the Champions League crown that has remained tantalisingly out of reach with a hard-fought victory against Porto at Stamford Bridge.

• Paul Scholes earned Manchester United a hard-fought win at Besiktas in their opening Champions League Group B game.

Soccernet:
Kuyt settles tie as Reds labour
Dirk Kuyt's 12th goal in 35 Champions League games for Liverpool saw the Anfield men claim an opening Group E victory but there was nothing to suggest a Madrid final in May is on the cards.

Anelka is Ancelotti's charm
Nicolas Anelka proved Chelsea can survive and prosper without banned Didier Drogba as the France international settled their opening Champions League qualifying game against Porto with a second half winner.

Scholes header seals United win
Paul Scholes popped up 13 minutes from time to ensure Manchester United's bid to reach a third successive Champions League final got off on exactly the right note in Istanbul.

No, no media bias at all. Whining Scousers.

9 comments :

P.Heron said...

That's a gem of a post there Nate ;-)

BackBergtt said...

The FSC announcers were killing us all day long, and kept pointing out that we are "taking steps back" in Europe for going out "early" the last two years.

McrRed said...

wicked post, Nate...had me chuckling and crying at the same time...
Let 'em keep underestimating us I say!

The Commish said...

Thats just brilliant Nate. Well done. Our slow start in the Prem has already been translated into a hopeless campaign after 3 games. Now 1 game in Europe against a team whose bus was parked in front of the goal means we may not make the elimination round. It all makes perfect sense.

extrafattyliver said...

To be fair though Porto or away to Turkey is probably tougher than Debrecen (who none of us has heard of) at home. Chelsea and United would probably won by a bigger margin if they played these Hungarians. We didn't do ourselves a favour there by not scoring more.

The game could easily have been 2:0 or 3:1 had we taken some of the chances. Riera, Gerrard and Benayoun should have or would have scored on another day. Then the f***wits with a pen for a living would have to shut up.

I was annoyed post match because the last 15min or so made me really anxious. Masch even gave the ball away at 93 min. But I don't think the team played all that differently to Burnley. Johnson could have overlapped more.

But it is true that unbiased news websites for Liverpool FC probably don't exist.

Abhiram said...

This is one awesome post Nate...
The dissappointing fact about all this media bias is this is the single most influencing reason behind fans going behind ones own players. Many fans believe what they read or rather they are made to think on those lines by the media and this leads to 'pseudo' fans and this is dangerous.

A request mate. Can you do a post on the current owner scenario. If possible, could you please corroborate all the info running around and give your opinion on the same? Would like to know your opinion. Thanks in advance.

Steve said...

It would be interesting to see how often this type of reporting is the case.

While the win wasn't wholly convincing, a win is a win. We did what we needed to do - get three points. Just because Debrecen aren't a 'name' side doesn't make the win any less hard-fought.

nate said...

Yeah, it was "hard-fought" that prompted this post. I understand Liverpool had easier opposition, but all three teams underwhelmed, and it's not as if Liverpool didn't 'work hard.' And both United and Chelsea were 'unconvincing' as well.

I'm annoyed by double standards. I saw it immediately in the BBC reports (never seemed this blatant to me), and looked for other examples. Soccernet, unsurprisingly, also played along, but the Guardian and the Times were at least fair to Liverpool.

Sorry Abe, I've got no desire to write about the idiot owners. And I don't think there's anything new to write about (maybe if they actually find some sucker to take that 25%). My best advice is to keep checking the Liverpool Echo and to keep an eye on RAWK's "off the pitch" forum.

BackBergtt said...

Imagine if we had left it as late as United did. Would have been the standard "Kuyt saves sorry Reds" headline from Soccernet.