Forensic analysis
Boohoo, you might say – not unreasonably.
But, while the lesser press activities do mean a longer lie-in, the players’ days off also create something of a vacuum. The operation of simply framing and relaying quotes from a 15-minute press conference, after all, is increasingly the bread and butter of sports journalism. (There is also, incidentally, an argument that it is killing true sports journalism but that’s for another day.)
In the absence of such a source, journalists have to come up with concept pieces, they have to go looking for “colour”. (For me, yesterday, that consisted of moving from a hotel to an apartment where I somehow successfully checked in despite a significant language chasm between myself and the land lady and an exchange that consisted only of points and nods. As a further aside, it's worth noting for visiting fans that English is only really widespread in Poland for those in their twenties or younger.)
Worse, journalists have to talk to each other.
I jest, of course. Indeed, it was such a conversation over the last 24 hours that offered a bit of an insight into how the global media – as opposed to just the Irish – actually covers these competitions.
In between Giovanni Trapattoni finishing talking on Tuesday and waiting for Jon Walters to come out, I got chatting to a Dutch journalist who had been sent to report on the Irish arrival. He explained that he simply couldn’t understand how there was criticism of Trapattoni in Ireland... before absolutely damning his team’s tactical approach and completely dismissing the chances of the World Cup finalists.
Last Sunday, similarly, I was on Newstalk discussing Euro 2012 with the admirable English journalist Barney Ronay and his French counterpart, Philippe Auclair.
Their otherwise excellent arguments could be summed up as such...
The French journalist: ‘France do have problems, people are underestimating England.’
The English journalist: ‘England cannot possibly be underestimated, they’re dreadful. France will win the group.’
Such exchanges have got me thinking – particularly in relation to the criticism the Irish media have received about criticising Trapattoni ourselves.
Over the last few weeks in researching for this tournament, I have also spoken to Croatian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish and Polish journalists. Every single one of them was somewhat pessimistic. Every single one of them played up the positives of other teams.
For me, though, the problem is not one of media negativity. The problem is of perception.
It’s not that the media are critical by default. It’s that, because it’s our obligation to forensically analyse every aspect and potential aspect of the team, it can seem like we’re overdoing it.
On another level, the very fact that we simply must pay more attention to our own team than those of others means that we don’t quite well dwell on the very real negatives of others to the same degree.
In short, the context is always somewhat skewed. But, despite perceptions of agendas, that doesn’t mean opinions or analyses are.
