Covering Soccer In Canada: Herculean Task?
By Tokunbo Ojo
The FIFA U-20 World Cup has come and gone. But there are still lingering question about the future media coverage of soccer in Canada.
For the first time in the history of soccer coverage in Canada, the three-week global tournament saw a total of 110 broadcasts and over 220 hours airtime, in addition to hundreds of stories in the print media across the country.
This is a remarkable feat.
“It often takes something like this to push soccer off the back pages,” said Rob Brodie, night sports editor at the Ottawa Sun.
Soccer does not get huge coverage in the Canadian news media because a large number of the decision makers in the newsrooms do not come from a soccer background according to Brodie.
However, with the success of the FIFA U-20 World Cup, he and some other Canadian journalists, who covered the tournament, hope newsroom decision-makers will now see soccer more as part of all news that is fit to cover.
“What’s needed is a major shift in mindset among the decision-makers,” he explained. “I know at our paper, we have made a concerted effort to increase world soccer coverage because we know interest is growing. But more time and energy needs to be put into coverage at the grassroots level in our own communities. We all put a lot of effort into minor hockey coverage, simply because it’s something that’s always been done.”
“But twice as many kids in Canada play minor soccer now. At some point, I believe, that has to be acknowledged in coverage levels. What that requires is somebody deciding it has to happen, and somebody willing to put in the time to make it happen. At a lot of papers, that kind of thinking and that kind of staff level doesn’t exist right now.”
Soccer has grown significantly in Canada since 1987, when Canada hosted the FIFA Under-17 World Cup — in Toronto, Montreal, Saint John (New Brunswick) and St John’s (Newfoundland).
In 2006, there were over 850,000 registered players across the country — 84% of them between the ages of 5 and 18. About 370,000 of these registered players played in Ontario.
Canada 2007 set a new FIFA U-20 World Cup attendance record, with a total attendance of 1,195,239. The 52 matches played in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Burnaby, Victoria and Edmonton from June 30 to July 22 gave FIFA the highest attendance in the history of the 30 year-old tournament. The previous attendance record of 1,155,160 was set in Mexico ’83 U-20 World Cup.
Despite the growing popularity of soccer in Canada, the absence of expertise among the sport reporters also affects its coverage. Don Brennan of the Ottawa Sun has 21 year experience in journalism, covering football, hockey, golf and baseball among others. But soccer is not his thing.
Apart from a feature story he did on a local kids tournament about a decade ago, he has not written anything about soccer until the FIFA U-20 World Cup came to town. Covering the tournament was a tough task for him.
“Others are more familiar with the sport than I, so they have a greater appreciation of it,” said Brennan who has been with the Ottawa Sun since 1988. “I think if I knew it better, it would be easier and more fun to cover.”
Unlike Brennan, Ottawa Citizen’s Mohammed Adam did not have that difficulty. With a wealth of experience covering the game in Ghana under his belt, he took a voluntary leave from the news desk to team up with Richard Starnes, the Ottawa Citizen’s sports desk only soccer writer/columnist, for the World Cup coverage.
Although he described his experience covering the U-20 World Cup as being great , there are still many hurdles to cross to keep soccer in the news in his view.
“Being a hockey country, the fundamental problem is getting people, even editors to pay attention,” he said. “Once the hockey season begins, the emphasis will shift again. You need ongoing events to keep the coverage running but there won’t be many.”
“If there was a professional league, things might be different. I imagine there will be more coverage in Toronto papers like the Star because the city has a team that will generate weekly stories.”
Peter Mallett, who juggles page layout with soccer reporting at the Globe and Mail, had seen it all. He said people still roll their eyes when they hear soccer stories are going on the front page because they see soccer as a foreign sport.
Things are changing gradually around the sport desks at the Globe and Mail according to Mallett. Since Toronto FC joined the major league soccer this year, Larry Millson, who is a renowned baseball writer/reporter, has now been drafted to cover the team and the league on a full-time basis.
As the soccer fever slowly spreads to the newsrooms, Mallett believes it is only a matter of time before soccer starts to rival the coverage of the National Hockey League (NHL) and the Canadian Football League (CFL).
In the meantime, he urges the Canadian Soccer Association (CSA) to improve the game both on the field and off the field.
“On the field we need to improve our technical ability,” he advised, “and off the field the administration of the game needs a complete overhaul if it is to really transcend and become as popular in Canada as it is in other countries.”
U20 WC Montreal: Chileans Roast Flying Eagles Of Nigeria In ExtraTime
By Tokunbo Ojo
Montreal — Four goals in extra-time were all that Chile needed to put an end to the Nigeria’s U-20 World Cup dream on Sunday afternoon at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium.
With the scoreline standing at 0-0 after regulation time, the third quarter-final game of the FIFA U-20 World Cup between Nigeria and Chile went into extra-time.
The 30 minute extra-time – 15 minutes each half – was barely six minutes old when Chile’s Hans Martinez beat Nigeria’s offside trap and lobbed the ball over the on-rushing goalkeeper, Ikechukwu Ezenwa. Jaime Grondona quickly ran into the ball and gently nodded it into the empty net.
The Flying Eagles furiously protested the referee’s decision to allow the goal, which they considered to be an offside goal. But English referee, Howard Webb, stood his ground and then gave Ezenwa the yellow card.
Ladan Bosso, Nigeria’s coach, shared the sentiment of his boys about the goal. At the post-match press conference, he called into question FIFA’s anti-racism campaign and indirectly his team’s defeat to aversive racism.
“When you are looking for something (an offside call) and you don’t get it, all your doubt becomes negativity and it becomes very hard to fight,” Bosso said.
“What I’m saying is that it’s good to fight racism but it’s important not only to bring in the idea, you have to follow it to the letter so that implementation is done.”
From the moment the goal was allowed, things started going bad for the Flying Eagles. The Nigerians had evenly matched their opponents in every department of the game.
Nigeria went on to concede three more goals against the Chileans. Chile’s confidence grew with lots of diagonal counter-attack runs into the Nigerian half after that first penetration through the tight Nigerian defence.
“When you concede a goal and you feel is not a goal, you feel you’ve been cheated. But you can’t do anything about it,” said Bala Ezekiel, Nigeria’s captain.
Traditionally, Nigeria has a poor record against South American teams at the FIFA U-20 level. Prior to the Sunday’s encounter, Nigeria had played South American teams six times in the U-20 World Cup and lost five times. Nigeria tied against Brazil at the 2005 U-20 World Cup in Netherlands .
Sunday was the first time that Nigeria and Chile met in the U-20 level. The only previous meeting between both teams was in Sydney 2000 Olympic soccer tournament. Chile beat Nigeria 4-1 in that encounter. It was also at the quarter-final stage.
Chilean coach Jose Sulantay, who is now looking forward to his team’s semi-final against Argentina, in Toronto on Wednesday, does not believe racism was a factor in Sunday’s game. He believed that his team played well enough for the victory. But he clearly pointed out that “no one would have expected us to put four goals past such a solid team.”
The last time that Chile made it to semi-final stage of this tournament was 20 years ago when the country hosted the tournament. That fourth-place finish on the home soil, 20 years ago, was Chile ’s best performance so far in the U-20 World Cup.
U20 WC Ottawa: Flying Eagles Soar To Quarter-Final
By Tokunbo Ojo
Nigeria’s Flying Eagles tore apart Zambia’s Copper Bullets Thursday evening in second round play at Frank Clair Stadium. The game ended 2-1 in Nigeria’s favour.
It was a tough one said coach Ladan Bosso of Nigeria, “But we went for a win and we got it.”
From the kick-off, the Flying Eagles took the game to the Zambians. Their dazzling runs were worrisome for the Zambian defenders. Bala Ezekiel inspired the Nigerian attack.
Before Zambian goalkeeper Jacob Banda and his team could realize what was going on the field, the overlapping Nigerian defender, Uwa Echiejile, came from behind to nod home the Flying Eagles’ first goal.
It came off a corner kick taken from the left flank in the 3rd minute. Although Rodgers Kola put Zambians back in the game 30 minutes later, the Zambian defence was so porous that the Nigerian could have scored at least four goals in the first 20 minutes if they had converted their many chances.
But they just could not score because of selfish individual play upfront. Instead of releasing the ball to the best-positioned player, at the top of Zambia’s box, the Nigerians chose to score from impossible angles.
“They see scouts around them and they try to be individualistic,” said Bosso at the post-match press conference.
At the half, Bosso reminded his boys about the need to play as a team. Nigeria’s coach believed that his half-time talk yielded some results. In the second half, his team played more as a unit.
In the 57th minute, a well-set up play from the midfield sealed the victory for Nigeria. Having received a pass from Ezekiel, Akabueze fired a canon shot few metres away from the Zambian 18th yard box. Zambian keeper could not get his hands on the ball as it dropped into the net.
Despite the fact that Nigeria was favoured to win, the Zambians did not give up the fight till the final whistle. They fought hard for the ball and tried to catch Nigeria on the counter-attack by taking advantage of the huge gaps often left behind by both Nigeria’s overlapping full-backs.
The Zambians created some second half panic moments for the Nigerians, with their counter-attack play. These efforts, however, were not strong enough to make a difference against Nigerians.
“We may have fallen, but we have gained experience for the future,” said Zambian coach George Lwandamina. “The guys showed determination and ambition. They should have no regrets.”
He added that a better team won at the end of the 90 minutes encounter in which both teams gave a good account of themselves in the presence of about 21,000 fans that came to see the match.
This Lwandamina coached team is the second Zambian team to make it to the knock-out stage of any FIFA organized tournament since Zambia Football Association became an affiliate of FIFA in 1964. The other Zambian national team that made it to the knock-out stage of the FIFA tournament is the team that played in the 1988 Olympic Football Tournament in Seoul. Coach Lwandamina was a member of that Zambian team, which upset Italy, in the Seoul ‘88 Olympic.
