Cup Coverage Ramps Up

With the World Cup opener just four days away, coverage of the event is saturating even American media.  As reported in the last post, ESPN The Magazine carried the World Cup as its theme of the current edition.  Sports Illustrated put out its World Cup special this week and today's New York Times Magazine is a World Cup edition.  The latter includes a feature piece on German-born U.S. men's coach Jürgen Klinsmann.

Interestingly, the Klinsmann article quotes former U.S. and current L.A. Galaxy coach Bruce Arena as saying U.s. Soccer should find a native-born coach.  “I believe an American should be coaching the national team,” Arena told the Times' Sam Borden “I think the majority of the national team should come out of Major League Soccer. The people that run our governing body think we need to copy what everyone else does, when in reality, our solutions will ultimately come from our culture.

“Come on,” he says. “We can’t copy what Brazil does or Germany does or England does. When we get it right, it’s going to be because the solutions are right here. We have the best sports facilities in the world. Why can’t we trust in that?”

In addition to its magazine coverage of the Cup, today's Times includes a Metro piece on where to watch the games in New York (sadly no German places listed), an Op-Ed article by Dave Zirn calling for the abolition of FIFA, and an editorial about allegations of match-fixing.

Lots to read.  I better get going if I want to absorb it all before the first kick-off.