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  • Print may hold the key in breaking the Canadian soccer news cycle


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    Yesterday, I was asked on Twitter, “What's with the media blackout after Canada U20 team were knocked out of WC qualifying?”

    Good question. How do you solve a problem like the lack of media coverage of the non-senior level Canadian national teams? Like for example, breaking the silence that followed the Canadian U20 mens team’s failure this week to qualify for the World Cup (which, counter-intuitively, came after a 3-0 loss to Mexico in the CONCACAF championship quarterfinals)?

    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]

    I should make it clear that this is not a mainstream media problem. Nor is simply having too much stuff to cover in sports particularly limited to football, although in Canada where the issue of player development continues to be a source of raging controversy, covering the non-senior teams is arguably more important than, say, covering the annual “will Canada finish second or first in the World Juniors” event.

    The wide world of football is really, really wide, even within the confines of a country like Canada with two MLS clubs and one on the way; two headline grabbing national teams separated by gender and differing political issues within the CSA; and a myriad of lower amateur and semi-pro teams waddling about in this that and the next tier, a “pyramid” so confusing you’d need an idiot savant to sort it all out. To expect some intrepid reporter to file stories on each and every element that makes up the Canadian soccer tableau is unrealistic in the extreme.

    To expect some intrepid Internet blogger to do so is another matter altogether. The rise of interest-driven, niche sports coverage has largely picked up where the limited resources of mainstream media left off. In that sense, the Internet age has and continues to be a boon for lower level football in this country.

    The problem however (and it’s a good problem, as far as problems go) is that these news items are still largely atomized bits and pieces collated only by enterprising Google news searches. For example, the only two searchable outlets that provided any news on the U20 exit at all were goal.com and tsn.ca, and of the two, only the former provided regular, in-depth coverage of the CONCACAF U-20 championship since the start. Missing from this otherwise excellent coverage is a) why the U20 mens team crashing out matters in the grand scheme of things (does it?), B) what it means for our development model (How does our U20 player pool compare to Mexico’s, correcting for population, for example?), and c) whether any of these players or coaching staff might feature later down the line in the national set-up.

    This isn’t a media problem per se, this is a formal issue with the internet. The web, for the most part, likes one-off, single-sentence paragraph match reports, or 500-700 word declaritive posts that “tell it like it is.” It doesn’t suit long form analysis or serial narrative, except in a few rare cases (as in full time bloggers able to provide constant updates and analysis throughout the day). You read enough of these reports and posts and you start to wonder why they matter at all, what new information they yield. This is why it’s hard to get worked up when the media omits mention of the U20 Canadian mens team crashing out of World Cup qualification.

    The solution to this problem may lie in old, stodgy print. Recently, soccer journalist and author Jonathan Wilson started a 180 page plus quarterly magazine called “The Blizzard.” Wilson felt there was a gap in free, longer form football journalism, and so solicited pieces from his fellow sportswriters (including a few prominent bloggers). While he sold the initial issue zero exclusively as a PDF, Wilson made it clear the Blizzard is primarily a print product. Why? Because print requires thoughtful editing, a broader, more calculated attempt at a workable thesis, and provides a more lasting medium for opinion than an online server. It doesn’t allow for the instant, drive-by retort of the reader comment, but requires someone to take the time and effort to pen a letter to the editor.

    The more I read about Canadian soccer, the more I think what’s needed is something less “bullet point” and more “pointillism,” a pulling away from the immediacy of a seemingly unlimited and unconnected series of current events to get a sense of the bigger picture. While we do have one or two Canadian soccer mags, they’re more built on the Four Four Two and World Soccer photo-heavy models. I think what’s needed in this country is a new kind of soccer periodical, a series of essays on the game. It need not be a budget breaker, and I think there would be enough interest for a modest circulation and pro-bono submission.

    I think a print publication of one form or another would in many ways help flesh out some of the issues within the Canadian soccer scene and might be helpful in moving past “sack the CSA” rhetoric and into a real discussion about what further work has to be done to make Canada a global soccer leader. It could provide an equal opportunity meeting point for the small but dedicated group of Canadian soccer bloggers and journalists. I’m certainly not arguing it’s necessary as far as growing the game here is concerned (FIFA as far as I know doesn’t require a soccer literary culture from its member nations). But I think if we want a thoughtful record of the great progress made by football in recent years, print might still be the best medium to provide it.



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