Will Leitch, perhaps unaware that former West Ham tantrum specialist Paolo Di Canio is an old hand at this sort of thing, is pretty quick to use the striker’s latest sieg-heiling incident as an example of creepy behaviour permeating the world of soccer.
To which I can only reply,
Marge Schott
Steve Carlton
Charlie Ward
Will should be running a story about the 1936 Olympics any day now. Once he’s done giggling over “Mein Kampf”, of course.
oooh, you got him GOOD. are you gonna castrate him for anything else he missed when the website didnt exist? how bout john rocker? or lazio’s history?
James,
I’m merely pointing out that Di Canio — a bona fide nut case — has a long, sordid history of this sort of behavior. Will reporting it as news without mention of Di Canio’s other public embarrassments is akin to, say, mentioning that this Ron Artest guy wants to be traded, what’s up with that, etc.
But to reiterate, I think it is far more questionable to cite Di Canio’s sieg-heiling as some of of widespread, neo-nazi ugliness in the soccer universe. Does an element of that exist? Absolutely. But as noted above, the US sporting scene has had no shortage of cringe-inducing moments, too (and I’m not even counting Will’s appearance on “Quite Frankly”).
Re : castration. Seems like a bit much (quite frankly), and while I’m tempted to say someone’s already done the job, I still think it’s perfectly acceptable to continue pointing out just how often this guy misses the point, gets his facts wrong or is just plain full-of-shit-for-a-living.
I can only presume from the half dozen or so letters I’ve received imploring me to lay off Will that a writer has to reach Skip Bayless’ level of prominence before they’re held accountable.