Commentary on the Commentary

I'm sorry, something has to be said. Craig Foster has written an incredibly descriptive article about his holiday to Brazil. Or something like that. A couple of these paragraphs sound like a tour of the departure lounge at Tullamarine Airport, rather than an informative analysis of WHY and HOW Thailand frustrated Australia.

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/football/socceroos-stall-on-the-tarmac-20110903-1jrex.html?rand=1315060213375

To be fair, Foz identifies McKay's influence during that game (with nary a mention of his poor defensive performance), that Australia were too reliant on the right flank and that we improved after the break and that Thailand played defensively, on the counter. But he doesn't identify the root cause of Australia's poor performance (Holger's erroneous and unbalanced team selection) and Cahill and Kennedy's culpability in our static play. Kennedy damn near tried his hardest to impersonate a statue on the pitch, such was his lacklustre movement. Perfect time for a football journalist to trot out one of the more famous Redknapp-isms; "F**king run about a bit!", and make a clever reference to Peter Crouch. (Both are damn-near gigantic you see) 

Ditto Michael Lynch, but even his article, and I didn't think it was possible, manages to be even more generic. To be fair, he has made a wicked pun. For those who didn't know (and I was one of the ignorant), "phew" is something to do with Thailand. Probably.

http://www.theage.com.au/sport/soccer/the-deeds-of-the-phew-20110903-1jrqr.html

At least he takes the time to quote Holger...without EXPLAINING the significance of what he said. Lynch, again criticises Australia for the lack of "pace, urgency and creativity", but doesn't offer a specific solution to address this problem, nor any specific explanation of WHY this was the case.
(say 'specific solution' fast 10 ten times and Jules will start screaming.) ((Julia Gillard)) (((it sounds like 'pacific solution'))) ((((...kind of))))

The level of punditry being offered up is too often generic and inadequate. Too often, it's merely a case of literary hand wringing, glossed up by one too many trips to Thesaurus.com, lacking any semblance of serious, objective and informative analysis (Thank you Messers Oxford and Webster). It's time to raise the standard.

It's time for Pass and Move.

(Roll credits, cue Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins)

Disclaimer: No thesauruses were consulted during the production of this article. And we at Pass and Move actually like Craig Foster.