Foster isn’t anti-British, he’s just rude

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By dasilva, 26 Jan 2009 dasilva is a Roar Guru

Tagged:: A-League, football, Frank Lowy, Jose Mourinho, Rafa Benitez, Socceroos, Sydney FC

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Craig Foster zealously believes in playing ‘beautiful football’, and that clubs have a responsibility to not only to win, but to play attractive football for the neutrals.

He then ferociously criticises clubs for playing defensive or direct football.

However, none of this is because of nationality, but because of the style of football. The fact that British clubs and coaches are criticised is just a coincidence.

The support of my argument is that many times non-British managers are criticised for their styles of play, including the likes of Jose Mourinho and Rafa Benitez.

Also, the World Game has lamented about the growing pragmatism of Brazilian football and how they no longer represent ‘Joga Bonito’ like they used to.

Craig Foster was condemned for his handling of the Terry Butcher issue, especially for criticising Terry Butcher before he even set foot in Australia and coached a single match with Sydney FC.

Some people have argued that if Terry Butcher wasn’t English then he wouldn’t have criticised him that early and given the coach a fair chance to prove himself.

Obviously those people who say that have never seen Craig Foster’s reaction to Frank Lowy trying to get Gerard Houllier to coach the Socceroos during SBS’ ‘Shootout’. This was probably the most vicious attack he ever made.

He said that according some of his French friends, he has no respect in France and that he believes the general perception is that Gerard Houllier is a selfish, greedy person and only cares about money.

The biggest problem with Foster is the way he criticises things in general. He has a very direct and confrontation style and sometimes crosses the line to become offensive and rude.

When he criticises the British teams and general playing standards, it’s very easy to believe he is anti-British due to the sheer ferocity of his criticism. Comments like, Celtic without Nakamura is barely a football club’, doesn’t do him any favours. And they add to the anti-British myth.

He likes to put fuel into fire when it is not necessarily.

But if you remove the passion and aggression from his arguments you realise that the actual content isn’t that controversial or radical. Stuff like the British culture values physique over creativity, Britain players as a whole are technically deficient and that there are problems with the youth development system is nothing new and are readily admitted as problems back in those countries.

However, people have to realise that this is his general style of criticism and he sounds like this when he criticising about any topic, not just British football.

If he learns a bit of diplomacy, then this would have been a non-issue.

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The Crowd Says (65) | Page 1 of Comments

dasilva said | January 26th 2009 @ 9:32am | Report comment

By the way this is the last part of the two part series of “Is Craig Foster really Anti-British?”

I won’t make comments about this issue on any other topics as I guess you are all sick of it.

In the end my point is that his style of criticism makes him opens to suggestion that he has an agenda, prejudice or has a personal vendetta rather then he actually having one.

In the beginning I believe Craig was within his right to question about English football culture. He was asking who should be the role models in Australia’s development and traditionally it was English football and that he believes that’s part of the reason why Australia are lacking technically. It’s really no difference to what Saint Johnny Warren said and after all he coined the term English football mafia. However Johnny was far more diplomatic person then Craig ever was and therefore less offensive and divisive.

unfortunately Craig drone on about it for far too long and it was completely unnecessary. He should have moved on to the technical sides of the issues and questioning the merits of various styles of play rather then continually attack English football. AFter all the the main issue for him is that the more physical and direct style of play are not conducive in developing players AND consistently win matches. The fact that that style of play is popular in England isn’t particularly relevant or important. If he then started to analyse the flaws of various system instead of bringing nationality into it, he would have pissed off far less people.

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Slippery Jim said | January 26th 2009 @ 12:04pm | Report comment

As I said on the last thread, Foster clearly seems anti-British football. And yes, he is rude.

I remember the stark contrast between that lovely gent Martin Tyler who was on TWG once, and was asked a rather pointed question about Chelsea buying success or some such lowest-common-denominator drivel. Martin Tyler, although being a lifelong Chelsea fan, did not resort to passionate histrionics Fozzie-style, but gave a gracious, calm, well thought-out reply that gave a more balanced viewpoint, while still treating his host with respect.

Clearly Foster has some sort of chip on his shoulder that makes him unbalanced in his views. As shown by his treatment of Ange and Les’ mysogynistic article about Rebecca Wilson recently, both Les and Murray may be eloquent at times, but lack the true class shown by Martin Tyler in the way they express their personal viewpoints.

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Slippery Jim said | January 26th 2009 @ 12:11pm | Report comment

From a personal perspective, I get sick to death of listening to an hour or so of pre and post match and half time commentary during UEFA Champions league matches featuring Chelsea in which they constantly banged on about what an evil club they are, anti-football, etc etc that it made me feel like throwing something at their smug faces on the screen. What they obviously did not seem to realize is that a large proportion of viewers watching said matches featuring Chelsea are quite likely to be actual Chelsea supporters who actually love the club and don’t want to hear it slagged off constantly by commentators with axes to grind when it comes to anything English in football. Having Bozza and Francis occasionally on Fox for EPL matches has been a godsend…

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Joe FC said | January 26th 2009 @ 12:28pm | Report comment

agree with you Slippery Jim which is why I’m grateful I can watch UEFA CL on ESPN.

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dasilva said | January 26th 2009 @ 12:33pm | Report comment

SJ

I agree for the most part that Fozzie is a hothead and a bit of loose cannons. However I think he is pretty consistent about his outburst that they are not particularly targeting English to be particular. Just coaches who employ styles he doesn’t like. The likes of houllier a case in point where he strongly objected to him coaching australia due to character reasons (has Fozzy ever met him before? How can you call someone a mercenary and character assassinate someone without ever meeting the person) and style of football.

I agree he has been incredibly rude to Chelsea and he shows lack of respect to those clubs. in the end he can criticise the playing styles of clubs if he want to but he has to do it without insulting the clubs and their fans. His scottish football rants and denouncing Celtic as a football club was pretty poor from him. Like I said being offensive and rude is pretty consistent thing for him and is no more when talking about other issues.

One of his lowest point was when he went on “Good Game” a video game show on ABC. He went and play FIFA 09 against the host of the show. He picked Australia. The host said he want to pick a crap side as he doesn’t want to beat Australia. Fozzy says “Pick Scotland”. It turns out that Australia was rated 3.5 stars and scotland 4 stars in that game. He was like “4 stars, how on earth are they 4 stars”. I cracked up laughing – I mean he can’t help himself can’t he. Even when he is on a video game show he has to take pot shots (by the way Fozzy lost the game 3-1)

yeah I’m happy to admit that he can be bit of obnoxious rude person. I do believe he has an extreme prejudice against particular footballing styles. However I do believe that doesn’t mean he is prejudice against English. you do know there are italians who are convince that SBS are anti-Italians as well and are bias against there national team and their clubs. I do believe most of anti– insert race is an underhanded and below the way to say I disagree with his views.

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Midfielder said | January 26th 2009 @ 12:33pm | Report comment

Agree SJ … and remember… The apprentice learns and is directed by his master ….

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Slippery Jim said | January 26th 2009 @ 12:35pm | Report comment

Joe FC, the trouble with that otherwise fine strategy is, it’s shown in 4:3 and you often have to put up with Tommy Smyth getting maximum mileage out of his ‘olde onion bag’ catchphrase at every opportunity. Plus every time they pass the ball the commentators call it a ‘play’. It’s a toss up which is the most irritating channel…

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Slippery Jim said | January 26th 2009 @ 12:45pm | Report comment

Midfielder, Les being the puppetmaster…sorry, official title “SBS Editorial Supervisor”

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Joe FC said | January 26th 2009 @ 12:47pm | Report comment

fair point Slippery Jim

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Slippery Jim said | January 26th 2009 @ 12:57pm | Report comment

Craig Fosters entry in Uncyclopedia…amusing.

“Craig Foster
From Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia.

The Man himself.Craig “Fostinho” Foster is a retired Australian football player who has made it his life’s work to use the phrases ‘technical’, ‘tactical brilliance’ and ‘world clarsh’ as many times as hummanly possible in any discussion.

Contents
1 Humble Beginnings
2 Later Career
3 Big Break
4 Present Day
5 Likes
6 Dislikes

Humble Beginnings
Fostinho played football at many different levels throughout the world. Even quite shockingly the EPL which thesedays Fostinho berates for its lack of technical play.

Later Career
Once Fostinho retired from football he took the up the usual role in sporting commentary with SBS. At first he tried to win over fans by trying to wear the Fattest ties on TV whilst keeping a straight face. However viewers weren’t impressed by Fostinho or even co-presenter Ned Zelic who is still trying to find the most comfortable seating position known to man.

Big Break
Fostinho’s watershed moment came in 2006 when interviewing the ever crap Ange Postecoglou about his 34345498767th failure to qualify for a tournament. Foster simply technically and tactically savaged Ange with big statements like ‘look Ange im not technically here to be your friend’ and ‘Ange i dont need to come to your training, i’ve seen the technical and tactical results’. In the space of 15 minutes the legend of Fostinho was born and Ange Postecoglu and his untechnical ways of thinking were put out to pasture.

Present Day
These days one can find Fostinho every sunday on the world game talking about the technical brilliance of every single South American, Dutch and French football player walking the earth. Next comes the usual tirade on how Australia must change its footballing ideals. And after all this valuable insight if any time remains Fostinho will bag the English long ball style of play to further reinforce his point of playing ‘technical football’ and joga bonito reagrdless of the situation.

Likes
Fostinho has many loves including:

Saying the word ‘technical’ and ‘World Clarsh”
Brazilians (not the downstairs one).
Total Football as invented by Rinus Michaels
A man crush on both Ronaldhino and Lionel Messi
South American football in General
Wearing ties with fats knots
Any team who plays joga bonito in his opnion regardless if they lose every game, but hey at least u played sexy football ey Fostinho

Dislikes
By the same token Fostinho has discovered many things which piss off his technically brilliant world-clarshness:

Getting Deep Crosses in
The Long Ball Game being played
Target men
5-4-1 formation
Rafa Benetiez and Jose Mourinho
The EPL in general
Graham Arnold
Ange Postecoglou
Terry Butcher
Scottish National Football Team

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