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

 
dasilva Roar Guru

By dasilva, 26 Jan 2009 dasilva is a Roar Guru

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Also, the World Game has lamented about the growing pragmatism of Brazilian football and how they no longer represent ‘Joga Bonito’ like they used to.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