Educating the football illiterate

     Many problems- the midfield in particular- were laid bare in the Azkals' semi-final clash with the Singapore Red Lions. This time, there was no fortunate goal from over-the-top to spare their blushes. I could only imagine how loud the moans were inside the stadium at Jason de Jong's dismal performance. His consequent half-time withdrawal was met with discreet sighs of relief. The two-penny pundits who spoke praises of his substitute, Marwin Angeles and the more fluid game of the Azkals in the second half, also did little to lift the young Dutch-Filipino midfielder's spirits. It's hard not to feel sorry for the guy. To the credit of the visitors, Singapore looked disciplined and threatened on a couple of occassions. It seemed for the most part though that they'd rather take the game to the Philippines on their own home turf.

     However, my main point of discontent centers not on the problematic midfield system per se or on poor Jason de Jong – these are issues that should be sorted out by Weiss and the coaching staff – but how this midfield conundrum was presented by the media. Football, despite its proclaimed “history” in our country, is still relatively new, only rising to national popularity seven years ago. The recent (little) triumphs of the Azkals, para-celebrity status, and overall-good-looks, has turned them from Sunday sports page footers to (trivial) headline grabbers. Philippine football's fast-track to fame, however, belies an ugly tumor that has steadily grown to a sickening size: the issue of football illiteracy.

     From television to print, everyone reporting on the Azkals hardly knows what they're talking about once they go into tactics and conduct match reviews. It clearly doesn't help at all to have sports media personalities performing these duties. Yes, they may have coaches and (ex-)players tag along most of the time but their input is bogged down and obfuscated by their non-footballer hosts' inability to tell between a linesman and an electrician. The bigger concern for these outlets is satisfying the pressing need to report on the biggest Philippine sporting phenomenon of late (sans Pacquiao who has all but gone to the bin anyway), rather than providing an accurate and truthful story of the game itself. This disjunct, however, is not just a function of time or locality. It is an old and still prevalent issue even in the traditional footballing nations. Perhaps, then, we could learn a bit from Eamon Dunphy's diary-cum-book, Only a Game? Dunphy is an outspoken football pundit, ex-professional player in the English Football League, and Irish national (earning a respectable 23 caps for the Republic).

“On that level, the journalists views have some validity. But on a deeper level, they don't know what's going on on a pitch. All of them can do straightforward match report. But they don't understand what they are seeing most of the time. They may see that Millwall won the midfield battle. But they don't know why. They have no idea we were pushing up tight on them when they had possession, forcing them to go deeper... You say that to a journalist, and he won't know what you're talking about. Whereas theatre critics and film critics do know what the mechanics of a production are, most football writers don't. So players tend to despise journalists.”

     The disagreement between the story of the game and the story in the papers is the product of media's inherent crisis of representation, given the need for the story and importance/popularity of the object of the report. Add to that the ills of local football as an emerging industry (with the fledgling UFL) and profitable venture and you've got quite a mess on your hands to sort out. To understand what happens in a football match, then, cannot simply be done by watching games in a stadium; more so on the telly. Really, one has to know what Dunphy referred to as the “mechanics of production”, the details oft-forgone that keep broadcasts short and wallets thicker. The politics and nuances of football ownership, management, and player rights and salaries vis. that of the local media conglomerates should always be kept in mind. As long as these necessary facts are kept away from the camera and hidden from the public eye, the development of football as a successful national endeavor is a shaky prospect (among other things). If the broadcasters cannot be reflexive (reflective, even) of their own practices, the burden of educating the audience is placed uncomfortably on the shoulders of the audience themselves. And sadly, most of them don't know any better.

     Pierre Bourdieu, in the appendix, entitled The Olympics- An Agenda for Analysis, to his book, On Television, would refer to this mediated sports spectacle as the “two-step social construction”. The first level to this construction would be of the “sports event” and second, the “media event”. Discussing the Olympics, he goes:

"All of which means that to understand the games, we would have to look at the whole field of production of the Olympics as a televised show or, in marketing terms, as a "means of communication." That is to say, we would have to assess all the objective relations between the agents and institutions competing to produce and sell the images of, and commentary about, the Olympics."

     As long as local broadcasters and print media are reluctant to review their football reportage, their audience and readers will be kept wallowing in the mire of their constructed ignorance. The Azkals will forever remain in memory as handsome faces. No one will realize how much MVP is invested in local football and football broadcasting. Dyan Castillejo will continue providing cringing in-game commentary. A talk of tactics would be an impossible affair. Why Gonzales and Uy were dropped despite good performances in the Peace Cup will remain a mystery. The chances for a national grassroots development project would still remain slim. And commentators will continue milking that damn “TRAFFIC SA EDSA” line whenever Sacapaño makes a save.

     Seriously, guys. It's not that funny.