Shaughnessy Manages to Ruin the Fine Art of Soccer Bashing For Everyone
Awful Announcing – While the country is embroiled in the World Cup, Dan Shaughnessy has taken it upon himself to fulfill the role of soccer hater…It’d be heroic if Dan Shaughnessy wasn’t such a flip-flopper…
Here’s Dan Shaughnessy during the 2014 World Cup:
“I know where this takes some folks. If you don’t like soccer the Futbol Moonies will insist that you are an aging, unhip, xenophobic, uncultured dolt… Sorry. I am done apologizing for not loving soccer. I am guilt-free. This is America. Land of choice. Land of freedom. I choose to ignore the World Cup on television…”
Here’s Dan Shaughnessy during the 2011 Women’s World Cup after the legendary USA-Brazil game…:
“That seals it. Soccer has arrived. The Worldwide Leader is right again… Count me as one of the last holdouts. I’m one of those ugly Americans who’d normally prefer to stick needles in my eyes than watch soccer…But watching the US women’s team has been a thrill.”…
And just for fun, let’s go back to Shaughnessy, circa 1990:
“I hate watching soccer. There. I said it… I just hate watching soccer and I’m getting pretty fed up with the guilt I’m supposed to feel. When can Americans stop apologizing and admit that it’s just not working?”
Frigging Shaughnessy. Soccer Bashing used to be a time-honored tradition. A noble pursuit. A calling. Trolling soccer fans was something fans of normal sports took pride in. You didn’t just throw out some halfassed “soccer is boring” copy & paste job and call it a day. You worked your craft. You honed your skills. You baited your hook with gems like “I’m supposed to follow soccer because the whole world likes it? Yeah, well the whole world likes anti-Semitism too…” and when they bit, your reeled them it. It was not only doing God’s work, it was fun. It was a vocation and an avocation. But Shaughnessy has single handedly ruined it for us all. He’s ruined it with yet another lazy, recycled, mailed-in piece-of-used-toilet-paper, right out of the Shank-o-matic. An almost word-for-word reprint of the same hack job he wrote a generation ago. And worse, a complete backtrack of the one he wrote three years ago. I mean, if you’re going to hate futbol, you can’t just like it then arbitrarily hate it again. Not if you have any pride in what you do. And this is the guy who’s still being held up nationwide as the vox populi of Boston sports fans. Just knowing that he’s still shitting out this dated, yellowed, unoriginal pap in 2014 and getting away with it, has taken all the fun out of one of my favorite pursuits. And I’d rather embrace the Beautiful Game with all my heart and soul than be associated with the Curly Haired Boyfriend and his pathetic attempts at trolling. So thanks, Shank. You ruined it for all of us. @JerryThornton1