New York-based journalists identify the world’s best soccer player

by philg

“She Was the World’s Best Player. Now She Won’t Play Soccer Again.” (WSJ, January 19, 2024):

The Wall Street Journal reporter and editors determined that this player was, prior to the unfortunate injury, a better player than Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo. Here’s the reporter’s biography:

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25 thoughts on “New York-based journalists identify the world’s best soccer player”

  2. World best reporter working for world best newspaper will no longer be world best soccer player.

  3. The WSJ has really declined. It used to be primarily a business paper but now it seems that much of it is banal human interest stuff like this written by third rate people. The reportage on business issues is generally close to incoherent because the writers and editors don’t seen to understand the business issue so key facts are omitted. And then you have the editorial page dominated by conservatives and a couple of lefties whose day in the sun was around 40 years ago. It is hard to imagine that ten years from now it will not have gone the way of Sports Illustrated. My experience is that the WSJ routinely blocks comments critical of the journalism itself, that the comment did not “meet community standards,” which would seem to indicate that there are so many of them that to permit them would damage the business.

    • 100% agreed, print media is going downhill super fast. WSJ has taken a much quicker turn in recent years, getting worse and worse. Pretty soon it will all be AI generated news anyways, nobody will know anymore whats bullshit or not anymore.

  4. So, according to the WSJ, 31-year old Ms. Bachman has been, not only the world’s greatest soccer player but also a very busy journalist “covering” the Summer and Winter Olympics as far back as 2010 (when she was 17 y/o?).

    I’m still paying $4/mo. for my WSJ subscription, but usually there’s only a couple of worthwhile articles each day. Often, the comments are more entertaining and worthwhile than the article.

  5. Folks, you’re mostly making this way too complicated. Just ask or listen to the DEI agency in DC so that you will know what you should do!

  6. Dear Captain Literal,

    From context it is obvious they mean that Miss Mewes is the greatest player in the context of women’s soccer. Now I don’t know enough about the sport to say either way, but it is obvious that she isn’t being compared to Messi or Ronaldo.

    Sincerely,
    ScarletNumber

    • ScarletNumber: What’s “women’s soccer”? Are there different rules than in some other kind of soccer? If so, how did the world champion Americans manage to play the 14-year-old boys of Dallas? Did the 14-year-old boys somehow learn the rules and techniques of “women’s soccer”?

      Secondly, I’m glad that you remind us that Claudine Gay was correct when she told Congress that it was all about “context”! I want a WSJ headline that says “Philip Greenspun is the world’s greatest tennis player” and then the context will be clear to readers in the article that I’m the greatest player who lives in our house.

    • @ScarletNumber – why not simply put World’s Best Female Player and forget about “the context” ?

    • Pele what, played till1970th? He was the greatest back than. Mata, to understand that British football is actually soccer you need to experience American football first.

    • Sam: I am too young (late fifties) to remember Pele playing. In my youth it was Maradona. In times when football was rough and boring, Maradona seemed to be the only artist. I never watched much football, but I liked watching Maradona. Some people who watched them both playing say that Pele was better. I do not know.

    • Perplexed: I like to make fun of the fact that American football is called football: Players do not play the ball with their feet (only kick it in very rare occasions), they carry the ball in their arms, and it is even not a ball, it is an egg. It is actually American rugby (more violent form of it). The players seem to get the amount of brain damage comparable to boxing, so if you consider opponents head to be the ball, the name American football makes some sense again.

    • mata, American football is the real game. Before mid-19th century, what we call soccer (English football) allowed arm use as well. Brain injures stigma is over-hyped. Many US politicians and public figures played college football and did great for themselves and their descendants, after their prolonged lifetime, not comparable to low – GDP growth Europeans who protect their brains for something, probably to drink read wine and distinguish between shades of sour and bitter sour.

    • Perplexed: I have no doubt that American football is the game for real men. But why do they call it football when it is an egg which they hold in their arms. Why don’t they call it American armegg.

    • mata, based on my acquired understanding on how American spoken language constructs are created, football originally did not necessary mean game of foot and ball, it referred to the play ball itself. As American football is a diverting branch from the same tree as British or English football which too used to allow hand play, football in American football likely means different ball which was played in the game of American football from ball played in common ancestor of soccer and American football, the original “football” ball.

  8. Bach looks like a housewife. When is the goog going to allow us to go back to square profile pictures?

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