Some European media soccer snobs — and a few soccer snobs here in the U.S. — have been merciless in dealing with a Chicago reporter who asked a dumb question.
The question was asked of new Chicago Fire star, the legendary German champion midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger.
Grizzled editors (are there any other kind?) tell young reporters that there’s no such thing as a dumb question. The only dumb question is the one you don’t ask.
According to British papers, Derek Henkle, of the AFP, “infamously” asked the German star whether the Fire could win the World Cup.
Yes, it was dumb. But who hasn’t asked a dumb question? I’m a champion in the League of Dumb Questions.
Henkle didn’t quite understand that the World Cup is a competition among the best players of their nations. The Fire is a professional club, and professional clubs don’t play for the World Cup. Every soccer fan knows this. But poor Mr. Henkle, who isn’t really a sports reporter, and covers many other subjects, was mocked. I’d suggest that a few American sportswriters don’t know this either.
Henkle later graciously apologized to the soccer public if he had given offense. But there’s something more important here:
The class of Bastian Schweinsteiger.
That class has been on display all through all of his career, including in the 2014 World Cup final, when Argentina’s Sergio Aguero opened Schweinsteiger’s face in a collision and all that blood poured out.
Schweinsteiger had his face stapled on the sideline, then went back in for those final, grueling 11 minutes of extra time and bossed Germany to a 1-0 win.
It was the most important match of his life and he showed up, face or no face. It’s the kind of thing that every true Chicago sports fan respects.
So when Henkle asked the “dumb” question, the legendary German midfielder, a champion with so many trophies it’s difficult to list them all, didn’t sneer.
He didn’t mock Henkle as other American pro athletes might have in similar circumstance.
He was a gentleman, helping a guy out of an awkward situation.
“I’m not here saying we will win the league,” Schweinsteiger said, gently correcting that the Fire would try to play for the Major League Soccer championship.
“I want to win the next match and then from match to match, and then at the end of the day, see where we are,” Schweinsteiger said, smiling, adding that he hoped that someday, “that this club becomes a world club as you said.”
Later, Henkle told The Telegraph that he was thankful Schweinsteiger threw him a lifeline.
“I get that I named the wrong trophy and greatly appreciate Schweinsteiger attempting to clean up the question for me. It was a classy move.”
Yes it was. But then, that’s Schweinsteiger.
European soccer snobs don’t much like American soccer, or American soccer players. They invented the game and many think that our players and coaches are clods. And a few of their snobs jumped on Henkle.
But soccer is growing here, despite what some Yankee troglodytes insist. And I can’t wait for the day when the phenomenal American teenager Christian Pulisic — who plays professionally in Germany — brings more great young athletes to the game and leads the U.S. Men’s National Team.
And then a few soccer snobs may be compelled to eat a big plate of, oh, what’s the word?
You may call it crow.
American soccer fans who truly love the Beautiful Game often become frustrated with constant ignorance of some stubborn, frightened humans who mock it. But then, human beings are primates. And I suppose that if you put baboons in blue velvet suits, they, too, might freak if you had them watch something they didn’t understand, say, like, a video game.
Stubborn velvet-clad baboons might get worked up and break your Xbox 1. Or, they just might bite your face off.
Most soccer hatred comes from people who just don’t understand the beauty, or are afraid of change, a fear that benefits entrenched sports interests that see the rise of American soccer as a financial threat.
And so, American soccer fans angered by Henkle’s question may be excused, since many heard it as just more evidence of soccer-hating American media.
But Bastian Schweinsteiger didn’t come to Chicago and the Fire for any of that.
He came to win. He came to prove something to himself after spending the past two dreary years on the shelf at Manchester United. And in those two years, the Fire were the worst team in the MLS.
“I like to challenge myself,” he said at the news conference. “And this is a big chance to challenge myself. … I could feel there was something going on. And I want to help this club become better, and to be a step of other clubs, and that’s the challenge.”
At 32, can the longtime defensive midfielder still play at his accustomed high level? How does he fit to a Chicago Fire team that already has two good defensive midfielders in Dax McCarty and Juninho? And, will his presence force some teammates, like winger David Accam, who likes to play out wide, into uncomfortable positions?
We’ll see.
Soon, all those questions will be answered, not by talk, but by deeds.
But for now, I’m going to think of Schweinsteiger this way: As a man respectful enough of others that he’d offer a social lifeline to someone who needed it; and of the Schweinsteiger of the bloody face in the last World Cup, desperate to win, refusing to lose.
Listen to “The Chicago Way” podcast — with John Kass and Jeff Carlin — at wgnradio.com/category/wgn-plus/category/thechicagoway.
