And it’s a hoot, too.
Spain plays Germany today in the World Cup semifinal. The winner will take on the Netherlands, famous for wearing orange.
Here is the front page of today’s die Welt of Berlin:
The headline on that cryptic lead art reads:
By pressing the finals
A closer look:
Now, that’s clever.
Sunday was a very interesting day at the World Cup of soccer in South Africa.
The Germany vs. England match was supposed to be a good one. Instead, Germany completely stomped England, 4-1. In the afternoon match, Argentina ran all over Mexico, 3-1.
Yet, both matches had a lot of drama and pathos to them.
I’m beginning to actually enjoy some of this. God help me.
My pal Andries Gouws of Johannesburg’s Beeld sent me today’s front page. He writes:
Pictures of some English fans after their team’s 4-1 defeat against Germany.
The headline [reversed out of black, at the very top]: Defeated and dismayed
The lead story is, sadly, about Australian tourists who were victims of an armed robbery at a lodge nearby Hazyview in Mpumalanga. According to the victims the robbers were “quite polite” — “Are you enjoying the World Cup?” they enquired before making off with cash, celphones, cameras and laptops.
In addition, Arlene Prinsloo sent along this page from the Sunday national paper Rapport:
She writes:
The story about which countries’ visitors spent the most money in South Africa during the first 10 days of the cup.
The graphic itself is by Anton Vermeulen.
The English took the loss in stride, I thought after finding this page — but pretty much only this page — this morning at the Newseum:
That’s the Times of London, with a gorgeous display of, unfortunately, an uncredited photo. And the headline says it all.
And that’s the only English front page I could find today. Until Simone Puterman tipped me off that a number of others were posted by the Guardian.
Oh, yeah. Now, we’re talkin’…
The Independent was so typically English — snarky but understated with its disappointment:
Brilliant.
Metro was even more straightforward:
The Daily Mail was downright brutal. And, perhaps, rightfully so:
The Daily Mirror went with a giant pun, for comedic effect:
But the most incredibly brutal of the batch was the Sun:
Ouch!
The tone by most German papers was one of understated elegance. Here’s Allegemeine Zeitung of Frankfurt, with lead art by Getty:
Neuest Nachrichten of Potsdam partially cut out an AFP photo for a little visual pop atop A1:
And Berlin’s Bild — you gotta love ‘em — were all over the place today with headlines, cutouts and, really, more than the human eye can take in:
It’s just now occurred to me, in fact, that Bild has replaced the “i” in its nameplate with the actual World Cup trophy. Very cute.
Many, many Mexican papers put the Cup out of A1 today — more than I could possibly post here.
Monterrey’s Milenio used a photo that most Mexican papers used, by Yuri Cortez of AFP:
Mérida’s Diario de Yucatán went with the poor officiating angle. The headline says:
Stained Day
Referee errors overshadow the World Cup
And one can hardly blame them. There were some hum-dingers Monday.
That photo is from EFE.
Correo of Guanajuato led with the huge banner headline:
Thus, no
I loved this nice, tight crop of a photo by Ángel Guevera on the front of today’s Reforma of Mexico City:
And El Universal of Mexico City also summed it all up with a great headline:
The same old story
Wonderful, wonderful presentation by El Universal. The photo of the dejected — but still proud — fan is by Matt Dunham of the Associated Press.
In Argentina, of course, papers were delirious with excitement. Here is el Territorio of Posadas, using an AP photo on the front:
The headline translates into:
The illusion grows
But I wonder if a better translation might be “The legend grows.” Perhaps one of my Spanish-speaking friends might advise.
I like the page, all except for the bug superimposed at the upper left of the picture. That seems obtrusive. I’d crop out a few picas at the top and bottom and but the scores down below the headline, with the chatter copy.
Clarín of Buenos Aires celebrated with a nice shot by freelance photographer Carlos Sarraf and what Google Translate tells me is the same headline Territorio used:
And Misiones of Posadas ran the obligatory photo of former soccer superstar — and now a coaching superstar — Diego Maradona:
Nice structured design and a lot of action — and emotion — in the photo. Nicely done.
And a number of Brazilian papers — where they’re just nuts about their team and the World Cup — created huge A1 presentations in advance for today’s match with Chile.
Here is Jornal da Tarde, of São Paulo, with the Mexico-Argentina game up top and the advance in the lower left:
The photos are all from EFE and AE.
I’m not quite sure what’s going on with this poster front by Lance of both São Paulo and Rio:
Is that sawdust? Perhaps this is some sort of soccer tradition in Brazil.
The headline translates into:
Magic
Green and amarela
…in which the last word obviously didn’t translate, dammit. So that’s no help.
The picture is by Ari Ferreira.
Estado de Minas of Belo Horizonte made a nice poster front out this illustrative shot — unfortunately, I can’t make out the credit — of a fan carrying a Brazilian flag and a vuvuzela.
“Vencer” translates into “beat,” but none of the other words translated for me. I’m having awful luck today with Google.
And our finalé today is this wonderful A1 illustration by a Notícia of Joinville:
That’s wonderful stuff by artists Marcelo Oliveira, using photos by Charles Guerra.
Most of the pages here today are from the Newseum. Read more about those London-based pages in the Guardian.
The attitude here in the U.S. regarding the World Cup match Saturday — in which Team USA embarrassed itself by sleeping through a 2-1 loss to Ghana — can best be summed up by this little headline atop today’s New York Post:
Oh, that’s funny. It probably shouldn’t be. But it is. Average daily circulation for the Post is 525,004.
The Daily News of New York City — circulation 535,059 — opted for a pun headline:
From what I’ve seen at the Newseum today, not many papers put the World Cup on page one today. The Review-Journal of Las Vegas — circulation 170,123 — showed fans watching yet another missed U.S. goal on television:
The paper did a great job of broadening the story to address the apparent increase of the popularity of soccer in the U.S. The picture is by staffer John Locher.
The Herald News of Paterson, N.J. ran a huge AP photo of U.S. goalkeeper Tim Howard:
The Desert Sun of Palm Springs, Calif. — circulation 46,856 — also threw a spotlight on Howard:
The photo is by Rick Bowmer of the Associated Press.
A number of papers chose to lead with a picture of U.S. player Maruce Edu lying on the field after the final whistle. Here is the Miami Herald:
The photo is by Getty’s Franck Fife. Average daily circulation for the Herald is 191,873.
The Star Tribune of Minneapolis — circulation 295,438 — chose a similar shot by Ivan Sekretarev of the Associated Press…
…as did the Burlington County Times of Willingboro, N.J., circulation 31,649 (please note the pun in the overline)…
…and the Record of Stockton, Calif., circulation 42,488:
Stockton, in particular, deserves extra kudos for the series of fan shots across the top of its soccer package. Three of the quasi-mugs are from the Associated Press; one is from the Dallas Morning News.
And the Express-News of San Antonio, Texas, also went with a picture of a prone Edu, shot by Stuart Frank of Getty Images:
In particular, that secondary art by staffer Lisa Krantz — of fans who apparently took this match waay too seriously — is striking:
More striking, in fact, than the U.S. team was Saturday. Ba-dum Bum.
Average daily circulation for the Express News is 152,156.
And a few papers chose to strip the Cup across the top of A1 today. Here’s the Bee of Fresno, Calif. — circulation 126,398:
The Kansas City Star went the strip route with an action shot, weaving its nameplate behind the net and around the objects in the photo:
Average daily circulation for the Star is 210,000.
The Journal Star of Peoria — circulation 61,028 — went with yet another Ghana pun:
While the News-Press of St. Joseph, Mo. — circulation 29,295 — played up an interesting fan reaction photo, shot in Houston by Johnny Hanson of the Associated Press:
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TODAY’S INTERNATIONAL PAGES
There weren’t a lot of World Cup pages posted today at the Newseum. But the pages that were, were downright brilliant. Especially compared to what we’ve seen over the past few days.
Uruguay defeated South Korea 2-1 in a driving rain in the opening Round of 16 match Saturday. Here is today’s El Pais of Montevideo with a huge, poster-front photo by Gerardo Pérez:
The headline says, obviously:
The hero
In South Korea, here’s how Chosun Ilbo of Seoul played the loss:
In particular, I like the little graphic showing how South Korea scored its one goal:
I suspect there are a lot of cool graphics happening out there. We’re just not seeing them because they rarely make it to A1.
Here is the Segye Times, also of Seoul, with an extraordinary page-one photo:
Wow. The fans cheer their team as they trudge off the field. Wonderful stuff.
UPDATE: Amy — a blog reader in the U.K. who speaks Korean — writes:
I took a look at that photo credit for Segye Times. It just says it’s from Yonhap News which is a wire service. Yonhap News didn’t have a photographer credited to that photo.
And the headlines roughly translate to:
We were happy, we applaud their tears.
You fought well Taekuk Warriors, “You gave us hope.”
Thanks, Amy!
And that’s all I have from today’s papers…
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SATURDAY’S FRONT PAGES
Friday was the final day of group play; the final day that saw four matches.
The first match of the day was a 3-0 win by Ivory Coast over North Korea. No pages were posted to the Newseum from either country.
The other morning match was the big showdown in Durban between Portugal and Brazil. While the Durban Mercury sure did a swell job of greeting fans in town for the game, the match itself, unfortunately, didn’t live up to the hype — it ended in a 0-0 tie.
Portuguese front pages were rather uninspired Saturday. Perhaps they’re saving their ink for Tuesday, when Portugual takes on Spain in the Field of 16.
Jornal de Notícias of Porto led with an unusual crop of an photo by António Sim?es of Global Images:
Lisbon’s Público ran a smallish action shot by Yves Herman of Reuters:
Díario de Notícias of Madeira gave huge play to a photo shot at that same moment by Daniel Dal Zonnaro of EPA:
Brazilian papers contribute their front pages much more regularly to the Newseum, giving us a much better feel for how papers there played the game on A1.
It also helps that Brazilians are nuts for soccer, evidently. And I mean that in a good way.
Correio of Salvador led A1 with a nice action shot by AFP’s Roberto Candia of the winning goal of an unsuccessful goal:
Diário do Alto Tietê of Suzaro also ran an action shot — by Divulgação — but allowed the player’s head and ball soccer ball to flop out of the photo for a little more visual interest:
Sao Paulo’s Jornal da Tarde featured one of the better action shots I’ve seen, by Jonne Roriz of AE:
And this lead art by AFP’s Fabrice Cofrini afront Saturday’s O Globo of Rio de Janerio made me laugh out loud:
Not the world’s greatest picture. But amusing.
Diário Catarinense of Florinópolis went for a very tight, dramatic crop of an AFP picture by Karim Jaafar:
Folha of Sao Paulo took an action shot by France Press’ Carl Souza and built a centerpiece around it using copy blocks, brackets and a little cartoon illustration:
Extra of Rio de Janerio also used a Karim Jaafar AFP picture — a particularly static one, in fact — and tried to bring it to life with lots of yellow tint, quotes and a breakout box showing pairings for the Round of 16:
Agora of Sao Paulo ran this amusing picture by Antonio Scorza of France Press:
The headline says:
Goal? Not angry with prayer
Jornal Vs of Sao Paulo focused on the yellow cards given out seemingly indiscriminately by officials during various matches:
A Notícia of Joinville created a photoillustration to show the teams Brazil might have to go through in order to make it to the final:
And Lance of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janerio filled page one with one of the more interesting brackets you’ll ever see. Ken Marshall, if you’re out there: This one’s for you, buddy:
In the afternoon matches, Switzerland and Honduras also played to a 0-0 draw, eliminating both teams from further competition.
Zeitung of Basel built its A1 around this interesting photo from the Associated Press:
Tages Anzeiger of Zurich focused on fans back home watching on big-screen TVs:
That picture is by staffer Dominique Meienberg.
And Spain defeated Chile 2-1 Friday afternoon, but both teams advanced anyway — to much more interesting Round of 16 matches, in fact: Chile faces Brazil on Monday while Spain faces Portugal on Tuesday.
Las Últimas Noticias of Santiago was definitely looking ahead to the Brazil match with this amusing headline:
The Google Translator on that one:
So you want to do with Brazil
It’s a little rough, but the sentiment is clear enough. The wonderful photo is by Carlos Catalán Zencovich.
But Spanish A1 displays were surprisingly uninspired. Here is Diario de Sevilla of Seville, using an EFE photo by Juan Carlos Cárdenas…
La Vanguardia of Barcelona, with lead art by Getty’s Jasper Juinen…
…and Madrid’s El País, also with Getty lead art:
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Are you doing anything interesting for the World Cup? Send me PDFs, please.
Previous World Cup coverage, here in the blog: