ESPN last week ran a cover story "Meet America's Best Hope at the World Cup" with a picture of Giuseppe Rossi. that raised unnecessary controversy and vitriol on the cover, but treated him as a decent, talented kid in the inside story.

This is a non story-  How many non Americans represent the USA at the Olympics? How many Americans represented their ancestral country. Does anyone complain? If you speak Italian and grew up in an Italian household and have Italian citizenship- then you are Italian if you want to be. Why would anyone on earth choose to play for the USA when They can start/sub for Italy? Maybe if the USA cared about the greatest sport in the world, they might have a spindly unsteady leg to stand on.

ESPN Fans The Giuseppe Rossi Flame
World Cup Blog; By Chris; May 11th, 2010 

Last week we linked to a nice article on Giuseppe Rossi, the American-born Italian forward, thinking that’s all it was: a nice article. It would appear it had evolved something beyond that this week, as Giuseppe was plastered across sneakily hidden behind an American ball, billed as “America’s best hope” on the front page of ESPN the Magazine, a move which has caused the reaction ESPN wanted from American and Italian fans. 
The problem is it’s wholly unnecessary and does disservice to..., Giuseppe Rossi.

There are few more controversial figures in the paper trail of international football than Giuseppe Rossi, largely because he chose the country of his blood, for whom he is very good, over the country of his birth, for whom he would’ve been one of the best players and yes, "the hope"  Americans don’t particularly like it, and you can understand why.
Which is why the public doesn’t really need this visual reminder to hate Giuseppe Rossi again, particularly when most will see the cover bypassing a newstand without reading the words behind. He is by all accounts a very decent kid who just wants to kick a ball around; nothing he did was malicious or with the intent to bury America - not unless you count the power with which he hit those goals at the Confederations Cup. He doesn’t want the hate, and doesn’t really need it.
Today he made the Italian provisional thirty, and he will likely being going to the World Cup as the backup to Antonio Di Natale after a tumultuous year which saw his father, the man who enabled him to become "American-born", passed away. He deserves that. He doesn’t really deserve for a publication as big as ESPN, one which could sell the alphabet, to drum up unnecessary controversy and vitriol on the cover when they could’ve simply presented us Giuseppe Rossi, the Italian-American, as they did inside.
http://www.worldcupblog.org/world-cup-2010/
espn-fans-the-giuseppe-rossi-flame.html
 

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