MLSSoccer.com just put up a piece titled “Nesta: What the players had to say” which, as advertised, gave us thoughts from some prominent Impact personalities on the arrival of Alessandro Nesta. Player quotes being what they were, I expected a series of generic superlatives featuring a grab bag of officially sanctioned adjectives; plaudits which, put together, don’t give us anything unexpected.
And ... yeah, everybody’s excited to have the Milan legend around. Why wouldn’t they be? It’s a huge signing. I’m just not sure quote after deliciously vanilla quote is the best way to capture the moment.
It got me to thinking: What else could I do with these quotes. Answer: Word jumble!
Oh, man - I love these. Some people call them word clouds, but jumble’s such an underused word. Regardless, they let you take a ton of information, drop them into an app (like the one at Wordle.net) and get a quaint, fun view of the story’s most prominent words.Taken as a group, they give you some insight into the story’s tone.
For example, here’s what you get when you pump in my two Marcelo Bielsa posts [a, b]:
So you take out all the proper nouns, and you see contract, coach, construction, season, job, players, now, and departure are all prominently features. Does that tell us anything about today’s story? Not really, which means I’m a horrible writer or these exercise shouldn’t be taken too seriously (not that those are independent thoughts).
So let’s see what MLS’s Nesta quote sheet tells us:
Defender, group, alongside, experience, incredible, learn, watching, positive, great.
Straight out of the grab bag.
