Every Soccer Pleasure Negated

the ONLY reason i’m watching on espn/espn2/abc is that i get all three of them in HD. and it is beautiful. the commentary, as usual, is atrocious. but seeing forty thousand croatian fans sing at the top of their lungs eighty-five minutes into a 1-0 loss in high definition, and hearing them in surround sound, is worth it.

I’m glad ESPN/ABC is airing all the games, but I too am annoyed by the preponderence of graphics covering the screen, like when they are showing line-ups at the beginning of games. There has been some early goals that have almost been missed because of them. Also, they like to keep replaying near misses and sometimes don’t get back to live-action in time to catch corner kicks or other re-starts of play.

At least it’s not as bad as their usual programming where MLS games get bumped for any other sport program that runs overtime or when they cut 20 minutes out of the re-broadcast of the Champions League final in the second half.

Daryl,

To expand on your general point, here’s a statement by a US columnist named Marc Fisher (Washington Post) that is bound to make us all cringe:

“It’s very nice for soccer-loving countries to have their little tournament, but to call it the World Cup is rather arrogant and overblown.”

Unbelievable, huh? I can only hope that Marc, as a staunch supporter of baseball (with its World Series — which, of course, features 2 whole nations) and known naysayer of the beautiful game, surely recognizes the arrogance and ignorance of his statement.

I’m guessing that his incredulous statement:

(i) is aimed at getting a “rise” from the American and/or global soccer community; or,

(ii) reflects a herculean effort to land a staring role in “Dumb and Dumber II”.

With respect to the general sanctity and integrity of America’s written media, I can only hope that the Washington Post recognizes the ludicrousness of his statement.

I don’t think ESPN has its own camera crews for the world cup. There is a “world feed” that the commentators have been referring to. I think there is one (high definition) feed provided by the tournament that each broadcaster mixes with its own commentary team’s audio. That would probably explain why the sound during the game is sometimes a little bit delayed when compared to the picture (listen for the thumping sound when a ball is kicked hard near one of the the sldeline microphones), but is in sync during the studio shows.

FIFA has more members than the UN. If the World Cup isn’t a worldwide sporting event nothing is.

I feel like punching that Marc Fisher guy after his comments. What an absolute dick. Without offending any Americans, he is the arrogant and ignorant stereotype the rest of the world sees. For those who are interested in the article, here it is http://blog.washingtonpost.com/rawfisher/2006/06/americas_most_prominent_soccer.html#comments

I cannot hear the referee’s whistle during the ESPN/ESPN2 games. Is it because of the massive crowd noise or just a bad sound mix? I mean, I have watched some pretty big matches in the EPL or Champions League with a 70,000+ attendance and I was still able to hear the referee’s whistle. I’m thinking it has to do with the placement of the mics around the pitch, etc…

I much rather would watch in Univision – the Spanish announcers are so much more knowledgeable of the game and are funnier and more entertaining. However, the fact that all I get is Telemundo, and the beautiful HD picture of ABC/ESPN/2 means I’m not too angered.

I think O’Brien has done OK – for a baseball guy. He’s at least got a soothing tone to his voice, which is I think why they slated him to do this. Balboa, on the other hand, makes me want to pierce my eardrums. I cannot stand to listen to him. I would prefer that they had as an “analysis” (Americans doing soccer analysis seems like such a joke) guy Harkes, although he falls into the annoying trap of hearkening back to his past Cup experiences when perfectly fine action to analyze is occurring on the pitch.

Yea, the american commentary is miserable. If you want a real treat find the game on the spanish a.m. radio station in your area. I listened to it in the car the other day and these guys are amazing. They make you feel like you have to get to a TV immediately because you are missing an incrediblle game. That kind of commentary might go a long way to helping the game take hold on American TV. How about Julie Foudi in the ESPN2 studio. I can’t watch her she is so bad.

Dave O’Brien is a total disaster. He is as uninformed as he is innane. I have switched to Univision when he’s on. ‘Celo needs to go on strike and refuse to work with him.

Please contact ESPN to dump him:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?page=contact/espntv

I have an advantage over most Americans in that I can speak Spanish but there’s no question the Univision commentators are more knowledgeable than the part-time soccer “experts” in the ABC galaxy. The best part is they don’t make analogies with basketball or baseball.

Who really cares about the commentary when the US play was so uninspired and poor tactical choices were made by the coach Arena. As Julie Foudy said “Let them play”. Playing not to lose (so many back and not letting the mids go forward) and not to score is always a good recipe for losing. The players look unhappy and uninspired- obviously they are in need of a fiery competitor and motivator on the field. Donovan isn’t it. Four years of waiting for this? And, by the way, Bruce Arena should take a page out of Joe Torre’s playbook. Torre never criticizes or makes a scapegoat out of any player when his team underperforms. If the US is two and out Arena should not be back- he has to shoulder much of the blame for poor tactics and leadership.

O’Brien is absolutely atrocious, not to mention insulting to our intelligence. What’s the point of commentary if it rarely says anything about the game you’re watching? And when it DOES say something relevant, it is often wrong or ignorant (such as a winger’s “failed” attack, when in fact he worked hard to win a valuable corner kick). Alas, I cannot get Univision, so I listen to O’Brien/Balboa games with the sound off, which is only marginally less frustrating. I utterly fail to understand why ESPN puts their worst team on the top games and their best (Dellacamera/Harkes) on “lesser” games… Oh yeah, right, it’s the NBC Olympics strategy, try to make it warm-and-fuzzy palatable for people who don’t know soccer. (Isn’t that why MLS stuttered before they realized they had to appeal to real fans?)

i cannot stand the US broadcasters..

i happen to speak spanish fluently but at the bar i was at someone mentioned how bad espn announcers were and all 15 tvs were switched to univision…i could not believe it..

OK, OK, I’m sorry I defended O’Brien. I like the way he calls baseball games, so I figured I’d try to defend him here. But his mistakes have been pretty atrocious. I do think Balboa’s the worse of the two, however.

Totally agree that Dellacamera/Harkes is the best. I also like the Healey/Smyth team, at least those guys know soccer, are entertaining, and they try to bring the Americans down to earth when it comes to their team’s chances. However, I being one of the lucky Americans who understands Spanish – all American announcers are terrible compared to the Spanish announcers. They know the game much better.

Well, that particular sentence from Fisher is clearly ironic…. or something. I’m sure he’s used to hearing soccer fans, rightly, complain about one-country “world” championships and figured he’d take a stab at comedy. Don’t Please quit your day job!

In general, though, I’m getting less wound up by the soccer haters than I used to. They know demographics are against them, and the market for their shtick is waning by the year. Let them have their fun; they’re no more going to stop people from caring about the WC than I’m going to stop people from watching American Idol.

I’m very disappointed with the lack of support and interest for the World Cup in this country. It has brought me to depression. I actually have to ask at the bar for them to show the soccer match!!?? Whatta hell??! Oh my favorite question so far… so why do they call it “futbol”? Because of Mexicans?? Because that’s what they call it in Mexico?
Mmm let me think this one… no moron! The whole world calls it Futbol but the USA.

Oh yeah… and the news, the go on and on about everything but, THE WORLD CUP. They happen to mention in amazingly 5 seconds Oh yeah by the way United States plays tomorrow in this thing called the World Cup. But then they loose and everybody has dumb, ignorant comments to put the USA team down. Never mind ignorant, that it only takes Two years to be able to qualify and get there, and that they play to the 2nd best team in the whole world!, I’m not even such a big United States team fan, but common! They do play well, and other smaller countries have more support that this crap.

I hope that when all of these little kids that are playing soccer right now, grow up, change the stupid and ignorant minds of this country.

And I do agree that is good that ESPN/ABC is now showing the games. They still have to work out those little details that don’t let me watch the match completely happy. Those cameras are way too far from the action and the players. I agree that by the time they zoom in the play is too late. And yes Univision and Galavision have better commentaries & they know very well the history of the teams, players, etc. But it takes a lot of patience to watch their commercials at the half time, all those sluts in bikini and the endless commercials about people with erection problems.

All that said, I remember 1990 and TNT taking ads in the middle of the game, so I can’t complain too much as long as i can turn the sound down. I am very grateful to ABC/ESPN for showing the games in their entirety. But i do much prefer languages i don’t understand (e.g. Chinese via the Net) to ESPN’s commentary.

Shep Messing might be the worst broadcaster in the tounement.

To Sergio above, I was at my neighborhood bar and they did the same thing. Two tvs were switched to Univision. The last straw was when the ESPN commentator referred to an attack (during the Brazil game) as being “broken up” when it was clearly a reasonably creative play by Brazil that didn’t quite come off because of an overhit cross.

Almost makes having to work during the games and using 4INFO’s text alerts okie dokie. Almost. Almost. I’m still happy to have every game aired in the US even when they take 20 minutes to explain a passive offside and constantly remind us what color jerseys each team is wearing.

But, for those that can’t get to a television, set up a text alert for every goal scored by texting “worldcup” to 44636 or visiting http://www.4info.net/worldcup

I agree with most of the criticisms of the announcers. But, I think we have to keep things in perspective.

As someone mentioned earlier, in 1990 there were commercials during the games. In 1994, there was minimal, forced coverage, only because we were the host. 1998 was mostly ignored, and 2002 we had live games at 3:00am and little else. Now, we have all 64 games in HD, ESPN, while far from perfect, has actual features on players, comentary, highlight and preview shows, etc. Dave O’Brien might not be great, but let’s count it as a victory that a baseball guy would come around to appreciate soccer, let alone sound excited about broadcasting it.

We know that soccer is up against not one, but three monsters in baseball, American football, and basketball. That O’Brien is a convert and Frank DeFord actually had something nice to say about the WC is significant. There has been a lot more coverage in papers, etc. this time around. Just as we can be ambassadors of the sport by talking with the unitiated, so can guys like Dave O’Brien talk to their colleagues and maybe win over one or two.

I’m also bilingual and I watch footy on Univision, Telemundo, etc. all the time, and I have to say, Univision’s main broadcasting team is terrible. The play-by-play guy’s excitement comes across as contrived. Some of their other temas are good (the guy paired with Chilavert does a solid job), but overall but Univision and Telemundo’s announcers (Yes, including Cantor) are worthless compared to the ones on Mexican networks like Televisa, Azteca, etc.

This is ESPN/ABC’s third consecutive World Cup when they have broadcast all 64 games – and I think this is by far the worst. The announcers are awful (see below), but so is the production quality. “GET THAT DAMN THING OFF THE SCREEN” is the common refrain during the games. And what the hell is the idea about coming on the air 5 seconds before kick-off?

The O’Brien/Balboa pairing is a major disappointment and I can’t believe that they are the #1 broadcast team. How is it possible to pick as your lead play-by-play announcer someone who has no idea about soccer or how to broadcast a game? He knows nothing about the game that he is watching, doesn’t know when to shut up, and seems to be reading off a set of talking points. And is he Canadian? I am not usually a big fan of ‘homers’ but it seemed like was pulling up all the negative things that he could after the US went down 1-0. And Balboa is useless.

Harkes isn’t much better than Balboa, but Dellacamra is better than O’Brien. I don’t really like what he has to say most of the time, but at least it has some relation to the game that is going on in front of his eyes.

And then there is Glenn Davis and Shep Messing. Their call of the Argentina v Ivory Coast match was the worst play-by-play/color combo in the history of sports. When they said that the warring sides in Ivory Coast’s civil war had united in support of the national team for the 30th time in the first half, I finally had to put it on mute. They can’t pronounce the players names’ correctly. And when they do actually comment on the game, their thoughts are asinine. My favorite from Messing so far is his criticism of Ribery for playing too much ‘on his own’ but in the next breath predicting Trezeguet’s ‘individual flair’ was just what France needed.

Adrian Healy is by far the best play-by-play guy, and I can’t believe I am actually going to say this, but Tommy Smyth is actually doing pretty well.

So far, even the US and the Ukraine have performed better than ESPN/ABC.

I agree with all the ESPN/ABC bashing except the bit from Samantha about poor camera work. While the camera work is not world class, it is pool coverage and not ESPN/ABCs fault.

One other thought to consider:

My other sport is American football and the vast majority of college and pro announcers are average at best and most massively suck. Madden, Musberger, and their cohorts are terrible. Back when I actually watched baseball almost all of those guys sucked as well. So, this is not a problem applicable only to soccer.

All sports announcing is atrocious. I usually watch with the sound off, since only once or twice in a game will something occur that requires explanation (and usually the replay provides that). Announcers detract from the game, IHO, by explaining the obvious and hyping every play.

The fun of watching the Cup on Univision even if you don’t speak Spanish is that it sounds exciting and international. Their announcers understand the game and how to provide commentary to it.

This is the first World Cup I’ve seen broadcast on American networks ever.

I watched the ‘94, ‘98, and ‘02 tournament while in Belgium, on Belgian and French networks.

The ESPN broadcast is unbelievably bad. I don’t believe that they can be faulted for their camera coverage, but they do have full control over their graphics package – and it is frustrating.

I think that ESPN’s producers believe that the average viewer does not have soccer knowledge, and is only watching because it is the “event” of the summer. Therefore, they fill the screen – big chunks of it and often – with useless information.

Plus they do it at very inappropriate times and leave them up, obstructing the play for great lengths.

I’m not so down on the announcers. When I first watched the World Cup in ‘94 – and even in ‘98 – I didn’t speak French really well. So, I contented myself with focusing on the action. I mostly don’t pay attention to the ESPN announcers.

I hope that ESPN gets the message and gives us the beautiful game, and nothing more.

In my house, we’ve already switched to Univision, even though we don’t speak Spanish. The screen is just too cluttered on ESPN/ABC. I’m glad the other broadcasts are out there, I think it does great things for making the World Cup accessible to more people… but I really just want to watch the game with a minimum of distractions.

This is amazing! I thought I was the only one that found ESPN broadcasting deplorable. The graphics is ONE thing, the brillant commentators is the SECOND thing, and the THIRD is the misinformation or should I ask where the pick these guys from. They are so ill informed. How many time can you point out the jersey colors? How many times can you mention a war in the I.C! When really it isnt that gruesome of a conflit. I lived in that beautiful land and still have friends there. The contry is divided but I wish they would research before using words like “gruesome”. There is a dispute but it isnt a FLAT OUT CIVIL WAR AS DESCRIBED.
These guys are misinforming the american public. I had to switch to UNIVISION they make it a bit more SPICY. Oh ! and the can pronounce the players name. They know what clubs the play for. They have seen them play. They know their strengh…ect…… Univision Has the MUNDIAL FEVER…… I BET I COULD DO A BETTER JOB WITH A COUPLE OF MY BUDDIES!!!!
As you can probably already tell. I am African. I love my continent and love the game. I feel that ESPN IS TRULY MISREPRESENTING all that our continent stand for. I am only watching Univision for the african teams…
And to end here is the country distroyed by war.
http://www.rezoivoire.net/cotedivoire/abidjan_gallerie.php

http://www.myspace.com/ivorycoastworldcup
(scroll down for pictures)…enjoy le zouglou..our music

http://www.abidjanlumieres.com/#
(click on second banner to view pictures

and finally….

http://babimemanke.skyblog.com/

I wish they would do a bit of research!!!!

Am I tempted to switch to Univision? I have watched about 20 minutes of ESPN coverage since the first day and haven’t given a second thought to switching back to ESPN from Univision.

Oh yeah. And I understand nothing the Spanich language commentators are saying, except for GOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!

The worst thing about it all is that I can’t get an audio feed online from anywhere!!! If anybody knows of one I’ve missed, please let me know. I’ve googled it to death, but nothing seems available. Even XM Radio, who have the radio broadcast rights, don’t have it available to listen online. It’s CRAP!

My case is High Definition TV or I would watch the spanish alternatives even though I don’t understand what they are saying. Agree, the O’Brien/Balboa team is horrible.

In the downtime back at the studio is kind of painful except for Lalas and Wynalda who must be getting more money than the others cause they’re only there for the big games. Those two were the first to jump on the US after the loss as they should have. Julie has something above her left eye that is very obtrusive in HD. I think it’s a heavily covered up mole. And she doesn’t offer anything to the conversation to make matters worse.

i think the main problem with espn is having people like o’brien being the play by play guy since they don’t know anything about soccer! i mean thats unheard of! in every other country everyone knows something about soccer so you don’t have that problem.. but in the US they pair up a guy who has no clue about soccer with a guy that does.. and thats innane….

o’brien is a disgrace. his fawning all over beckham was just so annoying (i might say sickening)…. at the bars i’ve watched the people watching- who don’t necessarily know that much about soccer either- were laughing at his statements repeatedly cause they are so stupid… i thought balboa was allright… he made a point of saying in the second half of paraguya-england how beckham really wasn’t playing that great because he sort of dissapeared and was not involved..

anyways even if i did not speak spanish i would prefer univision not because as has been pointed out the commentary is brilliant but rather because its not bordering on comedy..

julie foudy is an idiot when it comes to commentating… her brilliant analysis of croatia against brazil was that they were playing “compact”…that was it

HD World Cup telecasts has kept me watching on the Disney family of networks but O’ Brien and Balboa almost make me wish that Edwards and Keough were still around (not really)…the overutilization of graphics (do we really need to know on screen what we are watching is the “FIFA” World Cup?) and inane elias sports bureau stats are elements ESPN uses to effect on the traditional american team sports but often hinder these telecasts as useless clutter…my other beef is that they generally dont show the anthems and pregame pagentry like Univision…huge mistake on espn’s part…that would be akin to something like not showing a championship boxer walking through the tunnel into a ring before a fight(something they hopefully fix going forward)…Healey and Smyth are ESPN’s best team (since they call so many games for ESPN international and are familiar with top leagues,players, etc.) and they are making their calls off TV monitors in Bristol….maybe by 2010, univision will be in HD so espn’s ratings will be even lower and they will finally get the message and learn from global TV counterparts on how to properly cover the world’s biggest sporting event….

I agree about the ESPN broadcasts. The graphics are really starting to piss me off. Why is the scoreboard below the top of the screen. Why do they have to show the rules of the game?

I don’t actually remember which team of commentators is the worst, they are all pretty bad. There is one guy who brings politics into the game all the time. No surprise one of the games in question was the Iran game. Just because he hates Iran doesn’t mean he should be talking about nuclear desires and all that other bullshit. Then in another game in nuremburg, he starts blabbering about how Hitler gave speeches there during WWII. I was born in, and spent 20 years of my life in the UK. I have watched an obscene amount of football games live on television, both international and club games, and have never heard commentators bring in politics.

These American commentators obviously know nothing about the game and have to waste time talking about politics.

Another thing that is really annoying are the massive errors in the football language. They do not know the difference between posts and crossbars. Constantly saying PK instead of penalty is annoying. Oh and my personal favourite, when fouls or offsides happen they get everything backwards. They will say, “a foul on Brasil” when Brasil has committed the foul. Shouldn’t it be, “a foul by Brasil”?, or “a foul on Croatia”?

If you are a first time watcher of football, i feel sorry for you trying to learn from these dickheads.

This is my first experience hearing Americans being football commentators, and they are really bad.

In the MLS do they still do penalties by running from the halfway line??? Bloody sad.

I want to see the U.S team get knocked out. But I do feel sorry for the players who are now playing the only sport in America that involves skill. It’s a shame it will never catch on with all the redneck hillbilly scumbags who are untouched by evolution.

I speak Spanish fluently and I am one of those people who live for soccer…especially the World Cup. I don’t think I’ve ever watched more than 5 minutes of the games on ESPN…the commentators suck…First off…the USA shouldn’t even be in the World Cup…they couldn’t play worse if they tried. Two…Commentators in english don’t even know how to play the game much less broadcast it…they more they try the stupider they sound! They just need to show the games and keep their mouths shut. But hey that’s just me!!!

I don’t hate the ESPN/ABC coverage as much as everybody here, but I do dislike it for most of the same reasons.

I have to say, though, that though Univision’s announcers are somewhat better, they’re hardly towering figures of objective expertise. My real gripe with them–and this is why I sometimes watch ESPN for games involving Latin American teams–is that there’s a really off-putting bias in favor of Latin teams on Univision. On Univision, the teams from Latin American countries never seem to have committed the fouls they’re called for, and their displays of skill are often so subtle as to be completely invisible on the slow-motion replay. Then there’s the annoying chauvinism (low-grade racism). I’m not sure why it’s acceptable for Univision announcers to refer to every Latin American player as one of “los nuestros.” Imagine how creepy it would be to hear, say, an English or German announcer referring to “our kind” every time a (white) European player touched the ball.

People in the UK with broadband access can watch every game on the BBC website. Lucky stiffs.

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Whenever I watch a soccer match, or any sport, I need good commentating during the game. It keeps me interested. But sadly, ESPN screwed me over big time. Indeed, Dave O’Brien is a horrible commentator. But I believe the worst out of all is Shep Messing.The way he talks just bugs the hell out of me. He speaks…in short….little..phrases…like this…and also makes the most inane references. For instance:

“Taking a penalty kick is like being down in the bottom of the 9th inning with two outs and bases loaded”

WHAT?! NO IT’S NOT. Plus, there’s this comment he made during the Ivory Coast-Argentina game:

“They (the Ivory Coast defenders) need to trap ‘Ri-Kel-Mee’ like defenders box out Shaq in the low post”

This is football, soccer, futbol, whatever you want to call it. Don’t make references to other sports. It’s not the same.

Also, I HATE this guy’s enthusiasm. Every play, he screams “OH BABY!”. He sounds like a Dick Vitale wannabe. “THAT WAS A PK, REF! PK, PK!” God, I can’t stand him.

ESPN screwed up real bad this World Cup. Where the hell is Rob Stone? Stoner’s the most entertaining, yet knowledgeble commentator we had. Atleast he had some chemistry with Marcelo Balboa. Ty Keough was a decent commentator too. Instead, they gave us shit commentators.

Thank you for ruining my World Cup experience, ESPN.

Also, does anyone else think that the quality of the picture is far better on Univision than ESPN? It seems alot brighter and more colorful, while ESPN is dull.

U.S. sports coverage is in fact just a joke (what, there’s not a human interest story?). I think the U.S. is rapidly becoming a 3rd world country when it comes to sports coverage. All this technology and it’s so wasted

Hilariously, Dave O’Brien said this to reporters in about a week ago:

“The picture and the sounds coming through the television will be greater than anything I can say… I can keep my mouth shut and let that atmosphere breathe, let the game breathe. There isn’t a whole lot you can do to screw up a World Cup game based on what people are telling me and what I’ve seen.”

Here solution..

Get TIVO, record the game from ESPN on TIVO (TV number 1) then Watch the real live Match on Univision on an other TV in your house because it has better picture and sound quality on UNIVISON. ANd after you watched it in spanish, and you liked the match just play the match again that you recoreded on ESPN and then you will have it in english.. It helps if you have a spanish dictionary, but its all worth it. The ESPN TV broadcast is supposed to be HDTV, I have big HDTV and the picture still looks like I recoreded the game with 1991 Sony Camara. Plus the game on Univision is 100% LIVE while the one on ESPN is 30-60 seconds delayed.

Do yourself a favor and get tIVO, you will graetly appriciate its magic powers.

In Coatia and Brazil game, the espn commentator said about the Crotian fans something like “they are making all this noises even though they are losing” or somethign similar correct me if I am wrong. Duh, this is called encouraging your team and especially when they are losing not only when they are wining. That was a strange comment!

Yeah, ESPN’s coverage leaves a bit to be desired.

I’ll usually start off with ESPN, finding out no coverage of national anthems. Switch to Univision for anthems. Switch back to ESPn because I understand not a bit of Spanish. For a few minutes it’s ok, until I realize the top score bar, combined with the bottom sports ticker, takes up a tenth of my screen. Plus they shrink the picture, I think. I can put up with that until they put the “Live” tag, or worse, the “FIFA WorldCup” tag on the upper left hand corner, taking up more of my screen. This seems a bit much, but I will endure it because I am grateful that there is English coverage of the World Cup, right?

Then ESPN will put up the graphics (of starting lineup, endless stats) that can be easily not be shown and just read, and they take up HALF THE SCREEN! ARRGGGHHH! (Note to ESPN: I can hear fine. You do not have to put everything the announcers say on the screen!) Having had enough, I switch over to Univison where the picture is bigger and there are no bad graphics and bottom ticker. This lasts until I need to have something cleared up and I go back to ESPN. Start cycle over once more.

I can tolerate O’Brien and Balboa, but I would not mind more experienced and better announcers. (There should be some good English Premier league announcers ABC could hire, right?) The advantage of the Univision announcers is that since I don’t understand a word they are saying, I can only hear the level of their excitement, not their announcing skills or homerism for the Latin America teams.

My perfect set-up would be the Univision video feed, and be able to pipe in an English feed. I wonder how the BBC announcers are?

Stats, stats and more stats. That’s all the ESPN commentary teams and graphics seem to be able to announce. Being from England, I’m used to world class coverage and analysis from the BBC, ITV and Sky. They may say the odd little factoid during play and show the match stats at half and full time. ESPN insists on putting up these quarter to half screen covering statistics during play. And the commentators regularly referring to and comparing with other sports, what the hell? Oh, and make sure what the commentator says and what the graphics read match up! I have seen/heard mistakes. Concentrate on the match we are watching and don’t assume the viewing audience are a bunch of ignorant asses that need patronising. Save the ‘rules’ for matches the USA play in, as surely the casual American World Cup viewer wont be watching the likes of Costa Rica v Ecuador, and those that do will be well versed in the game of football.

I am used to shouting and cringing at the game-play on the pitch, but never the actual coverage of the sport. If I have what a yellow and red card means explained to me one more time…

This morning, during the Ecuador v Costa Rica match, I lost count of the number of times it was said (either by the announcer or by an annoying graphic) that “Ecuador has a chance of advancing to the Round of 16 with a win.”

Excuse me! Simple math tells everyone that Ecuador will advance with a win. The only question is “Do they go through as 1st or 2nd place?”

No qualified commentator should have made that comment.

Just an example of how ESPN’s coverage is poor.

and people say there is no advantage to being Mexican-American in the USA! – At least I can switch to Univision and get some decent play by play.

I live in the SF Bay area, and found a spanish AM radio station broadcasting the games (at least the PAR/SWE game anyway). It is 1170 AM, and is about the same quality as univision. I don’t speak spanish, but I listen to this while watching the game on ESPN in HD.

ESPN/ABC need to understand that enthusiasm and excitement are the biggest part of announcing a soccer game, not covering the screen with ton’s of stats and having boring monotone people announcing the game (i.e. JP Dellacamera and every other american announcer)

I was lucky enough in 2002 to be living on a Canadian border city, and had the pleasure to see CBC’s feed of BBC coverage. The elequent simplicity of John Motson’s commentary made the games extra special to watch. I desperately wish I had that now.

Obivously, there are numerous problems with the ESPN coverage of the World Cup. Fortunately, most of the points have been made so that I needn’t repeat them (particularly with the graphics which ALWAYS seem to pop up when someone has the ball in PRECISELY the part of the screen that’s obscured).

Yet I’m most glad that Jack made the point with regards to the airing of the national anthems, or the lack thereof with ESPN. I also have to switch to Univision just to get that little extra taste of how global this competition really is. They didn’t even show the anthems during the opening match, a time when anyone would figure the pageantry Dave O’Brien often makes reference to would be on its fullest display.

Do they cut out the Opening Ceremonies from Olympic coverage?! It’s certainly on par, considering this is the only sporting event which rivals the Olympics in popularity (although it’s really vice-versa).

Adding insult to that, when they broadcast USA v Czech Rep., they had the gall to air only the “Star Spangled Banner” and cut away from the Czech anthem to air silly commercials! Could you be any more disrespectful to an opponent?!? That’d be like cutting off the mike during “O Canada” whenever a Canadian team visits a US arena.

Little things like this epitmomize the lack of foresight, and the diminished appreciation of the importance and grandeur of the World Cup of whoever’s in charge of sports programming at ESPN.

What should we expect for the final? World Cup Live in studio before they send it to the booth 5 minutes before kickoff?!?

The commentator on espn does not sound like a football commentator. Whenever I switch to espn his tone reminds of a game of baseball or basketball it really does not feel like football, sometimes I wonder if I had the misfortune to listen to him through radio broadcasting that I could tell what game the commentatot is commenting on. Just hearing his deep voice makes me sick.

As one mentioned before, wht the hell abc/espn will not hire some of the premiereship commentators if only for the duration of the world cup. Maybe they think they are doing us a favor by hiring people who repeat everything as if we are total ignorants. They are really insulting my intelligence and spoiling the joy of the world cup for me which I eagearly awaited a whole four years, what a pity.

O’Brien Responds! fron 6-14 USA Today. Calls us a “petulant clique”

from USA Today

Marked man:

Dave O’Brien, the play-by-play announcer paired with analyst Marcelo Balboa on ABC/ESPN’s lead World Cup soccer on-air team, says he faced hostility talking about balls hitting heads, not bats. “I’m a baseball guy,” says O’Brien, who calls ESPN baseball. “And that’s a dirty word among soccer enthusiasts. There was a backlash before I did a single game.” That happened in January. Online and elsewhere, soccer die-hards weren’t welcoming.

O’Brien warns that talking about the prejudice he faced “is a dangerous story to write.” (Dangerous being a relative term: Writing this doesn’t seem like reporting from Iraq.) “There’s kind of a petulant little clique of soccer fans. There’s not many of them, but they’re mean-spirited. … And they’re not really the audience we want to reach anyway.”

Networks airing big events most Americans don’t follow — such as Olympic events — usually assume viewers need human interest touches to stay tuned. That can seem dumb or distracting to aficionados.

Announcers in soccer-mad countries can be minimalist, O’Brien says, but he’s “introducing story-telling elements. And that antsy clique I’m talking about doesn’t want that — or any effort to entertain.”

U.S. soccer TV ratings, outside the Cup, are microscopic. And, O’Brien says, “If we cater to the clique, they’ll stay there. Soccer hasn’t been presented well to guys like me who played it in high school and are raising daughters on travel teams.”

So O’Brien, calling Germany-Poland today, wonders if he should “spend even 15 seconds describing what the Bundesliga is?” (Ja: It’s a German soccer league.) “Should I explain what (soccer governing body) FIFA is? My 11-year-old daughter doesn’t know. If I do that, the clique will say I don’t know soccer. But we’re putting on a TV product, not a soccer clinic.”

Why is it that the other ESPN announcers are OK letting the game happen, but this uninformed boob thinks HE has to make it happen for us ?

Not only does he not know soccer, he does not know how to call a soccer game !

What? ESPN’s broadcasting the World Cup? I flicked through, on my way to a regular set in front for Univision’s broadcast, and noticed all these tickers goiong abck and forth on ESPN2. I thought that maybe Bloomberg had purchased the broadcast to display stock prices.
I was worng about that? It was football the talking heads were discussing?
Sorry to have missed it. Seems I didn;t miss much, though.

Thanks for the clipping there Gaetano. Got a link? He says’s he’s a baseball man, but also thinks he knows what he’s talking about with football. Does anyone believe his style of commentary will attract and keep bigger TV audiences? And does he really think there are that many soccer-novice viewers (bar the USA games) watching? (I’d be really interested to know)

I’ve read peoples comments about non-soccer fans in bars seeing the WC on TV even saying that the commentary is crap!

I’m liking the “petulant little clique of soccer fans” comment… it’s just funny… there’s only a few million in it.

The ESPN rage continues over here too; http://www.fbtz.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=122

Here’s the USA today link

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/hiestand-tv/2006-06-13-miller-contract_x.htm

A lively thread on ESPN’s coverage, and a great mock foto of D O’B and ‘Celo

http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=366148&page=13&highlight=esp

Lastly, is it just me or can anyone else picture the suits at Disney putting this “Al Michael’s soundalike” in this job thinking the US would create some sort of “miracle on grass” moment ?

Crede en los Milagros ? Siii!!!

Please ask your guest (ex-USA player-Alexi Lalas who sometimes sits in with Rece Davis and Julie Foudy) for world cup soccer commentary to be more culturally sensitive. His comment was to the effect of “if you have dread locks (hair style) don’t come to the world cup.” This comment was made today (June 16; app. 11:30 a.m.) about the Trinidad and Tobago’s defender during the game against England. The statement was irresponsible. There is already enough racism in European soccer against Black and Brown players. We all must do our part and not contribute to this disregard for human rights.

I agree with Margaret’s statement there is really not much room for such derogatory comments especially when representing yourself on a world scale. But the comment was made by Eric Wynalda and not by Alexi Lalas. There are many players in the World Cup that have dreadlocks as their hairstyle and it does not affect their playing ability. Next time Eric should think before he speaks so that he would not make a fool of himself for the world to hear and see.

I stand corrected. Thank you Rhonda for pointing this out and my deepest apologies to Alexi Lalas – you got game. Your name has never been associated with any irresponsible statement. I received your name from an ESPN2 receptionist.
Eric Wynalda, you need to step up your commentating game.

Come on People! They were showing England’s crouch grabbing the guys dreadlocks so he could head it into the goal. Wynalda was not being racist at all!

Looking at what O’Brien said to USA TOday again…
” So O’Brien, calling Germany-Poland today, wonders if he should “spend even 15 seconds describing what the Bundesliga is?” (Ja: It’s a German soccer league.) “Should I explain what (soccer governing body) FIFA is? My 11-year-old daughter doesn’t know. If I do that, the clique will say I don’t know soccer. But we’re putting on a TV product, not a soccer clinic.” ”

Looking at the end of this paragraph, O’Brien contradicts himself.
If you do the explanations of football fundamentals, you are putting on a ’soccer clinic’. Dumbass.

To quote a comment on another footballing forum;
“It isn’t good for anyone. It’s annoying for the knowledgeable fans and misinforming for the casual fan.”
‘Bout sums up most of the ESPN World Cup coverage for me.

I cant believe watching a language I don’t understand is actually much better than listening to these fools in English. Does it make sense to talk about a game that has not even started yet, i.e. USA v. Italy, during another match? They should be fired.

As much as I am annoyed by the announcers talking about other matches during the one that is played (normally about the USA), I think the ABC coverage is better than on ESPN, mainly due to there not being an irrelevant news ticker at the bottom of the screen and the use of obnoxious screen covering graphics is minimal and the score bar is right at the top of the screen!
Watching the Italy v USA game yesterday, I have to say I think O’Brien and Balboa are getting better – by no means perfect and Balboa’s views on situations seem ridiculous at times, but something was less irritating about them.

Watching ABC’s coverage right now, I’m not liking this old timer heading the studio team – I don’t know his name. He really comes across as having zero football knowledge prior to the World Cup and is just reading off a teleprompter with no personal views whatsoever. Why not have Alexi or Eric Wynalda chair it? Also, why don’t they analyse the games? After the Croatia Japan match, the chair guy said something like we’ll be back to analyse this match and they come back after the break and they spend all of 1 minute tops on it then its all about Brazil and USA again! And why is Joulie Foudy in Chicago too? She’s not great at analysis (or isn’t given the opportunity, like Alexi and Eric too), but she does know the sport.

Oh, and after the Italy USA game, anyone with eyes and/or ears would agree that there was plenty of incident to talk about in that match. Analysis after the game? No, an episode of Cheers instead…..?!

I actually found Univision in my cable package and I was shocked to see how much better the picture quality is on that channel over ABC’s/ESPN’s picture. I’d think it was just signal issues in my region but I’ve read a lot of posts around the net saying this. Also, there’s bugger all on the screen except the score. How good does it look!? ESPN/ABC should be a bit ashamed at this, or is there a technical reason they can’t control as to why their picture is inferior? They have the money, surely more than Univision, but they are beaten. Spanish speaking folks have it made. I do not… maybe if I put two tv’s together, one for sound, one for picture…

Who else is annoyed at the amount of times Balboa says as a result of a miscue by an attacker in front of goal: “Oh, I’m sure he’d like to have that one back. The look on his face says he’d like to have it back.”

And why can’t these clowns pronounce players’ names properly? There something about listening to the Spanish announcers’ foreign pronunciation, but the ABC/ESPN coverage just lacks the overall ability to pronounce names comfortably…even after a dozen times. (How many times during the Argentina/Ivory Coast or France/Korea match did the commentators have to refer to a player as “Korean defender”) And did anyone else hear them referring to the Ghanian team as “Ghanans?”

And someone, please spare us from the biggest fairy of them all- Shep Messing. Certainly someone in the corporate suites has to have noticed the miscast- his awkward jibe, sloppy delivery, and senseless ramble coupled with sound effects “BAM!”- for a shot preceding a goal. Or “PKKKKKKK!!!” as an attempt to emphasize the fact that neutral football viewers eventually have something exciting to look forward to with the possibility of a goal. (ArrghhhH!!)

Has it always been this bad???

These American football commentators (yes its football not soccer) are driving me nuttttttts. Can we please do something about getting ESPN to get the Tommy Smith and Healy team to commentate on the crucial matches from the second round onwards. The art of football commentating is a beauutiful one and these guys covering the matches for ESPN/ABC is killing that thrill.

I dont even know where to begin, their reading and understanding of the game is totallly pooor, and even the guys like Balboa, and other ex American players who are in that commentating team, can’t commentate properly.

Further these guys would rather blabber on about something thats totally unrelated than give a play by play. In most cases the play by play guy only gives the play by play for the known famous guyts when they are touching the ball or passing, thats not commentating you idiots. Ahhhhhhhhhhh Crazyyyyyyyyy

If this O’brien guy is a baseball guy, what business does he have doing play by play football. I find that strange, you hire people who know the game. As for Wynalda and lalas, I am really disapointed in them, sore losers at times their comments reminds me of the school yard bullying style. You can tell they are not good journalists and are not good communicators, even their comments hen asked question sounds like a child who doesn’t what he’s talking about. Shame on them I expected more from them, but once you rub shoulders the O’briens you’ll become them. I am also sick and tired whenever the camera comes back to the studio, the anchor mentions wynalda being the higest goal scorer in the us history. Fine we’ve heard that, how many times do we need to hear it. The funny part wynalda is enjoying, as if that makes him better than todyas players. He should’ve told him to stop saying that everytime, but that shos us who are our hosts isn’t it. Lets start an independant channel for soccer only, by fans like us and hire the best in the world on such occasions.

The worst football commentary I ever heard in my life. Iwouldwatch in chinese rather than watching these silly clueless commentators.

ESPN, I beg of you, PLEASE PLEASE sack your entire soccer analyst crew. Dave (I will mispronounce every city, player, team I talk about) O’Brien and Marcelo (I am the world’s biggest douche bag) Balboa are beyond terrible, they are criminally incompetent.

JP Dellacamera and John Harkes aren’t nearly as cringe-inducing as Balboa and O’Brien but they still suck.

If you couldn’t find real commentators why didn’t you just use your Champions League crew of Tommy Smyth and Derek Rae?

Seriously, soccer in America will never get a chance if you continue to use these guys.

(And Eric Wynalda is just a daft prick who needs to be beaten up by small children – please send him packing)

FIRE FIRE FIRE these clueless twits.

Marcelo Balboa surely needs the use of my glasses,also the referee that failed to call foul on the the two Portugese players trying to butcher Rooney prior to his sending off. It’s no wonder Rooney stood on somebodies family jewels, there was nowhere else to put his feet. In my opinion poor commentary thoughout the game and poor judgement by the ref for thar particular incident

Really love your blog!!
New to the blogging world and in need of traffic, would really like a link exchange.
Thank you!
Pablo.