I heard JP Dellacamera say that the Elias Sports Bureau is providing the stats. Maybe we should call and complain to them about the stats as well. Personally I find O'Brien/Balboa awful. JP and John Harkes are a step above everyone to be honest. Davis/Messing were okay. Healy/Smyth are at least entertaining. I loved the Healy/Smyth exchange about England and Healy's comeback about he didn't see any teams wearing green jerseys. I have said this in other forums: Were is Derek Rae? He is by far and away the best announcer in the ESPN soccer stable. And what about Michael Hill who assisted in the 2002 WC I believe for ABC/ESPN? I did hear somewhere a few months ago that ABC/ESPN did not want to use foreign announcers because we Americans don't want to hear foreign announcers. That's a load of garbage because for years ABC used the great Jackie Stewart for its commentary at the Indiannapolis 500. If this information about foreign announcers is true, then ABC/ESPN is calling us retarded, regardless of them using Healy/Smyth. The announcers and the statistics are bearing out this fact that ABC/ESPN thinks we are retarded. Question: Does anyone here know when the US is playing, who they are playing, what time they are playing and on what network? I don't think they mentioned it over the last 3 days.
Dave "Accuweather" O'Brien's pronunciation of "eye-rohn" earlier today was enough to turn me over to Univision's band of pro-mexico suck ups, which says alot. I'm hoping for a HUGE turnout at whichever bar i go to for the US game tomorrow. Anything to blot out his recockulous rambling. And why Wynalda would think a dull, uninspired performance by those lovable world-beaters portugal means they're 'looking good' is beyond me.
The nice thing about having bad announcers is that you can always just turn the sound off. I imagine a lot of people are watching the games in bars where you can't hear the commentary anyway. The screwups with the on-screen graphics are much more bothersome, but I won't get into that because this is a thread about the announcers. Tommy Smyth has started to become lovable in sort of a late Harry Caray sort of way for me. Everything he says is wrong, but in a way that makes me smile in spite of myself. I thought the "poleaxed" pun was actually pretty clever, as was the Pole drilling for oil thing. Irrelevant, but clever. In the last few games Dave O'Brien did prior to the World Cup, he seemed to be reducing his baseball-style commentary of talking about everything except the game in front of him. Unfortunately once the Cup started he seemed to revert to prior bad habits. It doesn't help to be paired with Balboa: "Here you see on the replay, he sticks his leg in, gets called for the foul." Yes, I could see that all by myself, thanks. I think Dellacamera and Harkes have been the best pairing so far. I don't think Harkes is that great ("Absolutely, J.P."--take a drink), but the competition is weak. O'Brien and Balboa have been the worst, which should come as no surprise since they've been awarded the lead announcing positions. But I haven't seen Stone yet, so they may have competition.
Maybe because the ABC suits have specifically instructed the guys back in the studio to keep it upbeat and not to say things like, "The second half was really dull and negative. Kind of like England-Paraguay ..."
true. but some actual critical insight from an ex-pro who supposedly knows the game would be nice, for a change.
my personal favorite...during the ENG-PAR game. listening to O'Brien describe David Beckham's "spin kicks" was just fantastic. the guy has a great football mind. then being blessed by the terrific booth tandem uttering the phrase "Bend it Like Beckham" four times in a row...was simply a beautiful stanza in the history of world cup broadcasting. i must add this one as well...the 30 second video highlight clip of "Eric Wynalda & Julie Foudy -- A History of Great Goals" before the two blessed us with first half analysis...was indescribably disgusting.
Apparently, he didn't say it enough times for it to sink in that it was Oswaldo Sanchez's father, not Claudio Suarez. Take another drink!
If you read any of Michael Davies' blog posts, you'll realize that he's good friends with Rob Stone, and from that you'll also see that Rob Stone really takes his job seriously and studies the game, even if he's not the best behind the mike. I'll take that any day of the week over the waves of bile that pour out of O'Brien and Balboa. Though, I do believe that Balboa could be salvageable if he had a great pbp guy to go with. He does, every once in a while, have some interesting comment on the game and how the teams are playing and he knows a hell of a lot more about what's going on than O'Brien. If he could learn to state things more succintly and realize that not everything he utters has to be stated as superlatively as possible, he would be OK. However, O'Brien is a black hole out of which nothing escapes, absolutely nothing. I have already written to ESPN about what a debacle he is. I can't even imagine what the execs were thinking. If there was some way to give him a good bout of non-lethal food poisoning, I'd be all for it.
John Harkes to ANY question asked: "Absolutely" Repeat ad nauseum. I suppose you could make a drinking game out of it, but you'd be dead by half time.
Dude, "climbs the ladder" is why I joined BigSoccer. There used to be hilarious discussions of the "catch phrases." Even though it was painful at the time, I'm kind of nostalgic.
I particularly liked the three different angles on Foudy's weak shot that deflected off a defender and looped over a rooted keeper. Stellar clip.
I love all the US references in every single game played.....every 5 minutes actually... I also loved how Chelsea played Barcelona in this years CL final Another great thing are the constant american sport analogies and the comparisons between football players and basketball/baseball etc players in the states..... I mean, where do they get these idiots? These people were actually professionals/?????
What I sent to ESPN, had to do it! I just can't stand not saying something, maybe the reactions will keep us from this sh*@# next time around. It may look and read goofy because they limit the number of letters so I compressed it as best I could. To ESPN: As a soccer fan,your coverage of the World Cup is sad and insulting considering the choices and performances being displayed.Your lead announcers obviously have no knowledge of soccer or the major players.When he isn't spewing inane,irrelavant,comments, your erroneous graphics are covering the screen during live play because you picked up the game 1 minute before kick-off.Go to Bigscoccer.com Germany 06 thread on"Pick your favorite insane statement" 6+ pages comments.No ESPN WC10! Go Univision!
I agree that the announcing is painful at times so sometimes I watch it on Univision. I know a good bit of spanish and from what I know, I realize that they're pretty much crap too. The worst is of course whenever the ball goes out for a corner kick. Loosely translated: "Is it a corner kick? Yes. Is it for Mexico? Yes. Is it from the right? yes." After every single corner kick the announcer would go through this bit. I mean talk about dumbing down the game. If Dave O'brien said this, it would top everybody's list on this thread.
My vote is for BALBOA: I can't remember at what point in the game exactly, shortly after half-time when La Volpe made his third sub Balboa said something like 'well, I don't agree with that at all' or that's not a very smart use of subs blah blah blah. Yeah, his assessment of the use of substitutions is why he hasn't been called to coach a MNT. After the game was over and he was wrapping things up, he attributed Mexico's win, in part, to the smart use of subs. THUNK! My case is he's broadcasting from the US because Germany wouldn't have him.
Now you see my dilemna... If only I could find a station in the US that covers the game in Urdu or something else I don't understand...
HAHAH BALBOA GOT PWNED COMPLETELY . Hes a complete hairy ARMPIT as an announcer , No Kidding Campaign to send emails to ESPN in Regards to Balboa
Where is...? Where is Seamus Malin? He was my favorite color guy. He hasn't been around for 2 WC's now. did he get into a fight with ESPN? an exclusive contract with another network? it looks ESPN/ABC has been trying to push former US National team players to try to give a "continuity" to the non-soccer audience.
Re: Where is...? You know all I really want? Name the @#$@# players. That's all. I can't read the names on the backs of their jerseys, so I want to know who is playing. And maybe even some background on them, such as what team they play for? Is that too much to ask?
First off a little background. I played soccer for one year growing up. I'm a huge sports nut, mostly the NFL. I don't follow the MLS or foreign leagues, primarily because the coverage is limited and there's not a team in my geographic area to root for(TN). I'm a soccer fan only in passing. That said, I'm enjoying the hell out of this World Cup. The whole thing is funny, from the commentery to an interesting game I came up with. It's called sniper shots. Every time some random player falls down as if he's been shot by a sniper in the crowd in the hopes of getting a free kick or pk you drink a shot. If I'd been playing this game during portugal's match today I would have died of alcohol poisoning. About the announcers I don't see how anyone can complain. They add approximately 35% to my ability to enjoy the match simply because of their unintentional comedy factor. I don't follow club soccer at all, I have no clue who 99.9% of the players are, but you can still tell they really don't know what they're talking about, and I laughed out loud probably ten times today over the course of the three matches. After watching every match except for England/Paraguay so far I can't tell you which announcer is the best, but I can tell you who is the funniest, Smyth and Healy by far. Smyth is like the crazy old uncle who you can never understand. Soon this month of fun and frovolity will be over, and I will go back to ignoring soccer for the next four years. But I will have my memories. Every time overacts a melodramatic death scene in a movie I will think fondly of the Portugese. Every time someone is shot in the left arm in a bad movie and in the next scene the bandage is on his right arm I will relive the memory of countless players getting kicked in the foot or nudged in the thigh and falling to the ground grabbing their shins as if they'd been kicked by a donkey. Truely no sporting event combines sketchy announcing, bad acting, world class athletes, and national pride like the World Cup on ESPN(HD), and I plan on enjoying every minute of it. Titanic PS: I really hope the U.S. wins tomorrow. Every soccer board I visit has about a 25-30% contingent of rediculously cocky Euros who believe the US can't and won't ever succeed at soccer. Even though I'm not a huge soccer fan, I am now firmly devoted to the idea of seeing us win a cup in my lifetime. It's the principal of the thing you see.