I agree with this. But I would counter that the complaint isn't about Clint Dempsey being who he is, or not pretending/trying to be someone else. I think the complaint would be that Fox knew what he was and put him on the air anyway.
Fox isn't catering to Eurosnob soccer football fans who happen to have American passports and residences. Fox is catering to American sports fans. Americans. Joe Six Pack. And, as a nation, we love to hear the opinions of an guy who successfully played the game at it's highest level and - wouldn't ya know! - that's exactly why Clint Dempsey is on the air. Is there another American who kicked ass in the Premiership available to fill that role, preferably with an ivy league education? Why didn't Fox hire that guy? I'll say it again: Y'all a bunch of haters. You enjoy being haters.
I think Aly Wagner has been very good this World Cup when I've heard her. Kate Abdo is a global treasure. Herc Gomez has been excellent on ESPN. The scene when Dempsey announced to Donovan and Beas that they were Hall of Famers and Donovan and Beas reminisced of coming up together was phenomenal and I posted elsewhere about how great it was. There is some to like here. Some even to love. But, you aren't wrong.....
I thought Dempsey was much better on Paramount+ for Nations League and WCQ coverage when flanked by Edu, Davies, and Onyewu (who are all phenomenal) than he has been on Fox for the World Cup. Asking him to do too much on the coverage and the team around him isn't as strong.
Gooch is a student of the game. He just doesn't seem comfortable on camera, and honestly, the lisp doesn't help. That said, I'd love to see more of him and Mo Edu. Davies still seems a little...frantic at times.
Got this one ready to go and am releasing it now in hopes of sparking something from this game. pic.twitter.com/Z685pauiAV— Matthew Doyle (@MattDoyle76) December 9, 2022
I love it when Europe thrashes the rest of the world every 4 years! We see who the best team in the world is every 2 years not 4! People should know when they are conquered. Maximus
9 out of 10 Americans watching the world cup couldn’t pick Dempsey out of a lineup. The venn diagram overlap between people that watch the world cup but no other soccer and people that watch the Olympics and act like they’re experts on curling or figure skating is probably pretty high. You could put whoever there, it doesn’t matter. All fox wants people to do is slob of the US knob and unanimously predict a US knockout round win against the Dutch, even though they’ve only gotten past that round once before and it was against another CONCACAF team.
I'm not as anti-Fox coverage as most. Dempsey has been bad. I'm no Lalas fan, but he's been around forever and across all matter of networks, you know what you're getting. Don Ovan has been decent. But their cut up of the highlights for the Brasil-Croatia game is quite terrible. Turrible, turrible, turrible!
Ok. So Americans just want blatant homerism. Got it. I think Dempsey is just bad. His accent doesn’t bother me, that is a stupid criticism for people to have. He’s not eloquent, I don’t think tactically he’s all that insightful, and besides being a cheerleader he ain’t got much going for him. If Alexi Lalas decided to quiet quit, I’d imagine it looks likes what Dempsey does every time I see him on TV. Donovan… I don’t know what it is about him, I’m not a fan. Lalas… we’ve all been there, no need to rehash it. Ditto with Stone. And I guess it’s just me, but I don’t like Kate Abdo, come at me bros. People I like on Fox: Mo Edu is good, I like him. He’s not the best ever, but I’ll take him. Stu Holden is good like 95% of the time, but that other 5% he says dumb shit. It’s weird.