Does anyone mut the TV when Dorrance speaks? I can't stand to listen to the guy. His comments about the game are so far out of left field. His side-kick isn't much better either. He has gotten worse each year. Someone who has had so much success coaching soccer sure can't sit and commentate. His coaching success is on it's way down and so should his job on PAX!
Yeah, I sure wish he'd shut up, a lot of the time. The one thing he says that drives me nuts the most is "pressurizing". "so and so was pressurizing the defense..." Pressurizing?? What the hell is that??!! How about PRESSURING, you moron! grrrrrrrrrr...
He harps on the same things all the time. Every time one team is trying to hold onto the lead late in the game, he's gotta go into how dangerous it is to sit back on defense, every time there's a poor clearance he has to talk about how clearing the ball is a big problem in the women's game, etc.
Yech I can't stand the guy. At least he doesn't say "pasa de vaca" anymore. But oooooooh, the NUTMEG!!! And what's with the 5 minutes running down the Jenny Benson bobblehead during Atlanta/Carolina? You'd think the WUSA announcer wouldn't be so stupid and snarky about the WUSA's *own* promotion efforts. The guy's supposed to be part of the league, y'know. Shut up already. And, yeah, pressurizing. He's got some other dumb-ass verbal tic -- oh yeah "ping". They're "pinging the ball around". Just SHUT UP!!
I caught the DC-Boston match on TV on CN8... Seamus Malin is excellent doing color commentary... he knows the game, and he's not afraid to voice critical views when needed... also, if you want to go to Harvard, he's the guy to influence..
This is who I think is ok..... 1. Seamus Malin 2. Derek Rae 3. Eddie Miten (English: Coach for Trinity in Hartford, CT.) 4. JP Dellacamera 5. I hate to admit it but Tommy Smyth, A little overboard sometimes, but overall not bad. Ty is horrible and Rob Stone was on his way until they stuck him Ty Keogh and now he drives me nuts too. Telemundo all the way!!!! Dorrance has gotten progressively worse every game.
For a good broadcaster, they have to comprehend what's going on out there on the pitch... ..it's a basic anticipation for what's gonna be happening next out there, knowing what a player is trying to do... I agree malin and smyth understand this... cantor is excellent... jp is good play by play, but his questioning of refs decisions are too frequently wrong... anson dorrance needs to coach some no talented players for a while, and then his broadcasting would improve
Does anyone mut the TV when Dorrance speaks? Most of the regional broadcasters I have heard this year are better than these two. What ever happened to PBP? There is no PBP - there's only this supposed "repartee" between these two, as if they're trying to impress each other. Tell us about the GAME for CH____SAKES!! They might be okay if someone would just give them a little instruction!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Does anyone mut the TV when Dorrance speaks? Dorrance just seems lazy in the booth to me, and I find his voice more than a little grating. Finally, was I hallucinating on Saturday? Or did he really say something about diving being a national specialty of Mexican players? If he thought Dominguez was dove on that particular play or routinely, that's fine, but what on earth does it add to the discussion to make such a pointless broad generalization?
That's exactly what I am Talking about. A specialty! Sorry, but what an A.....s! Those are the stupid comments that can drive a true soccer fan nuts! Shut up!
For a guy who's won as many championships as he has, Dorrance says some pretty silly stuff. That's pretty much it. He's always had the best players. Yea, "ping". Is that annoying, or what? He's got Mowins saying it now. Aargh! If a team "pings" the ball in, how come the other team never "pongs" it out? Some of Dorrance's dumbest comments are when he talks about the refs. For example, he claims refs are "always looking for a make-up call". The dumbest thing he says is, "there is no justice in this game". Dorrance seems to be one of those coaches who thinks that the team that has them most possession should win. (it comes from all those years of always having the best players, possessing the ball a lot, and still managing to lose on occasion). Possession doesn't mean diddly if you can't score. If one team has the ball 80 minutes and can't score, and the other team has the ball a total of 10 minutes and scores twice, that IS justice. The game is about scoring, not possesing the ball and looking pretty. However, I disagree that Dorrance's announcing has gotten worse. Nothing could be worse than the way he started, talking about "pasa de vaca" ten times a game. Sheesh! I think he's improved quite a bit.
And he talks about "intentionality" as in, it's not a hand ball if there was no intentionality. The word is INTENT!!
Oh yeah! I forgot about that one. It reminds me of when people say "conversate" - it's CONVERSE, fool!
You must have missed some of the early games last year, when he could go for 90 minutes without making a comment on what was happening on the field. But he does seem to be going downhill again.
Boy am I sure glad I finally heard someone else say it. Mr. Dorrance needs to coach an entire team of players with limited potential, (nice way to put it huh). I got so sick of hearing people rave about his coaching abilities. He's never had to coach a day in his life. Please also, could someone pass on to me some info about just "who" his wife caught him in bed with, forcing him to make a choice between her and the national team coaching position. I have it on good authority it was a then national team player.
I have stared at this thread for days...I had to give in Geeeezzz........OK, maybe he isn't the best color guy.......maybe he .............. But do you realize what you are saying here? Have you read any of his books, particularly his latest? You don't have to read very long to realize his ...I hate to use the term, but...passion for the game..particularly the women's game. Sure, others have risen to the level of the UNC program. But that is a product of the growth of the sport and subsequent increased pool of increased talent - including coaching talent. His TV commentary might be debatable, his personal life might be debatable......an eccentric, yeah.......... but his record and obvious talent as a soccer coach? c'mon What is it - 17 of 21 NCAA Women's Championships and 1 Men's Championship? Just a fluke? Yeah, right.
We must all acknowledge that Dorrance is a great recruiter. His style is not what you call soccer. It's a track meet! He has always had the luxury of the best athletes in the country. The rest of the universities have made attempts at training our ladies to become soccer players. The rest of the country has caught up to Carolina because it's finally not about who has the best athletes. This is the case with the international scene. US always had the best athletes and the rest of the world had more technical more intelligent players. Now the athleticism is almost even (not quite yet) but the technical abilities are still far superior (internationals). Guess what? The US is not a shoe in any more for the WWCUP!
When were they a shoe-in to win the WWC? 91 maybe......(and the coach was?) but they were not in 99 . I witnessed some close games "on the road to the cup" including at Hershey v.China, where they won in the closing minutes 2-1 (I think). As long as China and/or Norway are around, they never have been -never will be a shoe-in. Maybe "everyone", those millions who haven't watched since, thought they were. Maybe the game is passing him by but its ridiculous to say he doesn't know how to coach, recruit, or doesn't know the game. Many great athletes go/have gone to UNC because of UNC's record/program. And that record speaks for itself.And I should have kept staring. Jus' my two cents, probably not worth that much
Pressurizing is a BIG coaching school term. It's jargon to be sure but if you hang out with some national/regional staff coaches for any period of time you'll hear it a lot and once they ingrain it in you at the schools you end up using it yourself. Ping is a word I've heard for years. It's not so much jargon as it is slang. As a color guy Dorrance runs hot and cold with me, but certainly not for his vocabulary. As a coach you can argue that he always has the best players, but how many professional and/or top level collegiate coaches in any sport can you say the same thing about? Back to lurk mode now.
Slang and jargon And that's part of my problem w/Dorrance. His use of the slang and jargon and calling coaches "Tommy" and so forth seems more designed to show what an important insider he is in women's soccer than to explain or comment upon the game. It's like "look at me! I'm so connected!" rather than "look at the game! It's really interesting!" He hasn't said one thing I can think of that really has helped me understand either the game as a whole, or the game I'm watching. Rather than making the game enjoyable and understandable for me, as a soccer neophyte, he makes it incredibly difficult to watch with his preening and slantwise self-promotion. In fact, I'm SO irritated by the guy, I'm really much less interested in watching the games at all. He may or may not be a great coach. Who cares? Because he's clearly a lousy commentator, and that's what his job is supposed to be.
EXACTLY! He is not a coach on Saturday. He is a commentator for soccer. Stop trying to be more than you are Anson!!!
Re: Slang and jargon Whatever one's opinion of Dorrance, I don't think I've EVER had a commentator or color analyst say anything during a game that helped me understand it better, particularly a soccer match. Some are interesting and enjoyable to listen to for some uncategorizable reason(s) and others just grate the nerves, but in terms of actually saying something useful, well that just doesn't happen all that often. Not knowing Anson personally I cannot say if he uses jargon as a way to gain attention or not, but from my own experience coaches who have been around the game that long at a high level have a tendency to use it very frequently because it just becomes a part of their vocabulary. BTW, I use pressurize quite frequently so hate me;-).
Re: Re: Slang and jargon JP Dellacamera's comments often help me 1) keep track of the game in front of me; 2) illustrate something about the game or a player I didn't know, either tactically or technically; 3) and through 1 and 2 help me understand soccer better as a whole. Beth Mowins' commentary on softball does the same thing. She's not very good on soccer. But, she's not a soccer commentator or coach. Dorrance is. And at least Mowins is working to be a play-by-play analyst, a job she's clearly unsuited for and struggling with. I find a lot of b-ball chatter pretty meaningless, but they also do things like talk about zone coverage, man-to-man coverage, explain fouls w/o excessive and stupid commentary on the ref's psyche, and explain the play that just happened when necessary. In short, they do focus on the game and what's happening. The problem with the WUSA broadcasts is that Mowins should be the color commentator -- a job you can prep for but which Dorrance doesn't bother to do -- and Dorrance should be the play-by-play because of his presumed knowledge of the sport. But if he's too lazy to do color, he's for sure to damn lazy to play-by-play. Dorrance is basically a lazy-ass color commentator who never bothers to do the research or the work required, and thinks a couple of beers with "Tommy" Stone over the course of the season is sufficient prep for the job he's getting paid to do. He's lazy, his lack of preparation is disrespectful of the players and the league, he knows nothing substantive about the players or coaches (except for his homers), he adds zero knowledge to the match except for his own "insider" preening, and adds zero enjoyment to the match for me. But worse than that, he's not even neutral - he makes me want to turn off the t.v., something even Wendy Gebauer and Beth Mowins combined haven't made we want to do. As far as I'm concerned, Dorrance might as well be limiting his comments to "GOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!" There's be fewer of them, and at least I'd know the appropriate places to mute the t.v.
i agree, i cant stand anson dorrance. one time my mom was watchign a game with me, and my mom was sitting there going this guy knows nothing about soccer! who the hell is this? i just laughed. the one thing that irritates me most is how he refers to the players as "kids" you have women as old as 36 years of age and theyre referred to as kids. i find that highly degrading and would explain why hes being sued by his former players.