I ask all soccer fans in the USA to join me in a hunger strike. We will vow not to eat solid food until: 1) FSN fires Max Bretos and Allen Hopkins; 2) fires the men who hired these two; 3) fires the men who hired those men; 4) fires everyone at FSN who refused to mutilate themselves in protest over the hiring of Bretos and Hopkins; 5) hires some foreign announcers. Yes, I know Bretos and Hopkins work for minimum wage, and that this allows us to enjoy commercial free programming. But I am prepared to pay any price in order to enjoy La Liga, Bundesliga ,et. al., free from the braying of these two jackasses, who seem to want nothing more than to regale us with their wacky accentuated pronunciations of foreign names and bore us with their third grade attempts at wit. Going from the BBC calls of EPL matches to the shrill, awkward iterations of Bretos and Hopkins is a frightening shock to the system. Even if their style and presentation were fit for human consumption the utter poverty of their soccer knowledge and sense of the game would still make them objectionable to the extreme. They each routinely blabber right over and through important developments on the field, all the while trumpeting some inconsequential play as if it was the second coming of Pele. I can't take it anymore. Toby Charles, were are you?
I think you should continue eating. You cannot afford to diminish your mental capacity the slightest amount.
Yes - out with Bretos and in with Jack Edwards. Nevermind Max's actual knowledge of the Argentine League. I need to hear how River are the New York Yankees of Argentine soccer.
I disagree. Go on strike. (BTW, it's "hunger striker," not "hungry strike.") The Darwin Awards always need good candidates.
dude just start by changing your diet no need to strike maybe all fiber to get you nice and cleaned out after that you could always spend a month at a "home" to soothe your nerves then some "pills" to help you make it through each day after that hiring a "nurse" could be of some use if those things dont quite fix the "problems" entirely for you
I for one appreciate their efforts and I say bunko to all you critics. I'm offer to enjoy a nice steak lunch.
btw - you wont find any BBC calls of "EPL" matches. We get announcers hired directly by the Premier League on Fox Sports World. In fact, the BBC dont even cover the Premiership in England! If you're gonna be an Anglophile or Eurosnob - sort your facts out. And its Premiership - not EPL.
Whatever happened to the rule where you can't start a new thread until you had a certain number of posts? I ask the mods to please reinstitute it, so we can keep crap like this from cluttering the boards. Especially from a person from whom it is his first post.
Re: Re: FSN announcers - Hungry Strike: Day One Spot on. Just be glad that we have FSW. No use of complaining at all since it wouldn't do any good. Period.
FANBOYS!!! "You cannot afford to diminish your mental capacity the slightest amount." - Don't blame me. Every moment I spend listening to Max Bretos I become just a bit more stupid. "Nevermind Max's actual knowledge of the Argentine League." - What Max knows about the Argentine league anyone could know after 10 minutes of Googling. What he doesn't know about the game itself couldn't be taught in 10 years. "Let's just be thankful that we can see soccer from around the world and enjoy it" - I am. I've only just moved to an area where I could get FSN. I had to subscribe to a premium package to get it, but it's worth it. Imagine my joy upon tuning in to my first ever live Bundesliga match, only to discover that instead of Alan Fountain I was being treated to Allen Hopkins. *shudder* "(BTW, it's "hunger striker," not "hungry strike.") - Hehe. Funny typo. (Stooping to typo insults = not funny, btw ) "dude just start by changing your diet no need to strike maybe all fiber to get you nice and cleaned out after that you could always spend a month at a "home" to soothe your nerves then some "pills" to help you make it through each day after that hiring a "nurse" could be of some use if those things dont quite fix the "problems" entirely for you" - Looks like someone has just "discovered" the sarcastic "use" of the quotation "mark". Congrats. "btw - you wont find any BBC calls of "EPL" matches. We get announcers hired directly by the Premier League on Fox Sports World. In fact, the BBC dont even cover the Premiership in England! If you're gonna be an Anglophile or Eurosnob - sort your facts out. And its Premiership - not EPL." - Another trifling nitpicker. Wtf cares? "Never seen an MLS match on TV have you? You would have nothing to complain about if you had." - They are bad, as well. They shriek instead of babble. But the saving grace in that instance is that the gap between the level of play and the quality of commentary is not so great. The name Figo does not belong in the mouth of Allen Hopkins. Ty Keough and Preki is not so offensive. "No use of complaining at all since it wouldn't do any good. Period." - I disagree. It is the consumer's right, nay, obligation to complain. I don't want broadcasting of the European leagues to die on the vine as a result of amateurish production. The knowledgable soccer people I know still listen to matches on the Spanish language stations despite not knowing a word of Spanish. This does not augur well.
You know, I appreciate El_Chino's post - it's a fun mixture of hyperbole, humor, heat, and honest opinion. Bretos annoys the piss outta me as well, though I don't think I feel as strongly as El_Chino does. I hear announcers from MLS, FSW, etc, and actually, I don't like many of them. Heck, I don't like alot of the announcers in other sports either. And in fact, there's alot of people in general I just don't like. It all comes down to taste, and one person's reaction to the personalities presented on the flat screen in front of us. El_Chino, I applaud you for trumpting your opinion... many people share your misery, and it's fun to pound sand once in a while. Kevin D.
Agreed... But, if you did happen to watch the USA/Mexico Gold Cup match last night, their broadcast hit rock bottom with the simply dreadful and "low talker" Tracy Milburn of the Washington Freedom doing the "color analyst" role... The scary thing is she is scheduled to do the entire tournament... Yikes...........
This just sort of falls into the "Is the Pope Catholic?" category. You know, "Does the announcer stink?" I think it was last week where I read that same stuff about the guys doing the World Series on Fox - the article was in the Post. Plain and simple, people love to hate the announcers.
Bad announcers yes, I for one enjoy Vince Scully, Martin Tyler who have the grace to let the play speak for itself.
I suppose they could make humor a yellow-card offense. I'm beginning to think that would please a lot of posters here. That might cut down on the number of posters who post on threads for no other reason than to tell us they don't like the topic and that the moderators should do something about it.
ok.. i agree w/ chino re max bretos and the rest of the FSW commentating crew... but a hunger strike...(tongue in cheek)..no I dont know why FSW does not use the home nation productions....? EPL... no-one would ever accept Bretos doing the PBP... expats would not pay for his bantor... LaLiga..Sky has the rights to la liga in Britain.. but according to the rights agreement in the US.. they can only get the 3rd choice match... which in essence means we will never see Real Madrid or Barca... unless its a totally meaningless match...therefore the only commentary team would be Bretos UEFA CUP.. this one is the one that bothers me the most... these games ARE available to UK terrestrial broadcasts... so why we have to endure the Bretos commentary is beyond me... Bundesliga..Again... previously we had the expertise of Toby Charles... a legend in the broadcast boothe...yet we have to endure the mumbling of alan hopkins.....this i do not understand....you would think it would be in the best interests to have seasoned commentator to commentate on this league.. yet we have to endure the whining hopkins... MLS CUP... honestly i dont care... if the US high school crowd thinks he is good..then albeit.. i dont watch it... I give credit to ESPN to giving the Nats to the best US commentator JP Delacamera... no US commentator comes close.... all my euro-expats think he is definitely the best of all the US pretenders....thats the style to go with... but the best kudos go to Setanta... they showed all the last euro matches from the BBC... pregame..halftime..and postgame... well worth the money..... now that was a quality broadcast.... Cantona---
what bugs me about FSW is that they air a promo spot saying something like their the home of the UEFA Cup well how can that be since they only show like 1 game every couple of months.
I suspect that if the announcer had an english accent but was actually reading soup recipes during the game you would consider it fine commentary. If you want to hear english accents the BBC now has a cable channel.
Sounds like you hang out with a bunch of morons. Not knowing the language and deciding that is the play by play you want to hear is ignorant, not knowledgable. If your so called "knowledgable soccer people" actually could understand the commentary of these stations they would see very quickly that they are not getting anything more in the way of substance. If anything the commentary is worse. Bretos and Hopkins do just fine. And to assert that the facts they gather could be discovered on Google in 10 minutes is beyond absurd. I know. I help run one the ultimate football links sites on the planet. And finding out all the facts and information they gather would take a lot more than just a few google phrases to uncover.