I second that, and can I also say that this is probably going to be just about everybody's opinion. If you disagree, then post. Otherwise, we all want Ray. We all don't know who it will actually be.
Anyone but Ray Hudson. When he's doing the color during La Liga games, I automatically go switch over to SAP (Spanish). He's over the top and annoying. Heck, why not Eric Wynalda? He's available.
1. Christopher Sullivan. Best US color now. 2. Waldo. He's not bad. Didn't he used to play in San Jose? 3. Brandi Chastain. Local, knows the game as well as anyone, intelligent, well-spoken.
I'm with you. Hard for me to forget the Miami Fusion kicking the crap out of our players when he was coach. Plus, I get fatigued listening to him; he's too overblown.
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that remembers those games. Waldo would be just fine, or even Hudson. Sullivan repeats himself way to much.
He got his payback for that when several Quakes fans drank his cheap-assed bubbly that he had set aside for a victory celebration after (Miami hoped) winning against the Quakes in those 2001 playoffs. However, there is no one who is as entertaining a colorman as Ray Hudson and no other colorman, during the 2005 season who could have been as big a homer for the Quakes as he was. The guy is total enthusiasm, a dedicated lover of the game.
And if the rumor going on in the Business & Media forum is true, he won't be doing special comments/color commentary for ESPN this year. So Wynalda may very well be available. Personally, I wouldn't mind a three-man booth, with Shrader being the traffic cop for the antics between Waldo and Ray Hudson.
Ives Galarcep is reporting that ESPN and Wynalda have parted ways. He also says that Waldo on FSBA is a distinct possibility. Soccer by Ives:
Interesting choice. Does anyone know if she's done it before, and if so, how she did? I'd rather have her doing color (if she's good) than sideline reporting (which is a waste of valuable electrons -- no matter who's doing it).
I've heard her speak before but am struggling with the context. Can't remember if it was for puff pieces or comments on an actual game. In any case, I think she'd be worth a shot, certainly better than most of the commentators we hear in the US.
Brandi has done a pretty good job as a sideline announcer. I think she could handle the color job. The only problem that I would like to see rectified, is the same one that she, Julie Fouty, Jessica Aguirre and a whole host of other American women suffer from: intense nasality. Get that voice coming out of the diaphragm girls and not resonating in your nose.
I'm so ********ing sick of "sideline reporters." This isn't the NFL. It really interrupts the mind-games and intense strategy of the match when you hear people talk at halftime or shortly before the match. The only interviews should be well before the match, or a little after. I have no problem with a woman in the booth though. It's just stupid how they always have the token woman down on the field for no apparent reason. I'm sure Brandi could be good in the booth.
I'm not. She trips over words like I trip over a soccer ball. And if she has said a single interesting thing on TV, I must have missed it.
Oh well, I've never actually heard her talk, I must admit. I've only: 1) Said she was good in the booth in the interest of not looking like a sexist. 2) Seen her in a bra.