In the grand scheme of things, showing the game as 1-0 for several minutes was a howler. I know the broadcasters are in L.A. and the restart was very confusing, but WOW was that bad. At a minimum, a spotter at the stadium should be on the phone confirming that there was no goal. If you're going to do remote crews, then you've got to have somebody confirming that what you put on the screen is accurate. Period. MLSNet had this on their event log: DC -50th Minute. Offside by 20-Eliseo Quintanilla. That should set off a few alarms.
It was also pretty apparent from Marco's reaction (scowled at the linesman as he walked slowly back) and the lack of any goal celebration that the goal was probably offside. Then again, I've also often heard Spanish-language announcers (esp. Pablo Ramirez) get well into their elongated goal call when it's obvious that the goal was called back for offside.
Paging Christian Miles... Paging Christian Miles... Yeah, that was bad. But what do you expect when the TV announcers are ~3,000 miles away?
The factual errors or ambiguities bothered me. There were numerous mentions to DC's "first game" as opposed to "first home game". At one point Caligiuri even was making the point that it looked like Chicago was the team playing their first game instead of DC United.... I guess away games don't count. At least I got some good camera time at the end of OT.
The announcers made a number of errors, from confusing players (do Quaranta and Quintanilla even look remotely similar? Whitfield and Faria?) And I know it's confusing when Hristo used to be on the team his current team is playing against, but he wasn't unavailable to the Fire due to suspension. He was unavailable to the Fire due to his being a United player.
Don't you know, all white people think all ethnics look alike. Salvadorans, Brazilians, blacks, Italians... all one in the same. Only when they are blonde haired and blue eyed can they be distinguishable.
I was also wondering about the product placement. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but it wasn't very well done. Cal started talking about the exciting young players in MLS and how he was reading about Freddy Adu in the latest issue of 90 Minutes magazine. Which struck me as odd since he didn't actually name any of the exciting young players in MLS, or seem to realize that Freddy Adu was not in the league. If it was a product placement for 90 Minutes, then I would want my money back. If not, I want to know what Paul's address is so I can send him the latest issue of the ECG - especially since the next issue will have an interview with him in it...
Re: Re: United vs. Fire telecast gaffe Not quite that long, but Mike Lastort did catch the scoreboard celebrating