Terrible calls by the ref. Also terrible call by the announcers. Why cant we get announcers who tell it like it is. Those guys today were awful. Could somebody at least tell them who the US were playing. At times during the game some of the stuff they were saying was just to fill time. Balboa wanted to play with the telestrator that was pretty obvious. As for Stone forget about him as an announcer. What happened to JP Dellacamera and Tommy Smyth. they are the best that ESPN has and they should do the Nats games. As you watched todays game no bit of exictment from the announcers and very little on the field. All in all it made for a boring telecast. Must rate as one of the worst in recent times.
Ok They should fire rob stone he has no emotion, but I thought balboa was good enough. The problem with JP Dellacamera and Tommy SMith is that they work for "Gol ESPN", the US nats games are something different, they're "US Soccer". I agree in them using the "Gol ESPN" announcers more for the nats games and the mls games. GOL ESPN Anouncers: JP Dellacamera, Mike Hill, Derek Rae, Joe Tolleson GOL ESPN analysts: Tommy smith, seamus malin, eddie mighten These guys are great, maybe even the best. These guys should be calling mls and US NAt games.
Stone is so annoying, and he probably doesn't even know why. Typical Stone: "He passes the ball to (so and so). (so and so) traps the ball. He turns. He dribbles by two defenders. He shoots. Saved by the goal keeper." I can see it with my own eyes. DUH!!!!!!! I wonder if he used to do radio broadcast.
I can't friggin belive that ESPN still have that guy on a soccer game, They need to give Rob a couple of margaritas before the game to spice him up ....Dang he really suck today....
I thought Stoner was markedly different than his usual over the top self. I thought it was interesting. This thread on the other hand, is not interesting.
WTF?!?! usually, people are on here saying how Rob is yelling and screaming like a teenage girl on the air and he needs to chill out. today he is cool and composed throughout the entire broadcast, and now people say he's bland and boring. I think Rob and Balboa could eventually make a good team, they said some good things today, just not enough IMO. When they do more games and develop some chemistry, i think they will be a good team.
Agreed. All I've heard was Jack Edwards shouldn't have been emotional during the World Cup and being a 'homer', and here we have the opposite. (Frankly, I don't think there was much excitement any pairing could have brought to the first half). Rob has even worked on his hair. Styled and relaxed and not reminiscent of a boy-band wannabe. The one thing Balboa could do is step back from his familiarity of national teamers. By that he was referring to Eddie Pope as "Pope-E" for awhile. This is probably a training ground nickname, but casual observers might not start mispronouncing his name.
The tea-leaves would certainly seem to indicate this. Keough didn't do the college soccer Final Four last month, usually a staple for Ty-isms, and now he's missed this. I think ESPN, SUM and MLS have finally figured it out. THere are too many articulate, intelligent ex-players who have played in MLS and for the national team in games that matter in the past 20 years or so. Harkes, Lalas, Celo, Ramos, Waldo, plus Ray Hudson. All these guys being available is Ty's worst nightmare come true. We've known, and he's known, that eventually that generation, combined with his Ty-ness, was going to be his undoing at ESPN. Ray Hudson coming available didn't help, either. Hopefully these clues mean the end of Ty being one of the national voices of US Soccer. At least, we can hope.
Others may not agree, but Stone's voice sounded different today, like he had a cold or the flu or something. If he was sick that could go a long way towards explaining why he wasn't as energetic and over the top as he usualy is.
Come on, man! Why did you do that? Didn't you know you have to give a warning before you bring logic into the picture? A simple [L] would have worked. It's much more fun for these people to say he was boring and unemotional today, and therefore sucks as an announcer than to actually think about why he may have been this way.
I think Max Bretos is the best American commentator there is. Every soccer announcers in US should take him on as their role model.
Stone is horrible, always has been, and can seemingly only improve to bad. The guy's a total dork. JP please......does a great job with CL matches..
It's quite obvious that we've seen the end of the Ty Keough era. It's also fairly obvious that SUM probably told Stone to tone it down on the yukfest. I think the two of them have the potential to be a very good broadcast team. Essentially I thought stone sounded a little nervouse. You would too wouldn't you? Jack had been lambasted on these boards for the way he called games, same with Ty. Now both of them are gone, not nessicarily from fan pressure probably but from SUM deciding they needed to get some real talent in there that's not named J.P. or Tommy. Essentially maybe just maybe Rob Stone is looking over his shoulder a little bit?
Looked like Stone is sporting a new do - less blonde. Looks like he's stopped the full dye job and has gone in for highlights.
Fah Que = Ty Keough Okay, Ty, whatever you say. BTW, I have listened to hundreds of telecasts in Spanish, and that's how it goes. The play-by-play man indicates who has the ball, and who has passed to who, and the color commentator adds just that: Some color with additional pertinent comments. Sure, some people knows who has the ball, and to whom he has just passed. However, 80% of the fans watching do not know the USMNT that well, and appreciate the play-by-play.
I did not like Balboa at all today. It seemed like he was talking about his friends. Wait a min thats exactly what he was doing. It started just the way MLS wanted it to start. Just go to prove if you play well in MLS you will get a call to the Nats. That was his first nugget and he sucked up to MLS the whole game after. Is it true that Balboa has a job with the Rapids, please tell me this is not true. Why is it that MLS and ESPN do not want announcers who tell the truth. They always pick guys who will toe the company line. Somebody in MLS recently said we cant have Tommy Smyth because we cant control what he says at any given time. Dellacamera is a little more of a company man but he lays it on the line about players. Why not bring in Derek Rae and Smyth and have them do the game the way Champions League is done on ESPN.I feel that as well as having a good team on the field you need one in the announce booth.
Exactly. Ty has always bugged me more than Jack. Lalas(!), Harkes, Balboa, Wynalda... All amount to a death knell for Ty. What I like, to varying degrees, about these former players is that they can make insightful comments about what's happening on the field, not just stick to their pre-game notes/talking points and hammer away. Marcelo's key points were touched on in the first and second halves, but they weren't babbled about incessantly. Ty constantly hits these talking points, to the total detriment of actually commenting on what's happening on the field.