Sunday, June 18, 2006

RANT- World Cup, US Soccer, ESPN/ABC Announcers

FUCKING A, I watched the US game again...First game I see entirely on ESPN/ABC - What garbage announcers... Balboa is a talking jock.....whatever.. I don't blame him. On the other hand, the annoucer holy crap, how incompetent -- Absolutely no sense of what the fuck was going on, just inane commentary.
I might as well been watching the 3rd through 7th innings of the Blue Jays versus the Marlins, the scoreless second quarter of Bowling Green vs. Fresno State - with both teams 1-8. What a total inability to really give any perspective on the drama and intensity going on in the field, on what a big fucking deal it really was - something every soccer fan in the world got. It was a classic sports cliche moment-think Kirk Gibson's homer or the "Miracle on Ice" - it was Americans involved, and lame commentators blew it in front of a national audience.
The last 15 mintues of a game, you do not put graphs and waste time clinically dissecting the mathematical chances for the US to go advance to the next round...when you are holding Italy to a tie in a world cup game...when in the background you hear the crowd roaring. Shit, the skeptics in the world sporting press called the US defense "heroic" - you would never know it.
The dudes on Univision were going nuts most of the game- by the second half they were at fever pitch, the last ten minutes hysterical. Host, Fernando Fiore said he was "sweating" the ending, and from his expression and voice he was visibly shaken when they cut to him right after the game ended.

The World Cup should be on Fox Sports. Those guys know how to call a game, they understand the passion and rhythms of the game as most of the world does, and they know every US-Sports cliche in the book

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't even listen to the ABC/ESPN announcers..thankfully I speak Spanish and can listen to the real thing...it's like watching two completely diffent matches...ABC/ESPN put you to sleep!

Anonymous said...

Even, my 14 yrs. old son who does not speak Spanish rather watch the matches via the euphoric and passionate sports commentators on Univision ... :) Melek

"GOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLL"

A.M. Mora y Leon said...

I like Univision. I think their excitability is part of the fun of the game!