Random Thoughts about the World Cup
Now that we're down to the last 2 games this weekend, I feel the need to share a few random thoughts about the World Cup.
* I'm sick of hearing Americans complain that soccer is low-scoring, especially if they like baseball. At least soccer players have to run for 90 minutes (i.e. they are athletes, not "players"), the ball is always in motion, and there's always some sort of action taking place on the field. Granted you may argue that watching a pitcher scratch his nuts and spit is action too .... but the other guys on the field are just standing around, and the whole rest of the batting team is sitting on the bench. Plus, ragging on soccer for being low-scoring is really just a confession that your attention span is too short to appreciate a game that ebbs and flows. This is why I prefer watching the post game show on one of the Mexican channels. They show good plays, close calls, good tries, etc. The American post-game show only replays the ball going into the net, then immediately cuts back to the collection of has-been lobotomies they have sitting in the studio for commentary.
* While I'm glad that ABC/ESPN have broadcast the games live, I can't watch them with the sound on. Why do American announcers have to constantly try to add human drama to everything? Can't we just watch the friggin' game? I don't give a rat's rear end why a player has a scar on his cheek, or how much a team manager weighed before his sex change, or what the streets of Rome will look like if Italy wins the title. Mostly though, I hate these melodramatic, rhetorical questions like "Will this be the last game for Zidane, or will Portugal score in the last two minutes?"
* Speaking of annoying announcers, what mental giant at ABC/ESPN decided to make Brent Musberger the anchor-twit for the World Cup broadcasts??!! Aside from being able to dredge up sports homilies ad nauseam, this guy is a moron. I especially liked it yesterday when he said that the Berlin Wall was still standing when Germany won its first World Cup in 1954. News flash, skeeziks! The Berlin Wall was built in 1961. You're now officially proven that you're not only an annoying sports commentator, but also ignorant of history.
* Pop-ups. I hate'm on the net, and I hate'm when I'm watching soccer. ABC is really bad about this. A player takes off down the wing on the attack, and suddenly I can't see the action because we have to put up a graphic telling us how to vote for the man of the match or what the next game will be. The same goes for in-game replays. Save this crap for after the game.
* Am I the only one who finds the need to put a spinning globe graphic up on the screen, highlight the country, and then give five fast facts about it a sad testimonial to American geographical ignorance?
* And speaking of ignorance, what is so friggin' hard about using the adjectival form of a country's name? It's bad enough that sports announcers make up silly-sounding words that never used to exist (like "audibilize" for "to call an audible"), and I can almost (but not quite) get used to the fact that these junior high dropouts can't be bothered to use adverbs ("he fell really awkward on his shoulder"), but saying that "... this Ghana team is the darling of the tournament ..." is too much. Earth to retards!! It's just not that hard: Ghana - Ghanaian, Italy - Italian, Japan - Japanese. Jesus tapdancing christ!
* I am really enjoying watching the DFB eat crow. After all the crap they threw at Klinsmann leading up to this Cup, it was really gratifying listening to them last night singing praises to his name and beseeching him to come back for Euro 2008. I wish Germany would have won the Cup just so he could have brought them back to total glory. Then, at his post-game news conference, he could have greeted the press and the DFB with Helmut Schmidt's famous quote from '82: "Baut Euere Scheiße selber!" I will be happy if he sticks around, however.
* Message to FIFA: if you're going to hand out cards every time a player so much as sneezes wrong, do something about this "2 accumulated yellow cards and you miss the next game" nonsense. We watch the Cup because we want to see the players decide the game, not the refs.
* Message to the divers: your odds of scoring increase significantly if you spend more time on your feet trying to propel the ball into the net and less time flopping around on the turf like a spastic trout.
* Message to the US Soccer Federation: we ain't there yet! Moreover, we'll never get there playing the kind of disorganized kickball we played in Germany. We need to hire a new national team coach -- preferably a Dutch tactician like Dick Advokaat or Guus Hiddinck -- to teach our guys how to play a smart, controlled, disciplined game. Unfortunately, those are qualities that most Americans resent ....
* My prediction for Sunday: Italy 2, France 0. My fondest hope: Italy 6, France 0. As my hero Al Bundy proclaimed as he came down from the mountain after meeting Ironhead Haynes: "It is wrong to be French!"
* I'm sick of hearing Americans complain that soccer is low-scoring, especially if they like baseball. At least soccer players have to run for 90 minutes (i.e. they are athletes, not "players"), the ball is always in motion, and there's always some sort of action taking place on the field. Granted you may argue that watching a pitcher scratch his nuts and spit is action too .... but the other guys on the field are just standing around, and the whole rest of the batting team is sitting on the bench. Plus, ragging on soccer for being low-scoring is really just a confession that your attention span is too short to appreciate a game that ebbs and flows. This is why I prefer watching the post game show on one of the Mexican channels. They show good plays, close calls, good tries, etc. The American post-game show only replays the ball going into the net, then immediately cuts back to the collection of has-been lobotomies they have sitting in the studio for commentary.
* While I'm glad that ABC/ESPN have broadcast the games live, I can't watch them with the sound on. Why do American announcers have to constantly try to add human drama to everything? Can't we just watch the friggin' game? I don't give a rat's rear end why a player has a scar on his cheek, or how much a team manager weighed before his sex change, or what the streets of Rome will look like if Italy wins the title. Mostly though, I hate these melodramatic, rhetorical questions like "Will this be the last game for Zidane, or will Portugal score in the last two minutes?"
* Speaking of annoying announcers, what mental giant at ABC/ESPN decided to make Brent Musberger the anchor-twit for the World Cup broadcasts??!! Aside from being able to dredge up sports homilies ad nauseam, this guy is a moron. I especially liked it yesterday when he said that the Berlin Wall was still standing when Germany won its first World Cup in 1954. News flash, skeeziks! The Berlin Wall was built in 1961. You're now officially proven that you're not only an annoying sports commentator, but also ignorant of history.
* Pop-ups. I hate'm on the net, and I hate'm when I'm watching soccer. ABC is really bad about this. A player takes off down the wing on the attack, and suddenly I can't see the action because we have to put up a graphic telling us how to vote for the man of the match or what the next game will be. The same goes for in-game replays. Save this crap for after the game.
* Am I the only one who finds the need to put a spinning globe graphic up on the screen, highlight the country, and then give five fast facts about it a sad testimonial to American geographical ignorance?
* And speaking of ignorance, what is so friggin' hard about using the adjectival form of a country's name? It's bad enough that sports announcers make up silly-sounding words that never used to exist (like "audibilize" for "to call an audible"), and I can almost (but not quite) get used to the fact that these junior high dropouts can't be bothered to use adverbs ("he fell really awkward on his shoulder"), but saying that "... this Ghana team is the darling of the tournament ..." is too much. Earth to retards!! It's just not that hard: Ghana - Ghanaian, Italy - Italian, Japan - Japanese. Jesus tapdancing christ!
* I am really enjoying watching the DFB eat crow. After all the crap they threw at Klinsmann leading up to this Cup, it was really gratifying listening to them last night singing praises to his name and beseeching him to come back for Euro 2008. I wish Germany would have won the Cup just so he could have brought them back to total glory. Then, at his post-game news conference, he could have greeted the press and the DFB with Helmut Schmidt's famous quote from '82: "Baut Euere Scheiße selber!" I will be happy if he sticks around, however.
* Message to FIFA: if you're going to hand out cards every time a player so much as sneezes wrong, do something about this "2 accumulated yellow cards and you miss the next game" nonsense. We watch the Cup because we want to see the players decide the game, not the refs.
* Message to the divers: your odds of scoring increase significantly if you spend more time on your feet trying to propel the ball into the net and less time flopping around on the turf like a spastic trout.
* Message to the US Soccer Federation: we ain't there yet! Moreover, we'll never get there playing the kind of disorganized kickball we played in Germany. We need to hire a new national team coach -- preferably a Dutch tactician like Dick Advokaat or Guus Hiddinck -- to teach our guys how to play a smart, controlled, disciplined game. Unfortunately, those are qualities that most Americans resent ....
* My prediction for Sunday: Italy 2, France 0. My fondest hope: Italy 6, France 0. As my hero Al Bundy proclaimed as he came down from the mountain after meeting Ironhead Haynes: "It is wrong to be French!"
posted by DrJDG @ 18:36
1 Comments:
At 9/7/06 17:37,
Anonymous said…
I've been saying for ages that the U.S. needs to hire Hiddink -- the guy is an absolute miracle worker. Australia in the frickin' round of 16?
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