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Thursday, July 6, 2006
Blue skies, please go away
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s not just the gray sky over the ATL that has Off the Ball even glummer than her usual Mood Indigo. It’s the fact that she can no longer shake off the inevitable cold turkey that will come with the end of the World Cup in just a few days.
Yes, the dream match between Italy and France should be a real treat. As one of OTB’s colleague muses: “Whom do you pick? Both countries have good food, great wine.”
A mouth-watering final, then. But the sentimental journey over the final game of Zinedine Zidane’s career has already begun. This will be sad indeed as ZZ tries to go out on top. OTB has Italy in the Cup pool, but she may be shedding some tears hearing his farewell rendition of “La Marseillaise.”
Italy has its own reasons for not wanting the Cup to end. Mainly, the lousy situation back on the home front, where Serie A powerhouse Juventus, at the center of appalling match-fixing allegations, is willing to accept demotion to the second division as punishment.
Juventus is loaded with players on both sidelines of this final: Italy’s Buffon, Cannavaro, Camoranesi, Zambrotta and Del Piero; France’s Thuram, Vieira and Trezeguet. There are plenty others on Cup teams, such as Czech Pavel Nedved and Sweden’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic. What a horrific comedown for the Yankees of Italy. AC Milan (the Red Sox), Fiorentina (the Cubs) and Lazio (the Dodgers) also have been recommended for the drop by an Italian prosecutor, although he wants them sent to the third division. Will these guys bail if their teams are sent down?
Can you imagine Jeter, Schilling and Nomar playing Class AA ball? Carrying their own luggage? Riding the bus between Durham and Asheville? Breathing through their eyeballs? It would be a miracle!
Oh, scusi for the baseball reference, but OTB is just a bit piqued after reading some of the inside dope on how Dave O’Brien became ESPN’s lead Cup announcer.
It’s less that O’Brien is mainly a baseball guy than the fact that ESPN suits insisted upon Americans behind the mike and not those broguish charmers from the British Isles. Here’s an excerpt that has OTB just a bit peeved:
Executives at Soccer United Marketing, which is paying U.S. rights, “believed lead play-by-play duties would go to ESPN veteran (and Atlanta Thrashers announcer) JP Dellacamera , who had called five World Cups. Instead, ESPN gave the job — including all U.S. games and the championship final — to Mr. O’Brien, who joined the network in 2002 and is best known as a Major League Baseball announcer. Mr. Dellacamera says he was disappointed but accepted the No. 2 play-by-play slot in Germany.
“The soccer executives opposed the appointment of Mr. O’Brien. Their argument: Using an announcer unfamiliar with the sport might not help ratings but certainly could hurt them. ‘Would you ever put a guy who had never called a sport before … in the World Series, the Super Bowl or the Olympics?’ a senior U.S. soccer executive says. ‘Never.’ “
O’Brien actually hasn’t been that bad, given his lack of a soccer background. But here’s the self-proclaimed Worldwide Leader of Sports making absurd demands for coverage of the world’s biggest sporting event. Yes, it is important to appeal to more than the soccer junkies during this tournament. But the bland, hyper-chattery, personality- and trivia-driven nature of ESPN’s coverage (Country: The Netherlands. Language: Dutch. Form of Government: Monarchy.) ought to be unbearable even for novices.
Because we’re used to these banalities for the World Series, Super Bowl and Final Four, it’s okay for the World Cup? How about giving your baseball- and gridiron-besotted viewers a taste of something else for a change? Go ahead — try it, they might like it!
All this is to come back to the subject of withdrawal, and to what awaits us in the States come Monday. It’s not my aim to kick around MLS. In fact, OTB rather enjoyed the Revolution-Red Bulls game last week. But here’s one soccer blogger who’s hanging up his cleats, and offers as strong a condemnation of MLS as I’ve read in a while. It’s not about the lack of talent, but the obsession with putting lipstick on a pig, then trying to make it fly:
“Rather than making a serious effort to improve the standard of play, MLS brass have chosen instead to redouble their efforts to dupe credulous people into believing that their existing standard of play is light-years better than it actually is… .
“To be perfectly honest, that’s what has made MLS intolerable to me. They’re not even making a noteworthy effort to improve the quality of their product; instead, they’re just trying to convince everyone that their product is far better than it really is…
“After all the columns I’ve written in hopes of helping American soccer get a little bit better, perhaps some of you can understand why it might upset and frustrate me that MLS brass, like their pet pseudo-star Donovan, are more than happy to settle for abject mediocrity.”
(hat tip: The Soccer Daily)
There’s plenty more in that diatribe, including the growing refrain urging the Yanks to play more often in the bi-annual Copa America, a terrific tourney that the U.S. Soccer Federation dodges because the event runs during MLS season.
By contrast, the hard partying and fast times of the Cosmos is the subject of some newly dispensed nostalgia. They weren’t bound to last, and their likes won’t be seen on these shores again, even if Beckham and Ronaldo and others come here to finish out their careers. Global soccer is too corporate, reeks too much of slick marketing to give us the likes of Giorgio Chinaglia. There simply are none.
Just another reason to make OTB feel blue, aside from the aftermath of Les Bleus vs. the Azzurri. Mood Indigo, indeed.
Blue skies, please go away
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s not just the gray sky over the ATL that has Off the Ball even glummer than her usual Mood Indigo. It’s the fact that she can no longer shake off the inevitable cold turkey that will come with the end of the World Cup in just a few days.
Yes, the dream match between Italy and France should be a real treat. As one of OTB’s colleague muses: “Who do you pick? Both countries have good food, great wine.”
A mouth-watering final, then. But the sentimental journey over the final game of Zinedine Zidane’s career has already begun. This will be sad indeed as ZZ tries to go out on top. OTB has Italy in the Cup pool, but she may be shedding some tears hearing his farewell rendition of “La Marseillaise.”
Italy has its own reasons for not wanting the Cup to end. Mainly, the lousy situation back on the home front, where Serie A powerhouse Juventus, at the center of appalling match-fixing allegations, is willing to accept demotion to the second division as punishment.
Juventus is loaded with players on both sidelines of this final: Italy’s Buffon, Cannavaro, Camoranesi, Zambrotta and Del Piero; France’s Thuram, Vieira and Trezeguet. There are plenty others on Cup teams, such as Czech Pavel Nedved and Sweden’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Zidane used to play there. What an incredible comedown for the Yankees of Italy. AC Milan (the Red Sox), Fiorentina (the Cubs) and Lazio (the Dodgers) also have been recommended for the drop by an Italian prosecutor, although he wants them sent to the third division. Will these guys bail if their teams are sent down?
Can you imagine Jeter, Schilling and Nomar playing Class AA ball? Carrying their own luggage? Riding the bus between Durham and Asheville? Breathing through their eyeballs? It would be a miracle!
Oh, scusi for the baseball reference, but OTB is just a bit piqued after reading some of the inside dope on how Dave O’Brien became ESPN’s lead Cup announcer.
It’s less that O’Brien is mainly a baseball guy than the fact that ESPN suits insisted upon Americans behind the mike and not those broguish charmers from the British Isles. Here’s an excerpt that has OTB just a bit peeved:
Executives at Soccer United Marketing, which is paying U.S. rights, “believed lead play-by-play duties would go to ESPN veteran (and Atlanta Thrashers announcer) JP Dellacamera , who had called five World Cups. Instead, ESPN gave the job — including all U.S. games and the championship final — to Mr. O’Brien, who joined the network in 2002 and is best known as a Major League Baseball announcer. Mr. Dellacamera says he was disappointed but accepted the No. 2 play-by-play slot in Germany.
“The soccer executives opposed the appointment of Mr. O’Brien. Their argument: Using an announcer unfamiliar with the sport might not help ratings but certainly could hurt them. ‘Would you ever put a guy who had never called a sport before … in the World Series, the Super Bowl or the Olympics?’ a senior U.S. soccer executive says. ‘Never.’ “
O’Brien actually hasn’t been that bad, given his lack of a soccer background. Last time OTB checked, Dellacamera was American. But here’s the self-proclaimed Worldwide Leader of Sports making absurd demands for coverage of the world’s biggest sporting event. Yes, it is important to appeal to more than the soccer junkies during this tournament. But the bland, hyper-chattery, personality- and trivia-driven nature of ESPN’s coverage (Country: The Netherlands. Language: Dutch. Form of Government: Monarchy.) ought to be unbearable even for novices.
Because we’re used to these banalities for the World Series, Super Bowl and Final Four, it’s okay for the World Cup? How about giving your baseball- and gridiron-besotted viewers a taste of something else for a change? Go ahead — try it, they might like it!
All this is to come back to the subject of withdrawal, and to what awaits us in the States come Monday. It’s not my aim to kick around MLS. In fact, OTB rather enjoyed the Revolution-Red Bulls game last week. But here’s one soccer blogger who’s hanging up his cleats, and offers as strong a condemnation of MLS as I’ve read in a while. It’s not about the lack of talent, but the obsession with putting lipstick on a pig, then trying to make it fly:
“Rather than making a serious effort to improve the standard of play, MLS brass have chosen instead to redouble their efforts to dupe credulous people into believing that their existing standard of play is light-years better than it actually is… .
“To be perfectly honest, that’s what has made MLS intolerable to me. They’re not even making a noteworthy effort to improve the quality of their product; instead, they’re just trying to convince everyone that their product is far better than it really is…
(hat tip: The Soccer Daily)
There’s plenty more in that diatribe, including the growing refrain urging the Yanks to play more often in the bi-annual Copa America, a terrific hemispheric tourney that the U.S. Soccer Federation dodges because the event runs during MLS season.
By contrast, the hard partying and fast times of the Cosmos is the subject of some newly dispensed nostalgia. They weren’t bound to last, and their likes won’t be seen on these shores again, even if Beckham and Ronaldo and others come here to finish out their careers. Global soccer is too corporate, reeks too much of slick marketing to give us any more Giorgio Chinaglias. There simply are none.
Just another reason to make OTB feel blue, aside from the aftermath of Les Bleus vs. the Azzurri. Mood Indigo, indeed.
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