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Shut Up, Dave O’Brien

July 10th, 2006 | View Comments

So another World Cup has come and gone, and Italy gets to add another notch to its goalpost. I realize now that it’s entirely my fault that Italy won. I named my free World Cup blog template, which was released on June 4th, “Champion” in Italian.

Overall, I found the whole Cup to be slightly disappointing. My teams both went out in the first round, then my adopted teams went out in the second round. Plus all the brouhaha about the diving and the refereeing, some of which was justified, and some of which was American sour grapes.

And because it cannot be said enough times, Zidane: WTF?

I’ve heard all sorts of rumors about what Materazzi said to rile him up, from racial slurs to sexual slurs to “your mom” to “your sister” to “go to hell” and…I just kind of don’t care what he said. Materazzi isn’t quite the face of good sportsmanship and classy conduct, but Zidane didn’t need to end his career on that note.

Besides, I thought Figo had trademarked the headbutt.

And finally, I would like to shoot whichever suit decided that Dave O’Brien was a soccer announcer. I understand that O’Brien is normally a baseball announcer, which frankly explains a lot about his announcing style. Given the pace at which baseball is played, it’s necessary to wax poetic about random stats and other trivia in order to fill the time, and he apparently thought that soccer should be announced the same way.

The difference is that stuff actually happens during a soccer game, and it happens quickly and continuously. There were many, many points during the games I watched with O’Brien behind the mic where Balboa had to cut off his pointless ramblings to explain what was actually happening on the field.

I don’t think I can say it any better than this petition to ESPN programming:

As a sports leader and the largest cable sports network it would make sense that the company would want to have the best coverage of the event possible. Putting someone who has never done soccer commentary at the head of your broadcast team will only serve to alienate fans and move more viewers to Univision and other networks covering the games. You wouldn’t put Dick Button on the Superbowl announcing team or John Madden on the World Series telecasts, why would you put a baseball announcer in the World Cup broadcasts?

Oh wait, they would do that because ESPN brass and O’Brien are arrogant twits when it comes to soccer announcing.

They could have pulled some random person off the streets of a serious soccer country, paid him or her pennies, and delivered a better viewing experience. I would have watched all the games on Univision just to avoid the godawful American commentary if I could have. I could use some Spanish practice anyways.

Apparently they think new soccer watchers want a “story”, the way the Olympics trot out every poor/orphaned/ill/injured athlete in a thousand variations of “Aww, ain’t this great?” Wrong. The most common things I hear from new soccer watchers are:

• Soccer doesn’t require any skill.
• Soccer doesn’t require any strategy; they’re just kicking the ball around.

I actually had one person comment that he doesn’t like soccer because the players never even try to score. Yes, he seriously said that.

You know why they think things that? Because announcers like O’Brien aren’t explaining the game, they’re busy explaining why some player’s nickname is “The Magic Carpet”. You know why announcers like O’Brien aren’t explaining the game? They don’t know the game, and it’s easier to read off the trivia sheet that some production assistant handed them.

O’Brien did get slightly better as the Cup moved along, but he really had nowhere to go but up. If for some unknown reason they can’t actually fire the guy and bring in someone who is a student of the game, here’s what he needs to learn before he announces another soccer match:

• A new attitude. Repeat after me: I am not God’s gift to sportscasting.

• The rules of the game. Including, but not limited to, playing the advantage, persistent infringement being a yellow-card offense, along with dissent, and two yellows equalling a red. Which means that players who have been consistently fouling other players throughout the entire game can be legitimately sent off the field after committing what is, by itself, a minor foul.

• Using the phrase “corner kick opportunity” in reference to an actual corner kick being taken on the field is nonsensical. It sounds like he’s describing an opportunity to get a corner kick, when they already have a corner kick, rather than what he really means, is that corner kicks represent a scoring opportunity. Except that corner kicks generally aren’t really great scoring opportunities.

• Likewise, simply getting the ball inside the penalty box does not a scoring opportunity make. There may have been a lot of action down by Italy’s goal in today’s final, but France generated very few actual scoring opportunities. Italy was packing seven defenders into the box while France was only sending up two or three forwards at a time. In that sort of situation, getting the ball to the box is easy, but getting off a good shot on goal is extremely difficult.

• Something about the history and the flow of the game, including who the players are and the different styles of play. How about describing them for us and doing some analysis of the matchups?

Other suggestions welcome.

Now, O’Brien isn’t the only member of the announcing/studio team that could use some improvement, he’s just by far the most offensive of the bunch. But the fact that Balboa is boring, Foudy’s discomfort in front of the camera, and Wynalda’s arrogance are all peanuts compared to O’Brien’s ignorance. I’d love to see a former referee or a former coach from outside the US take a stab at the mic. It would add a different perspective and a bit more depth to the lineup of former national team players.

While I’m at it, I’d also love for ESPN to stop blocking half the screen with giant pointless graphics. You’re discussing the lineup? Great. I want to see the players as they’re actually playing, not headshots that are covering up all the action. I want to watch the game that’s going on right now, not learn what stories you’ll be covering at halftime, thanks.

I heard once that the plan for US soccer, beginning with hosting the World Cup in 1994 and the establishment of Major League Soccer, was to become a serious Cup contender by 2010.

A lot can happen in four years, right?

Tags: dave o'brien, fifa, fifa world cup, soccer, soccer announcing, sports announcing, world cup, world cup 2006

Yvonne posted this on July 10th, 2006 @ 1:30am in Sports/Fitness | Permalink to "Shut Up, Dave O’Brien"

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