by J Hutcherson | June 9th, 2006
For those of you waiting to watch this, I changed the title. Hopefully, that’s enough because I’ll be stripped and paraded through the streets of suburban Maryland before I stick an (R) in the title like it’s 1998 and no one understands not to go to soccer sites if you don’t want to know the score. That’s what you get for ruining my It’s Pronounced ‘Darby,’ not ‘Derby,’ Dave title. In other words, I’m with this guy. Well, not literally.
FINAL 4-2 Germany: Considering it cost them two goals, Germany should forget about the trap. Costa Rica should forget this game. They got close because of the other team’s tactics, not anything they did really well. Credit Paulo Wanchope for doing what good strikers do, take advantage.
4-2 Germany: So much for the Costa Rican excitement. Frings goes near post from way out in the 87th minute and that should be the ball game. This will be right up there with the Lubos Kubik goal from Italia ‘90.
3-2 Germany: Paulo Wanchope scores from an offside position. We all laugh at the Germans and their silly trap.
Not that I’m a Balboa apologist, but he’s right in stressing the point that if Costa Rica manages to cover on what became Germany’s third goal, this game is unreasonably close. Then Dave went and ruined it by telling us Costa Rica is in Central America and next to Nicaragua and Panama.
3-1 Germany: We’re at the hour mark, and judging solely on the number of times his name has been said, Germany basically is Spicoli… I mean Podolski. Well, until Klose scored his second on clean-up duty. 3-1 Germany, and Costa Rica looks about how you would expect considering they had three guys that might have helped and a keeper that could’ve done something other than pushing the ball out in front of him.
Well of course Germany would trot right out to start the second half and… wait for it… launch a shot… high over the bar. Nice one Spicoli… I mean Podolski.
First freaky local commercial sighting, and man do we have them in beautiful suburban Maryland. “I am 23 years old, a convicted felon, and I recently robbed a bank only to find out -ala Dog Day Afternoon - they had nothing in the vault, but my local realtor got me a house, a car, and an alibi. Thanks a bunch.”
Ok, I’m exaggerating, but one person really did say that his only other option was crashing in a basement. Quality. Hey, it’s better than that Ben Wallace commercial.
And a new contender emerges, the Triple H N.O. Explode commercial.
HALFTIME: Still 2-1, still multiple German shots going high, still watching the Germans playing the offside trap. Balboa is right, this is pathetic and we can only hope Wanchope makes them pay… again.
We’ve now learned that Paulo Wanchope has ‘no trace of an accent’ and prefers to get his medical treatment in the United States. Take that Costa Rica tourism. Still 2-1 Germany. Shot totals 11-1 Germany. Maake that 12-1, if you want to count yet another German shot that would have missed the frame if there was another goal on top of the real one. Seriously, they’re having substantial trouble keeping the ball down.
For those keeping score in the office, it’s 1-0 Germany six minutes in. — Scratch that, 1-1 after Wanchope equalized in the 12th. Queue another round of Klinsmann talking points Dave. 2-1 Germany in the 17th courtesy of Miroslav Klose. Dave thinks he also scored the first goal. He didn’t.
The second German goal was basically connect the dots, and Costa Rica should be shocked that they couldn’t cover. Then again, they were probably shocked that Germany didn’t track back and decided to try to let an offsides appeal stop Wanchope when he went on his run.
I don’t care how hard Dave O’Brien has worked, he has no business being the lead play-by-play voice for the World Cup. Inane just about describes it, and Marcelo Balboa isn’t seasoned enough to be teamed with O’Brien. This is talking point commentary, with the same spots regardless of what’s actually happening.
Why Disney just didn’t try to cut a deal to use a commentary feed from England is beyond me. That’s not even close to Euro-snobbery, and it might have actually helped draw people in. Grahame Jones just about blew a gasket criticizing the coverage team in the LA Times a couple of weeks ago:
(T)hey will miss having to listen to the inane commentary provided by ESPN2’s virtually soccer-illiterate Dave O’Brien, who spends 90 minutes reading cue cards because he doesn’t know the sport. They will also miss having to endure the gushing Shelley Smith, more cheerleader than journalist, as she hypes the U.S. team ad infinitum.
Like it or not, the biggest event in the world is still amateur hour for most Americans. They expect the stereotype, they get it on Univision, so maybe Disney offers up something different.
Instead, we get the usual suspects plus O’Brien. It’s not good enough. Then again, ESPN is the network that elevated Joe Morgan to the top baseball commentary role. At least he’s entertaining in his ridiculousness.