It’s as American as a Round of 16 World Cup Game
The Fourth of July usually means fireworks, barbecues, picnics in the park, mom, apple pie and baseball.
This year, you can add soccer.
The biggest game in the U.S. soccer history--the United States vs. Brazil in the second round of the World Cup--will be played Monday at 12:30 p.m., with ABC televising it.
About 22 million people watched the United States’ 1-0 loss to Romania on ABC last Sunday. The national rating, which came out Thursday, was a 6.8--the best for soccer in this country. The previous high was a 6.6 for the 1982 World Cup final between West Germany and Italy, which also was televised by ABC.
ABC’s announcing team for Monday’s game will be play-by-play man Roger Twibell, former U.S. national team captain Rick Davis and Seamus Malin, generally considered America’s best soccer commentator.
Of course, being the best soccer commentator in the United States is sort of like being the best mountain climber in the Sahara.
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Because there is no great demand for soccer commentators in this country, there are none who do it full time.
In his main job, Malin is an administrator at Harvard. He has held various positions at the school, from which he graduated in 1962, and directs the international office. He was the director of the financial-aid office from 1969 to ’77.
Malin is a native of Ireland who came to this country at 18 because his father, a political writer, got a job with the Boston Globe. He loves soccer, played it at Harvard, coached it at various levels and follows it closely. At 54, he still plays in an adult recreational league in Boston.
Malin, a pleasant chap, is particularly good at explaining, in a concise manner, the nuances of the game to basically clueless American viewers.
But Malin and other U.S. soccer announcers working the World Cup have drawn complaints from hard-core soccer fans.
One of them is Robert Lusetich, the West Coast correspondent for the Australian, the country’s national daily, who has covered soccer extensively and wrote a biography of Frank Arok, Australia’s version of U.S. Coach Bora Milutinovic.
“The commentary has been barely acceptable,” Lusetich said. “Much of this is due to the fact that these are by and large not professional sportscasters but rather fans of the game who are trying their hand at commentating.
“The play-by-play has been virtually nonexistent, and while the color stuff has been good with the rudimentary explanations, it is well below par to the experienced viewer.
“(ESPN’s) Bob Ley and Randy Hahn have been notable exceptions, while Seamus Malin has tried but lacks excitement.”
Lusetich, who lives in Los Angeles, offers one suggestion.
“It’s not fair to compare this crew to the likes of England’s Martin Tyler, who is akin to John Madden in the way he’s revered as a commentator,” he said. “But I for one would love to hear Tyler call one game on U.S. television and see how America responds.”
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One noticeable difference between soccer and American football is the start. Soccer seems to need a kickoff or tipoff or something dramatic.
Last Sunday, ABC commentator Peter Vermes, a former player whose lack of broadcasting experience showed, was in the middle of nervously setting up the U.S.-Romania game when the cameras suddenly showed that play had begun.
Lusetich makes a good point when he says, “Much of the emotional ambience of international soccer is missing, and I think a lot of it has to do with excluding the national anthems from the coverage.
“A close-up of the players’ faces as they line up builds excitement like nothing else and is visually compelling.”
As for the technical aspects of the coverage, Lusetich said, “The actual feed (supplied by the European Broadcasting Union, or EBU) has been disappointing because it’s the typical boring European way of covering soccer with wide shots that make the players look like tiny dots. There need to be more close-ups.
“When (Australian) David Hill (the new president of Fox sports) revolutionized soccer coverage with Sky Sports in England, he did so by using 18 cameras rather than the normal 10, even putting tiny cameras in the corner of the nets and inter-cutting different angles constantly. It was enormously successful.”
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Loren Phillips of Arleta, a soccer fan ever since a history teacher at Van Nuys High turned him on to the 1970 World Cup, has a different complaint about the commentary.
Phillips, 42, and his nephew, Rick Boggs, 31, who are both blind, say it is impossible for them to follow the action as described by the play-by-play television announcers.
“What is needed is an announcer like Chick Hearn, who always tells you what is going on,” Phillips said. “The World Cup TV announcers don’t tell you a thing.”
Of course, when Hearn calls a Laker game, he is calling it for both radio and television. What Phillips is seeking is a radio call of World Cup games.
Phillips, who has his own radio production company, has started a one-man campaign to get an L.A. radio station to carry the games, beginning with the second round.
Phillips said a Chicago-based radio network, One on One, is carrying the World Cup, and that broadcasts are being carried in every major market in the country except Los Angeles.
Phillips said KIEV, a brokerage station that sells air time, has agreed to carry the games if he can raise about $60,000 from sponsors.
To listen to the Netherlands-Belgium game on June 25 and last Sunday’s U.S.-Romania game, Phillips and Boggs called a Chicago station and asked to be put on hold so they could hear the play-by-play.
“It was the only way we could follow those matches,” Phillips said, adding he wasn’t too eager to see his phone bill.
