This Translates Into Some Great Coverage
U.S. Soccer’s agreement with Telemundo that allows the Spanish-language network to broadcast 10 national team games a year for the next five years is great news for American fans disheartened by the amateur coverage all too often provided by ABC, ESPN and ESPN2.
A viewer does not have to understand a word of Spanish to recognize that games on Telemundo are better announced, better photographed, better directed and better produced.
One reason is that Telemundo understands the sport and allows its announcers, Andres Cantor and Norberto Longo, freedom to praise or criticize as they see fit. Their criticism, sometimes biting, is what gives the broadcasts their veracity. Thankfully, they leave the cheerleading to lesser talents.
“We take a more traditional approach to our coverage,” said Jorge Hidalgo, Telemundo’s vice president for sports. “We stay with the emotion on the field rather than the emotion off the field.”
Whenever U.S. games are shown on English-language channels, there is a dumb-down factor. For some reason, the announcers, most of them incomparably dull, feel compelled to sell the sport half the time and explain it the other half.
Producers or directors who couldn’t tell Clint Mathis from Johnny Mathis are the ones at fault. They demand that the announcers simplify things. As a result, you can hear sets being clicked off all across America.
That’s why the Major League Soccer highlights show, “MLS ExtraTime,” was such a pleasant change on ESPN2 the last couple of seasons. Rob Stone, Alexi Lalas when he was part of it, and Dave Dir were opinionated, occasionally funny and always interesting.
Sadly, the show will not return this season, having fallen victim to the widespread cost-cutting at MLS.
With any luck, the league will revive it when times improve.
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McKinney’s Mistake
It’s too bad that the city of McKinney, Texas, has rejected the 22,000-seat stadium that the City Council earlier had voted unanimously to build for the Dallas Burn.
Officials said it made more sense from a financial standpoint to build soccer fields for youngsters than a stadium for professionals.
Lamar Hunt, owner of the Kansas City Wizards and Columbus Crew, had been spearheading the project for MLS and said he was “shocked at the inexplicable negative turn of events.”
Once McKinney sees the money that rolls into the Anschutz Entertainment Group’s coffers from the new stadium in Carson and realizes that the city treasury could have been similarly replenished, it will be city officials who are shocked.
By then, it will be too late. McKinney had its chance and blew it.
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Galaxy Road
Because their 27,000-seat stadium won’t be ready in time, the Galaxy probably will start the 2003 MLS season with two months of road games.
Judging by the way the team performed in Chile the last two weeks, that might not be such a bad thing. The Galaxy went 4-0-1 and outscored its Chilean opposition, 11-3.
Coach Sigi Schmid returned to California pleased.
“It has been a very successful trip,” he said. “We’re very happy with our goal production and [with] Carlos Ruiz and Chris Albright’s integration into the team. Also, our defending has been very good.”
The combination of American forward Albright and Guatemalan striker Ruiz up front seems to be working well. In five games in Santiago, Ruiz scored four goals and Albright three.
Local fans will have their first chance to see the pair when the Galaxy plays Cruz Azul of Mexico at Cal State Fullerton’s Titan Stadium on March 12.
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WUSA Comes to Town
Chances are good that when the new stadium in Carson is complete, it won’t be long before there is a Women’s United Soccer Assn. team playing there.
With that in mind, WUSA will test the local waters on March 17, when the defending-champion San Jose CyberRays play the San Diego Spirit at Cal State Fullerton’s Titan Stadium.
The Spirit features world and Olympic champions Julie Foudy of Mission Viejo and Joy Fawcett of Rancho Santa Margarita, two players who could well be lured home if L.A. gets a WUSA team.
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Test of Time
Midfielder Kristine Lilly, who stretched her world record for international games to 233 when she played in the U.S. team’s 1-1 tie with Sweden on Friday, is with Fawcett and Foudy, playing in the Algarve Cup in Portugal.
“It has been over 10 years since Julie and I have roomed together on a national team trip,” she said from Albufeira, “and after spending six days with her here, I can go another 10.”
Lilly, 30, made her U.S. debut at 16 in 1987. Foudy’s national team debut came a year later. “We’ve been on this team almost as long as Heather O’Reilly has been alive,” Lilly said.
O’Reilly, who made her U.S. debut in the Sweden game, is a 17-year-old junior from East Brunswick High in New Jersey. The youngest player on the Algarve Cup roster, she had a pivotal role to fill.
She was called in at the last minute to replace the for injured Mia Hamm, the world’s all-time goal scoring leader.
No pressure there.
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Horns of a Dilemma
When it comes to snappy comebacks, the line delivered by Juventus midfielder Enzo Maresca is a classic.
Maresca sparked a furious squabble in Turin when, after scoring an 89th-minute goal to give Juventus a 2-2 tie with cross-town rival Torino last Sunday, he copied the goal celebration of Torino’s Marco Ferrante by holding his forefingers to his head in imitation of a bull’s horns.
Infuriated Torino players believed he was making fun of Ferrante and of their team’s logo. But Maresca, resplendent in the famous black and white vertical stripes of Juventus, had an excuse ready.
“I did the horns,” he said, “because I didn’t know how to do the zebra.”
And so it goes.
