Nick and I talk about the USMNT match with England. We also discuss the ratings for the match and the job that ESPN/ABC has done. In a word, fantastic. More on that at The Sporting Blog. We throw some baseball in at the end, but this is a back and forth soccer show. Be warned.
World Cup day! Let’s not waste time reading. CLICK THIS LINK to Sarah Sprague (TheStarterWife) and her amazing World Cup food breakdown. Every country in the tournament, represented by food. And you can vote. We go through some of the highlights. I think I’m going burger. Nick and I also talk about the excitement of [...]
We’ve started to talk a lot of soccer on this show, and will continue to do so during the World Cup. Sometimes it will be just one segment at the end of the show. Other times, like today, it will be the whole focus.
Matthew from The Shin Guardian joins the show to talk about the start of the World Cup, the likelihood that the USMNT could actually go out and beat England on Saturday and, well, gets us primed for this:
First, we talk a lot about what this means to America and to ESPN. How important is the World Cup for the WWL’s future soccer business. We don’t expect to see as many plugs for MLS as in the past, but will the announcers be charged with simply calling the matches, or does ESPN have a stake in capturing more and more soccer fans who only care every four years? Can this lead to increased exposure (and ratings) for future Premiership matches on ESPN? Could this help MLS? And does ESPN need to worry about that, or can they just revel in the fact that people are actually watching what’s on now?
We discuss US Soccer’s role in growing the game in America, which includes being progressive in social media and a heavy involvement with blogs. As a blog that covers soccer, does he feel more welcome than he anticipated? It’s easy for me to say US Soccer is doing a good job, but for those who do this every day, how helpful are they?
In Philly I spoke with Clint Dempsey and Tim Howard about how much pressure they feel going into the World Cup. Landon Donovan has been quoted as saying the average American doesn’t really care if the US doesn’t fare well, which is different than the pressure they feel in England. While true, has that changed from past years? Are there higher expectations on the US team this time around?
And can they win on Saturday? More important than that…can they get out of the group? And if they don’t, how devastating will that be?
We talk a great deal about the injuries in the World Cup and try to figure out who will be missed the most. Essien? Drogba if he’s unable to go? Ballack? Nani? We run down how tough it will be for some of teams to replace their injured stars.
First, Andy Hutchins hops on (from what sounds like the back of a truck) to talk about the weekend. Andy is the weekend editor at The Sporting Blog — as well as writing a ton during the week — so we talk about the big storylines from Saturday and Sunday.
Andy feels the Celtics are the biggest story, so we briefly discuss that. We then talk about Rafael Nadal, and if at some point it becomes ridiculous when an athlete falls to the ground after winning what seemed like a pretty easy match. Come on, he won in three sets and was never challenged in either of them. Does that really warrant laying on the ground? Sure it was a culmination of triumph after a tough yet, but doesn’t it show just a little lack of respect for the opponent, and the moment?
Maybe that’s my biggest issue with it…the crowd was just politely applauding. It wasn’t an Oh My Gawd moment, so Nadal’s “I’m overwhelmed by my own greateness” moment seemed out of place.
That spins to talk about ESPN and the USMNT, where we talk at great length about Martin Tyler, John Harkes and the call of the match against Australia. The call fell flat, and perhaps it was because of the lack of energy in the stadium. Could this happen again or will a stadium that’s bigger and presumably louder help?
Also, are we concerned about Tyler calling the USA England match on US TV? Do we want our announcers to be homers?
More on this in Press Coverage later today.
We do talk briefly about game five of the Stanley Cup finals where it looks like I’m going to owe Kaduk some Tastykakes.
Thanks to Andy for hopping on last minute. We end with a talk about the pressure for the USMNT. I had the chance to ask Clint Dempsey and Tim Howard about that last week. We end with their thoughts. They are at the 26:00 mark.
Thanks for listening.
What a holiday weekend in sports. We start with a conversation about Roy Halladay’s perfect game, but rather than discuss the game between us – full disclosure, I was watching the hockey then switched over and tracked back to watch after the fact while Nick had the foresight to watch both – we thought it would make more sense to talk with one of the men who had the opportunity to call the 20th perfect game in Major League history.
Scott Franzke, radio play-by-play man for the Phillies, joins the show to talk about that amazing performance, and what it was like in the booth. At what point did they start to think they might be witnessing something special? How was Larry Anderson during the game, and were they conscious of superstition throughout the broadcast? How many times did Franzke mention the word perfect? Did he say “perfect game” before it happened?
We also discuss the historic nature of calling something like a perfect game. After Dallas Braden’s perfect game this season, Nick and I talked about beat writers crafting the “perfect game story” knowing that more people will be reading that day than, perhaps, any other in a writer’s career. For someone doing play-by-play, Franzke doesn’t have the luxury of thinking out what he’s going to say, and hitting a delete key. So how perfect did he try to be? Did he have something in his mind for the last out should Halladay complete the perfect game?
And seriously, how nervous were they in the booth? More on this later today on The Sporting Blog.
The Weekend that Was:
Nick and I rundown the weekend in sports, including the Stanley Cup finals (and the ratings for game one that some people — looking at you John Gonzalez — thought wouldn’t be good because of the holiday). We also discuss the rest of the series, and if the Flyers should be worried or feel fine with the fact that, on the road, they were in both games.
Next, we spend a lot of time talking about the game both of us attended on Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field. The U.S. men’s soccer team defeated Turkey in their final Send-off Match before heading to South Africa for the World Cup.
I worked the match for Sporting News, so we give a rundown of some of the storylines that came out of the even. I also try to convince you, Nick and myself, that soccer is now for the cool kids. If a member of the media says they don’t watch soccer now because it’s boring, that’s an old and tired meme that will, finally, make them look stupid. Soccer isn’t boring, we just weren’t any good at it. Now, we might be.
Housekeeping:
We talk about Lakers Celtics and if we’re rooting for the Lakers (and Kobe) or just rooting against everything related to Boston. We also talk about which is a more lame way to win a game, a walkoff balk or a walkoff grand slam where you break your leg.
Thanks to Scott and click here to listen…
This is totally two shows crammed into one, which is always fun and something we haven’t done in a while.
First, Jon Tannenwald of Philly.com’s soccer blog The Goalkeeper joins the show to talk about the USMNT following their pre World Cup match against the Czech Republic last night. What did we learn? Who will make the final squad and hop on the plane to South Africa?
We run through the night, the players and take a look at Saturday’s match in Philly where, presumably, the starting 11 will take the field.
Following that, at around the 19 minute mark for those only interested in one of our two topics today (please listen to both), Kevin Kaduk of Yahoo’s Big League Stew joins the show, not to talk baseball, but to talk PUCKS. We run through the recent history of the Blackhawks and talk about bandwagon jumpers this time of year (which I am probably one).
I’ll be honest, I thought we’d talk more trash, but it became a pretty reasonable conversation. Oh, and we do have our bet mayoral bet set up for the Stanley Cup….Eli’s Cheesecake vs. TastyKakes.
The headline basically says it all. And I wish we knew about the latest Cushing details before we recorded. Alas…click to listen.
We talk a lot about soccer today. The latest FIFA World Rankings came out today and the US is ranked 18th. At the Sporting Blog, I write about how this can be a good thing for the USMNT. Nick and I discuss that, and the expectations of a team that is lower in the rankings, compared to what the USMNT had to face going into the 2006 World Cup with a top-five ranking. This team is better than that, so has the world gotten better? Likely, the ranking is low because of the mediocre play of the B and C squads, but will the lowered ranking hurt the interest in America? Will it maybe give a little boost if the team does well? Or does it matter at all?
We also talk about the report from BigSoccer.com that has JP Dellacamera out of the booth for ESPN and headed to radio in lieu of a slew of European imports, most notably Martin Tyler. Some at Big Soccer are upset, suggesting if ESPN wants to prove they take soccer in America seriously, they should have an American in the booth. But wouldn’t you rather have Marv Albert calling a game than, say, Kevin Harlan? And isn’t Tyler the soccer equivalent of Albert? Besides, doesn’t everything just sound better with a British accent?
