Execrable
Everything involved with tonight’s CONCACF Champions Cup match was poor: the production, the announcers, the teams, the commercials, the fans . . . everything.
The Game:
A scrappy Harbour View side banged home a late goal to tie United 1-1 in Kingston, Jamaica tonight. The game was an unattractive and listless affair with two crappy goals.
United is still in preseason form and strategic shape and struggled with poor touches, poor shooting, and few substantive passing combinations. Marcelo Gallardo had some wonderful passes and touches, but you can see how he earned his reputation for being capricious. The yellow card he picked up after the Habour View goal was stupid and could end up really hurting United if he has to sit out a semifinal leg or the final.
Harbour View, in mid-season, is not a good team and showed why they are mid-table in their league. But nothing could be as bad as the . . .
The Broadcast:
I’ll forgive Fox Soccer Channel for signing a contract that requires them to air the EPL games uninterrupted, but there is no excuse for not running a crawl letting the viewers know the scheduled programming is running late. I can guarantee you ESPN would have run a crawl.
I also award low marks to the Jamaican Public Access team producing the game. The bewildering close-ups of fans and coaches, herky-jerky 1960’s-style camera changes from wide view to close-ups, and a stunning lack of color balance taxed my patience.
But nothing was a bad as Christian Miles and Paul “Perhaps” Caligiuri. They took a bad broadcast and made it worse. Their regular reference to D.C. United as the “Americans” was infuriating. Half of the players on the field for United aren’t Americans! This wasn’t a World Cup qualifying match between two countries, jackasses!
In the 54th minute Miles wondered if Harbour View was searching for that “old Caribbean Magic!” What the fuck is that? After a poor header by a Harbour View player in the 74th minute, Paul offered the sage soccer advice that a header “should be towards the goal.” Sigh
On the plus side, Paul Caligiuri’s malapropisms add much needed levity to the whole affair.
Here are a few of the errors made tonight by these dolts:
- Paul C: Speaking about a Habour View forward, “he hasn’t necessarily scored since January.”
- Christian Miles: “DC United in their usual black-and-red road kit.” So, I guess the team can ditch that white kit they’ve been wearing on the road all these years.
- Christian Miles: Suggesting Brian Carroll had been “shipped off to Columbus” by DC. Nevermind the expansion draft and then trade by San Jose . . .
- Paul C: In the 26th minute he suggested that Jamie Moreno is influential in team decisions about which players to acquire from Latin America. There is no way that United’s front office lets any current roster player sit in on roster decisions. No professional team does that.
- Paul C: Suggested United is the defending “Community Shield” winner. (28th min.)
I stopped remembering them in the second half to prevent my brain from melting.
Rating:
1 out of 5 legs.
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