All the news that's fit to, um, blog
Or, your Friday afternoon excuse for a bunch of Youtube links...
Poland/Ukraine has been chosen as the hosts for Euro 2012, over Italy and Hungary/Croatia. In other words, "Congratulations, you are slightly less corrupt and incompetent than those other guys." In honour of the winning bid, a clip of Andriy Shevchenko kicking himself, running into a defender and then falling over. No zdrowie.
The CBC has announced their broadcast team for MLS games and this summer's U20 tournament: Craig Forrest (making the jump from Sportsnet), Nigel Reed and Mitch Peacock. I have no idea who Mitch Peacock is, but Nigel Reed has been doing play-by-play for some of the Serie A games on TLN and he does a decent job. At least he doesn't make me want to poke my eardrums out with a spork, so he's automatically a step up from those clowns at ESPN.
Elsewhere in the wide world of sports broadcasting, Jacqui Oatley will become the first female commentator on Match of the Day when she covers Fulham v. Blackburn this weekend.
My favourite bit of asshaberdashery comes from Steve Curry:
"It is an insult to the controlled commentaries of John Motson, Mike Ingham and Alan Green that their domain is threatened by a new arrival whose excited voice sounds like a fire siren."He's clearly never listened to any Spanish-language commentary.
There's been a lot of stuff written this week about David Dein leaving Arsenal and speculation about what it means for the club. I'm trying to be interested in it, really I am. But I can't help wondering if the truth is far less sinister than a stealthy American takeover. Maybe he just wants to get away from Julio Baptista's whining.
Midweek Premiership matches:
Manchester United 2-0 Sheffield United: Goals for United from Wayne Rooney and Michael Carrick, who has suddenly turned into some kind of goal-scoring machine. It's freaking me out a bit. Sheffield United got absolutely robbed by the ref, who denied them a penalty after Gabriel Heinze took Luton Shelton down in the box -- a tackle that really should've seen him sent off. On the other hand, they hadn't managed to score in the 70 minutes or so leading up to that -- against a defence with a grand total of zero first-choice players -- so it probably wouldn't have made much difference to the result.
Liverpool 2-0 Middlesbrough: This one looked like it was going to end up as yet another anemic 0-0 draw. And then Steven Gerrard stepped up and did his Steven Gerrard thing -- translation: sulked around for 45 minutes, then scored a 30-yard screamer, accompanied by the appropriate chest-thumping celebration, and then converted a rather soft penalty as an encore. (I love you, Stevie, really.)
The other midweek matches were a series of spankings:
Arsenal 3-1 Manchester City
Blackburn 3-1 Watford
West Ham 1-4 Chelsea
And finally, Cristiano Ronaldo may have the PFA Player of the Year award in the bag, but that Leo Messi kid is pretty damn good too.
6 comments:
Messi: Geez, wouldn't it be great if Messi could come to Canada for the U-20 world cup?
Ukraine & Poland: I'm sure there will be a few sleepless nights for the TV announcers who have to cover the games from Dnipropetrovsk.
I'd love to see Messi play this summer (which reminds me, I really have to get tickets for the tournament sorted out), especially since he was injured when I saw Barca play in Japan. Regardless, I'm excited to see some of the young talent this summer. I've got tickets for the Canada v. Argentina U20 match next month, too.
The announcers can't even get the names of Premiership players right half the time. I shudder to think of how they'll handle the cyrillic alphabet.
Well Messi wans to play in Canada this summer, but there's the Pan-American Games going on in Brazil, as well as the all important Copa America happening in Venezuela, so it's going to be interesting to see how the Americans prioritise their competitions, especially since Mexico and USA are in both the Gold Cup and Copa America. Not sure about the U-20s.
As for Mitch Peacock, he is irritation personified. Seriously. SERIOUSLY. He is that annoying guy with the ridiculous brown spiked/quaffed up hair, Willem Dafoe smile, and waxy/shiny orangey-red-white skin, and he sounds like a cross between a porno-and-an-infomercial. I can't believe he's landed up being on a commentary team.
That bloody Messi video - still not seen it, everywhere that has had it, it's been taken down. How annoying is that?
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Damn you, youtube!
Try this one instead.
Yes, yes and yes. Liverpool will become 6 time European Champions, and Harry Kewell can make a blazing return to glory as our only pure-blooded left winger, don't you think?
And then we'll go ahead and win the Cup, Premiership and Champions League in 07/08!
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