Fox Soccer Channel

Let me begin by saying how thankful I am for the Fox Soccer Channel. I have to pay extra to get it on my cable plan, and I have to overlook the fact that it is owned by Rupert Murdoch, yet I still enjoy it immensely- so much so that its becoming a regular thing for me to get up earlier than usual on weekends to make sure that I can watch as much soccer as possible before going to work.

(wait for it...)

However, it has also reminded me of how bad announcing tandem, or in this case, a HORRIBLE announcing team, can ruin even the best match. I speak of "play-by-play" man Max Bretos and his partner, "the eclectic analyst with an ever-evolving accent"* Christopher Sullivan.

Mr. Bretos (also a commentator/interviewer for the WWE- I'll allow you to insert your own comment...) has one fundamental problem as an analyst- he doesn't know how to analyze! He generally spends ninety minutes overreacting to underwhelming on-field action, missing important action because he is too busy with other minutiae, interjecting barely-relevant trivia and non-sequitors, and being snarky and generally quite pleased with himself. Put more concisely, he's an ass.

Mr. Sullivan is equally bad, but much more intriguing.

I know enough about the beautiful game to know that Mr. Sullivan knows the beautiful game, which makes his work that much more frustrating. Mr. Sullivan played in a quality collegiate program, fashioned decent professional career for himself mainly in the pre-MLS period (no small achievement), and represented our country on almost twenty occasions. And yet... The best description I can give of his, ah, "problem," is that he sounds like a man trying to make himself understood on the more intricate points of the game in a language he has only recently learned to speak. His attempts to find appropriate vocabulary to make his points are something between Sisyphean and Tantalusian. The problem is exacerbated by his labored syntax and diction. His speech often reminds me of my high school days when my direct translations of German sentences into English looked something like, "He the ball kicked." Finally, his commentary is further garbled by his penchant for speaking what I can only describe as "Spangloguese."** Mr. Sullivan inists on putting much of his soccer specific knowledge into the various languages of which he may or may not have an understanding.*** To call something a "bicycle" or "overhead" kick is not enough, it must be a chileno. This would almost make sense if he used the foreign language terminology when he was commenting on a game from one of the relevant countries, but alas...

The combination of all of these things is that he sounds like somebody who has suffered a traumatic brain injury in the past, but whose friends and family now lovingly, proudly, and maybe a little patronizingly, say of him, "He's really doing quite well!" This is all the more troubling given that he is a native English speaker and a college graduate with a degree in business and finance!

I've got no end to this post except to say, there are plenty of great announcers out there who do work in the English language- Martin Tyler and John Motson come to mind.

I think this was my longest post ever.

*Credit for this apt description goes to Michael Connolly at ussoccerplayers.com

**His Spangloguese is sometimes supplemented by French and Italian- "Fretalian""

***Unlike English, I was able to find confirmation that he speaks Spanish and Italian.