World Cup Day 4 Thread

Submitted by bacon1431 on

Three matches on tap today

Costa Rica-Serbia (already under way)

Germany-Mexico (11am ET)

Brazil-Switzerland (2pm ET)

The Costa Rica match is on regular FOX, the other two are on FS1 due to the US Open being aired on regular FOX. Two CONCACAF squads in action today. Costa Rica went to the quarters in 2014, but they are in a tough group (though they were in 2014 as well). Mexico is favored to finish second in their group and get their toughest match out of the way today against the defending champs. 

Sambojangles

June 17th, 2018 at 8:42 AM ^

The comment on the US Open pushing the later games to FS1 gave me a scary thought: Joe Buck calling soccer. It puts me to sleep just thinking of it, and I'm not a soccer hater (just a Buck hater).

Speaking of awful announcing, what are everyone's thoughts on FOX's WC coverage so far? The guy that called the Peru-Denmark game yesterday sounded like a parody of a Mexican PbP guy. Alexi Lalas seems like a jerk but he wore a Detroit Red Wings shirt in Moscow the other day so I like him now. I just read that only 2 of the FOX teams are live, while the rest are calling games off a TV in LA. Seems like a pretty terrible shortcut for the world's biggest sporting event.

bacon1431

June 17th, 2018 at 8:56 AM ^

They’re truly atrocious thus far. If I had Telemundo, I’d just be watching on that even though I know very little Spanish. I hope Kate Abdo is making oodles of money for having to sit through these awful conversations. Lalas’ only redeeming quality is that he’s from Michigan. He talks about how being an analyst is like playin a character. Well, nobody likes your character so change it up. But he’s nothing more than a glorified sports radio host.  

Joe Buck doing a WC would be absolutely terrifying. Let’s cross our fingers for 2022 and 2026. 

HL2VCTRS

June 17th, 2018 at 9:10 AM ^

Not being there live explains a few commentary thoughts I’ve had. It often feels like they can’t capture the emotion of the stadium which now makes sense. 

I’ve been okay with the announcing so far, but mostly because I want as little intrusion as possible to the game so I’m barely listening anyway. That was my problem with the Peru game yesterday. The match should speak for itself and doesn’t need an announcer to make it exciting. 

In general, I find that most of the announcers and studio guys add almost nothing to Fox broadcasts (goes for NBC EPL games too).  They keep bringing in ex players who are too biased and can’t provide any actual analysis. They are on the TBS/TNT NBA studio model without the personalities. 

Rant over... back to the games. 

J_Dub

June 17th, 2018 at 1:50 PM ^

Generally hate sports on Fox but I gotta give Fox credit for having great coverage of the US open.  They spend way more time than anyone explaining what makes Shinnecock special, what makes holes play tough, and what players are thinking about when trying to make shots or strategizing.  Most broadcasts are just cuts of players hitting shots and making putts, no real insight into how to play a golf course and no helping viewers appreciate brilliant course design.

KO Stradivarius

June 17th, 2018 at 12:41 PM ^

Speaking of Joe Buck...I've been watching the series "Brockmire", which is hilarious.  It's about a broken-down alcoholic baseball announcer.  Definitely recommend it.  It's on IFC network and Amazon.

Anyway, Joe Buck had a cameo on the last episode.  They had an alcoholic intervention for Brockmire in a bar, Joe Buck attended via Skype due to his busy schedule. He was doing the "Senior LPGA Skins Game at the French Lick Resort, the jewel of SE Indiana", it was a jab at his apparent desire to broadcast any event just to be on the air. 

It was a strange concept, but a funny appearance, not taking himself too seriously like you would think.  

snarling wolverine

June 17th, 2018 at 12:46 PM ^

The crowd is 80% pro-Mexico?  That's nuts.

I remember reading that in 2014, more international fans came from the U.S. than any other country.  I wonder how many were actually fans of the U.S. team...

TrueBlue2003

June 18th, 2018 at 12:56 AM ^

Never would have guessed that but now that I think about it, it makes sense.  Any domestic sport is going to split support 30-some ways.  But I'd have to think a high percentage of Mexican Americans support the Mexican national team and since a whopping 11.2% of the US population is mexican american, that's a lot of support. 

TrueBlue2003

June 18th, 2018 at 1:02 AM ^

I was wondering the same about Schweinstieger.  I remember him being great in 2014.  Seems he aged very quickly as he's fallen all the way to playing for the Chicago Fire right now.

Mario Gotze was pretty good in 2014 and he's only 26 now.  He did have a mediocre season for Dortmund but seems curious the decisions Germany made for the national team.  Leroy Sane was left off as well.

Lot of options as a squad but a lack of elite talent and killer strikers it seems like.

superstringer

June 17th, 2018 at 5:24 PM ^

They are, but they deliberately gamed it.  By being very deliberate about scheduling friendlies, they were able to get very favorable advantages in the ranking algorythm. 

It was so blatant, FIFA has changed the ranking system going forward to attempt to eliminate what the Swiss did.  IIRC, Poland did the same thing. 

bacon1431

June 17th, 2018 at 1:03 PM ^

Great performance by Mexico. Made Germany look clueless. I hope Osario is the US’ next coach. But if they make it to the quarters, they might try to keep him. 

mtzlblk

June 17th, 2018 at 1:13 PM ^

Great result Mexico.

The Wells Fargo ad for suspicious card activity with Landon buying the Mexico jersey is sublime.

I speak Spanish and the woman doing the translation is comically bad.

 

Occam's Razor

June 17th, 2018 at 6:46 PM ^

Man this might be the year of the underdog given how shaky the favorites look. El Tri put in work. The Swiss absolutely murked Neymar all match. 

Going to be interesting to see what goes on from here. 

Maize in Cincy

June 17th, 2018 at 9:24 PM ^

The better Mexico is the better off USA will be in the long run.  They need to face better competition more frequently if they ever want to compete with the best.  Long way to go.

 

I love the trolling that Donovan is doing.  After leaving him off the team the way they did he has every right IMO.

MichiganTeacher

June 18th, 2018 at 12:42 AM ^

Completely agree about Landon. Well played by him, in my opinion.

Disagree about "long way to go" to "compete with the best." US is in a tough spot right now. But from 1994 on, we've competed with the best. We haven't been _one of_ the best, but we've definitely been competitive with them.