Idiotic Witsel Attacks Wasilewski

It's time for another video the likes of which we hoped we'd never see again. Less than a season and a half on the heels of Eduardo's sickening injury in a Premier League match against Birmingham City comes this atrocity to RSC Anderlecht's Marcin Wasilewski at the hands of Standard Liege's Axel Witsel. There was nothing clumsy about this one however, unlike Martin Taylor's simply getting caught out by the pace and footwork of the Arsenal midfielder. Watching the video, one can only conclude some sick intent to injure, as Witsel is nowhere near the ball and comes flying in studs out and ready.

The Belgian Association is investigating with a possible long-term suspension for Witsel forthcoming, which would be only just given the severity and sick nature of this utter stupidity. The match had been physical, yes, but there is never any need for it to get to this level. In all honesty, I claimed this as "Eduardo-esque," but Witsel's maneuver here makes Taylor's challenge on Eduardo look like a cupcake tackle. This one definitely isn't for the faint of heart.

UPDATE: The Belgian Association (KBVB) has handed down an 11 match ban (10 league, 1 cup) for Witsel following review, barring him from intra-national competitions until the 23rd of November.

WARNING: GRAPHIC

Iconic Rae to SPL: US Commentary Suffers

An overlooked but essential point of the UEFA Champions League television rights deal was that it brings the end of an era in United States television. With the loss of rights to Fox Soccer Channel, gone is the partnership of Derek Rae and Tommy Smyth for the biggest international matches (aside from, I'm assuming/hoping the World Cup, where they were always given the biggest non-US matches).

Everyone has their opinion, good or bad, about Tommy "Bulges the ol' onion bag" Smyth. Personally, I liked him, he was one of the more interesting color men to listen to (the top being Andy Gray surely). A lot of you out there disliked/hated him. However, play-by-play man Rae was a commentator that gained seemingly universal respect, if not admiration. I've never heard a single soul saying they disliked Derek's commentary style or his demeanor on the air. The closest thing I've ever heard was "Yeah, Derek is alright" and usually something so neutral only came as part of a Tommy-bashing comment.

Coming into the game of football late, perhaps I'm biased, but I first started watching soccer via the 2:45 US Eastern Kickoff Champions League match. Back in the day it always always an interesting random match. ESPN in the mid 1990s provided a great mix of showing the various top quality teams in the competition. One matchday might have been Ajax, or Manchester United, or Juventus, or AC Milan, or Barcelona. Those were the days before the "English club as a priority" setting that ESPN seemed to have fixated on in the late 2000s as soccer interest grew in the United States. (This was of course mitigated somewhat by ESPN picking up a 2nd match to show each day on ESPN Classic, effectively giving us 4 matches of the 8 instead of the old one or two.) Despite the variety of teams and leagues and nations represented, Derek always called the match admirably, interjecting with timely quotes and trivia and points about all the sides, well proving his world football knowledge. He was (and still is) the man who most shapes my approach to calling soccer games for Stevens now.

For ESPN, business-wise they've made a brilliant decision, sending Derek to their new Scottish network to call SPL matches. The home fans will be delighted to have him back and he brings a world of confidence and credibility to ESPN's fledgling coverage. However, that exact same approach in Scotland, a much smaller country, (Don't get me wrong here, nothing about this post is an affront to Scotland) could in fact prove detrimental to their building the game here.

Let's analyze FSC (Fox Soccer Channel) for a second. Why do you think they used the international feed for UEFA Cup (and now UEFA Champions League) coverage? In case you already haven't guessed it, it's because no one wants to hear Max Bretos shouting YESSSSSSSSSSssssssssssssssssssssssssss for every goal in his best Telemundo/Cantor breath-holding impersonation. Fox's own personalities are very poor at calling the match, and need to continue busting their chops in the MLS. ESPN's remaining full-time American in-house teams are in a similar boat. Beyond JP Dellacamara, Adrian Healy and Janusz Michallik, I can't honestly say anyone at ESPN is ready to step up and be the flagship broadcaster for soccer in this country. Going forward, we'll have commentary from the likes of John Harkes (ugh), Eric Wynalda (please shoot me now), with Alexi Lalas as a lead studio analyst (good grief). Gone are the days of your truly knowledgeable commentator drumming up further interest in football.

Why does it matter? I'll provide you with a quote my friend made about Starcraft. He was browsing YouTube and found some live Starcraft competition vidoes. As he put it (paraphrasing), "It's like I'm watching a legitimate sport listening to these guys talk about Starcraft." That's the power of a good announce team. If you put the right guys (Derek Rae, for example) in the broadcaster's booth, they can turn a football match from just another thing to watch on TV into something I want to be tuned into at 2:45 every Tuesday and Wednesday. It's an art that may now be lost (aside from the World Cup) in this country.

NBC's "Business Decision" a National Embarrassment

Soccer (or Football or Futbol) is on the rise in this country. There is no denying it. The packed stadiums for European club friendlies prove it. The increasing quality of national team performances prove it. The MLS attendance (especially for newer clubs) numbers prove it. But yet today as US-Mexico: the "SHOWDOWN AT THE AZTECA" (did you notice that was all in capital letters?) is finally here, NBC has decided to make a mockery of that progress.

A quick Google search will tell you that the soccer-crazed masses are concerned. ESPN doesn't show a match listing in their schedule for US-Mexico. Neither does Fox Soccer Channel. Where the @*#$(@* *@*@ can I FIND THIS MATCH?!? is the common outcry. Fear not, says NBC, it's on mun2. That's "moon-dos." I'm sure you've all heard of it. It's that hip, trendy Latino network obscure bicultural channel no one has ever heard of that is so far up the digital cable dial your brain will be addled into confusing the two teams' kits when you finally get to the match. What some are passing off as a business decision, however, is clearly nothing short of one of the biggest jokes in sports media coverage of the decade, right up there with the 8PM World Series start, Roger Goodell wanting to expand the NFL to 18 games, and NBC's (do you sense a theme here) creating a new network for Olympic coverage just weeks before the event that no one received on time.

Those who follow American sports punditry already have claimed that the sports media in this country have been against soccer from the beginning. Since the World Cup we hosted in 1994 and the subsequent creation of the MLS, leagues struggled for any bit of news they could get, even with networks like ESPN showing SportsCenter 10 times a day. EPL matches for $30/game on Pay-Per-View. No one wanted to assist soccer's advance, they wanted it gone... it was a disease intruding on their NFL blooper reels and MLB web gems. But for NBC now, after all the progress the sport has made here, to revert to prehistoric times by media coverage standards of the beautiful game in the United States is nothing short of a travesty. The World Cup is what started this build, and now 15 years later, millions of fans will have to settle for watching the game in Spanish or finding a stream online in by far the biggest and most important match of the CONCACAF final round hexagonal.

To be fair, NBC has stated that Telemundo will broadcast the game with an English SAP option for commentary on the game, but that announcement comes well beyond the point at which they are allowed to try and save face. Yes, the Mexican Federation decides who gets the rights to matches at Azteca. Yes it's natural for NBC not to want to sell to ESPN because soccer is popular now. No, NBC executives cannot infer that this means it's ok to go and put the match on some obscure channel no one has ever heard of nor gives a damn about as a publicity stunt.

Ask yourselves, NBC, would you do the same for a swimming event? The same for Wimbledon coverage, the last piece of tennis importance to which you hold rights? For the hugely-popular Winter Classic? Perhaps for the first 4 weeks of the upcoming NFL season we can see Sunday Night Football on Bravo. Where are the days of "ratings mean everything?" Surely it is too big of a risk to put such a big event on a network many might not even receive. Do you think that 1 free trial for a soccer match would make others buy this useless station? Not to be offensive, but I'm going to guess that even the majority of "bicultural Latinos" (already in itself a borderline stereotype) would much rather watch some other network. And no HD coverage? Putting the match on an HD-less network really goes over the top in showing how little you care.

Please, NBC, I understand the business decision involved, but this time you've overstepped the line. I'm sure the millions of fans watching the match without HD having finally reached channel 8,794,316.2 will really be pleased to be transported back into the mid-90s. At least back then it clear what the networks thought about the game, and it continued to push on and thrive nonetheless. Here's hoping that NBC's stupidity only provides a renewed opportunity for football to do the same thing now in 2009.

UPDATE: Post-Match Follow-Up

I'd like to apologize to those of you out there who read my article. It was clear I wasn't brash enough in bashing NBC. At first I thought it was a business decision. However it is now clear to me that NBC clearly still has no interest in seeing soccer succeed in this country (Probably because they have NFL rights). I mean come on "moon-dos," your shot of American troops is 90% Mexican supporters waving Mexican flags in Tikrit? I'm all for freedom of choice and speech, and good for those soldiers for their team earning a win. But you're broadcasting to the United States. You just don't do that kind of move unless you're clearly on a negative mission. And don't even get me started on Guadaloupe and the "Best of mun2" plugs every 5 minutes. Soccer is awesome because it's commercial free, or maybe a "this portion of the match sponsored by Heineken" (note that's one sentence, not a monologue) every half hour at best. We don't want to hear about your crap network. It broadcasts in Spanish. No one is going to watch it after this match. Get real. Huge F- to NBC for their coverage of USA-Mexico this afternoon.