Bulge, dammit
Ha ha. The UK hate Tommy Smyth too. Rating the worst of the football broadcasters [When Saturday Comes]
Referee sex scandal in Germany. Not of the hot variety, I’m afraid [Dirty Tackle]
Raul to RBNY? Really? Who does he think he is, Walter Zenga? [Soccernet]
When in doubt, blame your lack of form on your former manager. Take it from Steven Ireland, kids [Metro]
Finally:
Is he really North Korea’s Wayne Rooney, or is he more like North Korea’s Dirk Kuyt? [NYT Goal]
“You have to adjust and think ‘I have to do it’ but if you want the best out of me you have to play me in my best position.” – S. Ireland
Yes, yes, this explains why I never made it as a D-1 shooting guard! My coach chose to play me a as a small forward in high school! Damn him!
“Tommy Smyth literally is the worst football analyst in the world.”
Also, I think Pat Dolan has improved since he stopped wearing vests.
I kind of agree with Stevie about Hughes, but it’s not like his current situation under Mancini is a whole lot better. Roberto seems to favor a very negative set up, with 3 defensive midfielders. So Ireland has gone from being played out of position to hardly playing at all.
The animosity toward Tommy Smyth continues to bewilder me. I don’t have any particular affection for the guy — I’m pretty ambivalent about him and every other commentator — but the volume and intensity of the vitriol aimed at him is just baffling. It’s actually kind of bizarre, because I just don’t see what prompts it.
LtSoBV-
I think this sentence sums it up nicely:
“The secret to his endurance has always been an arrogance based on conveniently ignoring the thousands of times he’s been plain wrong, topped off by the fake persona of a cheeky chappie who aims to amuse, but succeeds only in irritating with every utterance.”
I don’t claim to be the Greatest Soccer Expert on Earth, but I’ve been following the sport for decades, and in the two of those that Tommy Smyth has been on ESPN, I just haven’t encountered this egregious error rate he’s supposed to be guilty of.
What I suspect it really boils down to is that people don’t like things he has said about their teams, and from there it evolves into looking for stuff to hate him for.
I mean, there are soccer broadcasters out there who really DO make lots of mistakes, or who actually DON’T know much about the game, etc. Like that Nabil guy on Fox Soccer Report, for example. If somebody said this stuff about him — “he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he screws up all the time” — I’d totally get it. It would make sense. But Smyth isn’t like that guy. So it doesn’t make sense.
It all just seems kind of weird and overheated.