Carlos Gamarra scores an own goal from a wicked bender from David Beckham within the first 10 minutes. And then follows about 35 minutes of soccer that pretty much went nowhere.
Steven Gerrard looked like he was trying to re-live the Liverpool- West Ham FA final, launching these piledrivers into the universe. Lampard and Gary Neville were almost non- existent. Peter Crouch could have done with a few inches more on his frame. I think the Owen- Crouch tandem is not working. The only English player who looked like he was doing business was Joe Cole.
Paraguay looks pretty disorganized although one can see the talent in Nelson Valdez but it really does no good if Roque Santa Cruz has to drop back in midfield to create his own chances. They have to try and create more chances rather than rely on the long ball. Otherwise, Ferdinand and Terry will eat them alive in the air.
ABC’s coverage is atrocious. And shows how far mainstream TV has to go to become truly knowledgeable about soccer. Calling England “Germany’, “Michael Beckham’, Ashley Cole is an ‘attacker’ ??? D-uh!!
Update: Not much to add, except that if you took a gestalt of the England- Paraguay game, it would be a bunch of writhing bodies, Peter Crouch, and some gravity defying ballistic shots, and oh yeah! a lot of legs flying all over the place with no coherence. England gets their 3 points. Paraguay keeps the goal differential respectable. But by far the team that has impressed is Germany.
2 comments on “Ho-hum: England 1, Paraguay 0 at halftime (Fulltime: England 1 Paraguay 0)”
Speaking of ABC’s coverage, is anybody else’s audio feed about 10 seconds delayed from the video? Its ruining the game for me, since the call is off, and crowd reacting well after anything happens (the quiet crowd as the goal went it was surreal). Just wondering if its the ABC on DirectTV or ABC as a whole
My audio was behind as well, and I noticed that when they did some of the promo overlays it switched to 4:3 from 16:9 (for those of us watching in HD).
I agree with the game summary, boring on both sides.
As for ABC’s coverage, I’m rather surprised as to the verbal mistakes, the announcers must be nervous, they usually aren’t as bad, or perhaps in trying to appease the unknowledgable american audience they think will have are making mistakes?
At least the video coverage looks good, no unnecesary replays, and for the most part proper choices in which ones to show. I’ve also thought some of their non midfield 3/4 height angles have been good, at least in the HD feed.