Apparently people, well soccer fans, have been bitching about the coverage of the World Cup on ABC, ESPN and ESPN 2. Mainly Dave O’Brien is the mark.

Apparently he only called 8 soccer games before the World Cup.

It’s a whole sordid story but the one thing people need to remember is that there are producers who probably know LESS then he does yapping into his ear.

Should O’Brien be blamed for bad or uneducated commentary? Probably but in his defense the fact that people are complaining shows that there are people watching and paying attention.

Disney (they own ESPN) should have gone with announcers with English accents who understand they sport more and then dumb it down a little from there. I think it would have given the World Cup experience more of an International feel.

In the end O’Brien is doing an OK job. I think other announcers at ESPN would have done better but at the same time O’Brien is better than Brent Musburger and Alexi Lalas. Lalas really needs to go back to losing with the LA Galaxy or go fishing. He needs to go to something other than being on the airwaves.