Canada Pre-World Cup "friendlies" thread: news, gossip and speculation.

[Gian-Luca]

On 9/20/2022 at 3:10 PM, Corazon said:

Could be.  The first part of the player in the background is hard to tell but it aure looks like Larin’s head if you watch it slowly before he exits the screen.  I’m fairly certain it’s him.

If it is in fact Henry.  I think that makes it obvious that he will be on the plane to Qatar, regardless of form.

Looks like it was Henry after all:

"Defender Doneil Henry, currently sidelined by a hamstring issue, is in camp with Canada but in a non-playing role."

https://www.sportsnet.ca/soccer/article/canadian-midfielder-jonathan-osorio-to-miss-friendlies-in-europe/

[sose]

Just now, Gian-Luca said:

Looks like it was Henry after all:

"Defender Doneil Henry, currently sidelined by a hamstring issue, is in camp with Canada but in a non-playing role."

https://www.sportsnet.ca/soccer/article/canadian-midfielder-jonathan-osorio-to-miss-friendlies-in-europe/

Maybe it's preparation for his non-playing role in the world cup?   I wouldn't be upset if he wasn't on the roster but they used him as a hype man/ "coach" on the sidelines.  

[pod818]

I mean, why wouldn't Koleosho want to join a team this fun..

 

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

22 hours ago, The Beaver 2.0 said:

To be honest, while I'd love the folks who call the play-by-play and do colour to be Canadian, I just want someone who is good at the job. Not all Brits are good, to be fair. Wileman is pretty darn good. Just give me someone who has the ability to call a game, who knows the game, who works their ass off, and I'll be happy.

It's a numbers game at the end of the day.  

No matter how much the person cares, football commentary is both an innate and learned skill.  If you have a country with twice the population and a good percentage of that population eat and breath football, you have a lot more people wanting to be football commentators.  Being a good commentator is also a better job prospect. You therefore get a much bigger pool to get decent commentators from. 

(If you have ever heard them try to do hockey or even curling, the reverse is pretty brutal.)  

As the dynamics change in Canada, Canada will have a better pool to pick from or at least different kinds of voices. 

Edited September 21, 2022 by WestHamCanadianinOxford

[red card]

Kaye says there will be a MLS players camp. He will working out a couple of weeks in Denver after the season ends and then off to a national team camp. 

https://www.tsn.ca/soccer/video/kaye-we-know-how-important-this-camp-is-to-get-us-going-for-the-world-cup~2526186

[Unnamed Trialist]

9 hours ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

It's a numbers game at the end of the day.  

No matter how much the person cares, football commentary is both an innate and learned skill.  If you have a country with twice the population and a good percentage of that population eat and breath football, you have a lot more people wanting to be football commentators.  Being a good commentator is also a better job prospect. You therefore get a much bigger pool to get decent commentators from. 

(If you have ever heard them try to do hockey or even curling, the reverse is pretty brutal.)  

As the dynamics change in Canada, Canada will have a better pool to pick from or at least different kinds of voices. 

Listening to Brits do Euroleague basketball is hard. Like Mexicans doing NFL, but those are probably my biases.

But most English footie commentators are fluff as well. It's the sports commentating way, most are bad, repeating dumb clichés and stating tactical obviousness, but you don't notice because you're watching the game.

What bugs me is how in Canada we replace football knowledge with a set of (mostly white) British accents and those are the good guys. And we seem to never think an Italian accent, for example, has any legitimacy. We'd prefer to hear Freddie Highmore call a match than Carlo Ancelotti.

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

 

7 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

... but those are probably my biases.

But most English footie commentators are fluff as well.

These sentences are probably related.  I would not pretend to make a general comment on any significant group of Spanish, Italian or even French commentators because I don't listen to them enough.  

7 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

but you don't notice because you're watching the game.

I listen to, without watching, a lot of games, both because I am doing other things and because for , especially in the lower leagues, that is all that is available.  For Corbeanu vs. Millwall at the weekend, for example, I listened to the Millwall audio only commentary.  They were unbashedly biased to toward the team their audience supported but competent and interesting, as far as it goes. There are dozens of those situations playing out any given game day in the UK, so you are going to develop good commentators.

At the risk of being unintentially political, there are some instances of very bad commentary in the UK at the moment.  It can be good someday but, in only part of your last paragraph I agree with, football knowledge developed with experience is a key component of commentary.  Throwing people in at a higher level before they pay their dues is the recipe for bad commentary and often way over the top rejection. 

7 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

What bugs me is how in Canada we replace football knowledge with a set of (mostly white) British accents and those are the good guys. And we seem to never think an Italian accent, for example, has any legitimacy. We'd prefer to hear Freddie Highmore call a match than Carlo Ancelotti.

It is lazy to think anyone British knows a lot about football but commentary is meant to be understood at a rapid pace by a wide audience.  Having a strong accent is a hinderance to that, so in English speaking countries, you don't get many Italian accents any more than you get, even in the UK, (amongst the commentator, not co-commentators or analysts who can afford to be slower) strong regional English accents.  Even Tony Cottee for example, whose accent is like my family's, does not call games, he adds colour in North American parlance.  

I am curious about examples of British commentators who "we" as Canadians accept that have no football knowledge.  (Who is Freddie Highmore?) Also examples of Italian commentators "we" have rejected.

Edited September 22, 2022 by WestHamCanadianinOxford

[narduch]

4 minutes ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

 

These sentences are probably related.  I would not pretend to make a general comment on any significant group of Spanish, Italian or even French commentators. because I don't listen to them enough.  

I listen to, without watching, a lot of games, both because I am doing other things and because for , especially in the lower leagues, that is all that is available.  For Corbeanu vs. Millwall at the weekend, for example, I listened to the Millwall audio only commentary.  They were unbashedly biased to toward the team their audience supported but competent and interesting, as far as it goes. There are dozens of those situations playing out any given game day in the UK, so you are going to develop good commentators.

At the risk of being unintentially political, there is some instances of very bad commentary in the UK at the moment.  It can be good someday but, in only part of your last paragraph I agree with, football knowledge developed with experience is a key component of commentary.  

It is lazy to think anyone British knows a lot about football but commentary is meant to be understood at a rapid pace by a wide audience.  Having a strong accent is a hinderance to that, so in English speaking countries, you don't get many Italian accents and more than you get, even in the UK, (amongst the commentator, not co-commentators or analysts who can afford to be slower) strong regional English accents.  Even Tony Cottee for example, whose accent is like my family's, does not call games, he adds colour in North American parlance.  

I am curious about examples of British commentators who "we" as Canadians accept that have no football knowledge.  (Who is Freddie Highmore?) Also examples of Italian commentators "we" have rejected.

Don't Reed and Wileman not really have backgrounds in soccer? I haven't checked their resumes in awhile and can't remember and am too lazy to check.

A lot of TFC fans don't like Wileman, by the way. (And Caldwell is universally loathed).

I don't mind Reed, but I see tons of complaints that he is boring.

Edited September 22, 2022 by narduch

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

3 minutes ago, narduch said:

Don't Reed and Wileman not really have backgrounds in soccer? I haven't checked their resumes in awhile and can't remember and am too lazy to check.

A lot of TFC fans don't like Wileman, by the way. (And Caldwell is universally loathed).

I don't mind Reed, but I see tons of complaints that he is boring.

I know Reed worked for the BBC in Liverpool for quite a  while before he met his Canadian wife. A quick check says Wileman did as well - the worked for the BBC part.  I don't listen to them a lot, but they seem below the level of the commentators I think do a really good job in the UK.  But that would partially be a numbers and money thing, I would guess.  

A lot of co-commentators are disliked.  Some of it is regional. I have no idea how a certain commentator with a strange accent, that played for Bayern and Man U keeps his job at BT for example. 

 

[narduch]

5 minutes ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

I know Reed worked for the BBC in Liverpool for quite a  while before he met his Canadian wife. A quick check says Wileman did as well - the worked for the BBC part.  I don't listen to them a lot, but they seem below the level of the commentators I think do a really good job in the UK.  But that would partially be a numbers and money thing, I would guess.  

A lot of co-commentators are disliked.  Some of it is regional. I have no idea how a certain commentator with a strange accent, that played for Bayern and Man U keeps his job at BT for example. 

 

Now that I have Fubo I've been watching more EPL with the base feed and I find some of the commentary to suck. These are supposed to be the best guys in the industry 

Particularly when they have 2 man booths

 

Edited September 22, 2022 by narduch

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

5 minutes ago, narduch said:

Now that I have Fubo I've been watching more EPL with the base feed and I find some of the commentary to suck. These are supposed to be the best guys in the industry 

Particularly when they have 2 man booths

 

Fair enough.

Be interested who you mean specifically 

The co-commentators can always be hit and miss.  I looked up who did the last West Ham game, the world feed had Conor McNamara (who is not the best but I don't mind) and Stephen Warnock (who has some good insight but not the most exciting way of presenting it).  Sky had Martin Tyler who I like and Jamie Carragher who I don't.  But there are biases there. 

Part of my original point, looking at that, there were at least 6 England based teams covering the game, BBC radio (Sounds now technically) 5 Live, BBC London, BBC Merseyside, world feed, Sky, and Match of the Day.  Not so many in the lower leagues but usually someone covers most games.  People gaining experience all the time. 

 

[Unnamed Trialist]

17 hours ago, pod818 said:

I mean, why wouldn't Koleosho want to join a team this fun..

 

True, we don't have EA in Spain, we're deprived.

[narduch]

13 minutes ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

Fair enough.

Be interested who you mean specifically 

The co-commentators can always be hit and miss.  I looked up who did the last West Ham game, the world feed had Conor McNamara (who is not the best but I don't mind) and Stephen Warnock (who has some good insight but not the most exciting way of presenting it).  Sky had Martin Tyler who I like and Jamie Carragher who I don't.  But there are biases there. 

Part of my original point, looking at that, there were at least 6 England based teams covering the game, BBC radio (Sounds now technically) 5 Live, BBC London, BBC Merseyside, world feed, Sky, and Match of the Day.  Not so many in the lower leagues but usually someone covers most games.  People gaining experience all the time. 

 

It's the team that does the early Saturday game 

[Unnamed Trialist]

51 minutes ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

 

These sentences are probably related.  I would not pretend to make a general comment on any significant group of Spanish, Italian or even French commentators because I don't listen to them enough.  

I listen to, without watching, a lot of games, both because I am doing other things and because for , especially in the lower leagues, that is all that is available.  For Corbeanu vs. Millwall at the weekend, for example, I listened to the Millwall audio only commentary.  They were unbashedly biased to toward the team their audience supported but competent and interesting, as far as it goes. There are dozens of those situations playing out any given game day in the UK, so you are going to develop good commentators.

At the risk of being unintentially political, there are some instances of very bad commentary in the UK at the moment.  It can be good someday but, in only part of your last paragraph I agree with, football knowledge developed with experience is a key component of commentary.  Throwing people in at a higher level before they pay their dues is the recipe for bad commentary and often way over the top rejection. 

It is lazy to think anyone British knows a lot about football but commentary is meant to be understood at a rapid pace by a wide audience.  Having a strong accent is a hinderance to that, so in English speaking countries, you don't get many Italian accents any more than you get, even in the UK, (amongst the commentator, not co-commentators or analysts who can afford to be slower) strong regional English accents.  Even Tony Cottee for example, whose accent is like my family's, does not call games, he adds colour in North American parlance.  

I am curious about examples of British commentators who "we" as Canadians accept that have no football knowledge.  (Who is Freddie Highmore?) Also examples of Italian commentators "we" have rejected.

"We" is those making decisions on behalf of the Canadian public who are in power in media outlets.

The biases are pretty bad and basically treat fans like idiots.

We used to have them in Spain. Then certain foreigners made inroads, like Michael Robinson, whose accent wasn't great but who had a fine personality, became one of the most important sports journalists in Spain (died recently, rather young). Radomir Antic does colour commentary and for the life of him can't get Spanish articles right (el, la...) but he has something to say and is smart. 

So fans accept variation and recognize insight, whatever the voice.

In Canada we're used to foreign accents. We're just biased, and there's more than that, keeping them off major media outlets.

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

9 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

"We" is those making decisions on behalf of the Canadian public who are in power in media outlets.

The biases are pretty bad and basically treat fans like idiots.

We used to have them in Spain. Then certain foreigners made inroads, like Michael Robinson, whose accent wasn't great but who had a fine personality, became one of the most important sports journalists in Spain (died recently, rather young). Radomir Antic does colour commentary and for the life of him can't get Spanish articles right (el, la...) but he has something to say and is smart. 

So fans accept variation and recognize insight, whatever the voice.

In Canada we're used to foreign accents. We're just biased, and there's more than that, keeping them off major media outlets.

Examples of the decisions and commentators, please. 

I have no idea what goes on in the Spanish broadcast world, but unsurprisingly, you say it is much more accepting and lovely and overall better than Canada's.  I unfortunately cannot accept that because your bias has led you to errors in the past. I put "we" in quotes because I hesitate to say much about Canada's football broadcast decisions because I haven't lived there for almost 10 years.

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

22 minutes ago, narduch said:

It's the team that does the early Saturday game 

For Wolves- Man City, Saturday lunch time - the world feed was Stewart Gardner, a Man U TV commentator, who I don't know, strange selection for sure.

Jim Beglin's voice I recognise from working with Peter Drury and thought was fine then.  Maybe who he was working with. 

 

[Unnamed Trialist]

19 minutes ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

Examples of the decisions and commentators, please. 

I have no idea what goes on in the Spanish broadcast world, but unsurprisingly, you say it is much more accepting and lovely and overall better than Canada's.  I unfortunately cannot accept that because your bias has led you to errors in the past. I put "we" in quotes because I hesitate to say much about Canada's football broadcast decisions because I haven't lived there for almost 10 years.

How many foreigners with a 1st language other than English are doing sports commentary in Canada?

In relation to their representation in our society?

Michael Robinson was a Liverpool player who ended up at Osasuna. He wasn't even famous. Became amongst the top 3-4 in the country in influence.

Even in the States they do Spanish broadcasts with Stoichkov, who's Spanish is not at all refined, to understate the matter.

Anyways, to those arguing the Brits are better than us because they have a broader pool doing it: well the Mexicans have a massive pool for footie commentary and I was stunned how poor their broadcasts were watching various qualifiers. Apart from the histrionics and absurd opinions.

Edited September 22, 2022 by Unnamed Trialist

[narduch]

1 hour ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

I know Reed worked for the BBC in Liverpool for quite a  while before he met his Canadian wife. A quick check says Wileman did as well - the worked for the BBC part.  I don't listen to them a lot, but they seem below the level of the commentators I think do a really good job in the UK.  But that would partially be a numbers and money thing, I would guess. 

They worked at BBC, but as soccer commentators?

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

2 minutes ago, narduch said:

They worked at BBC, but as soccer commentators?

Reed did, for sure. Wileman's bio says "Before moving to Canada in 2006, he spent 10 years with the BBC in England as a sports broadcaster and play-by-play commentator for the English Premier League and other top European soccer competitions."  

[RS]

Wileman did radio PBP in England.

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

31 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

How many foreigners with a 1st language other than English are doing sports commentary in Canada?

A whole lot, I would guess in French, Spanish, Italian, Mandarin and other languages that exist in Canada.  It makes Canada less diverse because there are broadcasts of sport in different languages? 

I do still watch Canadian news a little bit.  The presenters are very diverse but in the big English language broadcasts, they speak with clear English diction because the base requirement of their job is being understood by the English-speaking people that is their audience.   

Football commentary is much quicker and more improvised.  If the Spanish football media prioritise something else, I would find that pretty strange and silly. 

Edited September 22, 2022 by WestHamCanadianinOxford

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

10 minutes ago, RS said:

Wileman did radio PBP in England.

Makes sense, the BBC hadn't done top flight TV commentary for almost 30 years until the pandemic. 

[Unnamed Trialist]

20 minutes ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

A whole lot, I would guess in French, Spanish, Italian, Mandarin and other languages that exist in Canada.  It makes Canada less diverse because there are broadcasts of sport in different languages? 

I do still watch Canadian news a little bit.  The presenters are very diverse but in the big English language broadcasts, they speak with clear English diction because the base requirement of their job is being understood by the English-speaking people that is their audience.   

Football commentary is much quicker and more improvised.  If the Spanish football media prioritise something else, I would find that pretty strange and silly. 

There is no problem for a player to come play with no language ability, or coaches who don't speak Spanish. And I can tell you, Spanish players don't speak English, but they communicate football. 

Then, if a player or coach can more or less express himself, he can be brought in as a media commentator. Not narrating the game, but commentating. Not saying it is majority, but it is very common. Linguistic precision or accent is not the priority, the character and quality of the commentary is. Which is why Antic, who has what I suppose is a Serbian syntax and structure, was an esteemed commentator (died relatively young, 2 years ago).

In Canada we have multi-language media outlets, true, radio stations. I've listened to Punjabi hip-hop/rap in Vancouver at times, that is not the problem. We also accomodate languages in a big way in our mandatory public school system. We have a culture that is not hindered by accents or origins, so it makes no sense for our football culture to be so mono.

I just find it narrow and uncharacteristic for Canadian football commentary to be so dominated by English-Scottish accents and to have so little presence of other football cultures and knowledge--even when those people speak impeccably well, gramatically accurately, barring accents.

Edited September 22, 2022 by Unnamed Trialist

[Joe MacCarthy]

 

[Corazon]

19 hours ago, Gian-Luca said:

Looks like it was Henry after all:

"Defender Doneil Henry, currently sidelined by a hamstring issue, is in camp with Canada but in a non-playing role."

https://www.sportsnet.ca/soccer/article/canadian-midfielder-jonathan-osorio-to-miss-friendlies-in-europe/

Well, I think that all but confirms that Doneil will be in Qatar which I think we all expected.