All I heard this morning and most of the tournament was "it's a disgrace to football". I love watching Spain play their football but SBS can not praise a team without talking down the other. 4 years ago the final was a tight, cautious game between two good teams. This year 2 good teams, where one dominates and the other is labelled a disgrace to football.

We could all go on for hours about Foster and Les Murray but they are promoting the game in this country as the only network with coverage and all they do is say how bad every team is compared to Spain. I agree that Spain is heads and shoulders above anyone at the moment and fully deserved winners. But SBS from Les and Foz to Kalac and Zelic they have to learn how to say the better team won without talking down the team that didnt match the best football in the world.

Well done Spain.

What do you guys think of the mentality of the SBS team during the tournament?

Les is past his best and time to retire
Fozzzz is so negative that everything he says just goes over my head even my teenage kids take a Mikey out of him for being THE SBS Chief football analyst.
Ned Zelic is the funniest of them all especially on mute.
Martyn Tyler was and still is the best his commentary "England is Mullerd by Germany" has to be the classic comment of the tournament

I like the enthusiast coverage we get.

Just wait until it's on commercial FTA and it gets the Better Homes and Dancing coverage that the Olympics gets.

Simmo - I think you are spot on. SBS for some reason decided that we would have more opinionators than commentators and it has been to the detriment of the coverage. One Les is enough. Les plus his mini-me Craig is possibly too much. Add in a rogues gallery of "never-quite-was" types hoping to supplement the super with some additional SBS money, all trying to emulate Les's opinions and it all became a bit like the vuvuzelas. We got it, shortly after the opening ceremony, that SBS would prefer everyone to play Brazillian beach-football at the world cup. From then on it was all BZZZNNNEEEYYWEHATEPIMYYHHHHHEEEERRRRRZZZZDISGRACEZZZSACKALLTHECOACHESZZPLAYERSREVOLUTIONYYYHHHHDDDDDZZZZZZZZHOLLANDSUCKSHHHEERNNNNZZ.

Yeh it did get very repetitive.

How exactly are Spain the best when they lose to Switzerland and have to grind out a result against a 10 men team playing physical football all within a 1 month period?

Am I the only sane one here?

Every sane person here will agree that Spain are most probably the best team. Have you ever heard of an upset. Thats what Switzerland v Spain was. Thats football.

the more they had their little Spanish love in the more i found myself going for Netherlands.
I thought it was a great game and i think it was down to the tactical execution of each team and the way the game flowed back and forth.
Fozzy and co need to remember that Netherlands has a pop of only 16mil compared to Brasil that has 192mil who they beat and Spain 46mil who has one of the greatest teams of all time that they took to extra time.
Credit were its due guys.

You're right, it's a terrible habit Foster has, there has to be a good guy and a bad guy, one's playing the beautiful game and the other is anti football regardless of, you know, what's happening in the game.

Unprofessional.

I watched every game commentated by the SBS team on mute, they made perfect sense that way.

As for the panel, had to listen to them! Its like when the clowns come out at the circus!

At least SBS got it spot on with Santo, Sam & Ed's Cup Fever but Les and Fos need a good hard look in the mirror at themselves.

Utterly dire. Had to insist on BBC Five Live last night.

Alan Green is just as bad as some of what SBS offers up.

I don't think Les is that bad but Fozzie's "admiration" for all things Spain was becoming increasingly embarassing in the last couple of days.

Agree with the OP, especially with regard to this morning's 'commentary' from Foster. I usually don't mind him but christ almighty he was just plain rude and arrogant this morning.

Had to chuckle when Muscat on seeing one player doing a studs up challenge from the rear side - " he should get a red for that!! "

Yeh Muscat in the box commentary box was a mistake.

Turned me off watching a bit tbh. Couldn't stand listening to Basheer or Muscat, and then Fozzy wanking on and on in between matches. I don't think there was a post match that he was a part of, that didn't involve the words 'Barca' 'Spain' 'Beautiful Football'. It's pathetic that a man with such bias, and such clear distain for certain parts of the game he apparently loves, is allowed to take part in something which should be clear of bias, and completely neutral.

I remember in the Spain v Portugal game. Carvalho played a long ball up to Ronaldo and Foz said "Look at that typical long ball stuff". 10mins later Puyol plays the same ball to Torres and Foz goes " Puyol showed great awareness to play that ball long there"

The only person I actually had an increase in respect for as an analyst was Ned, it was great to hear him given an opportunity to speak without Foz talking over the top of him or ridiculing him.

Santo's impersonation of him was also a classic

Cup Fever was by far and away the best World Cup show on offer. Every episode had pure gold.

I'm a bit of a Fozzie fan and have read his book and watched him for many years and usually agree with his sentiments on football,

BUT

I sadly have to agree with many here because he was indeed repetitive and this did get boring. The old saying is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and Fozzie needs to understand that we each see something different in every game, every pass and every kick, and we may not all see what he sees or always want to. He needs to get over himself a little.

But my dissapointment about Fozzie aside, I still believe SBS is the home of football in Australia and will be for many many years.

Basheer is probably the worst commentator I've ever come across. And the commentary of the final was the most biased thing I've heard since Australia played Uruguay in 2005.

There was one game where Foster was commentating, I think it was Netherlands v Japan and in the post game report, Foster mentioned Barcelona six times and Spain fourteen. I forgot which fucking teams were playing! I thought it was Barca v Spain for a minute.

And then he went and fucked it up in his furious wanking over spain talking over the top of all the other bloody panalists. If I was the producer I'd have turned his microphone off. It was horrible to listen to. Especailly when he said "we" when referring to spain. As a commentator you're meant to be neutral, and with a name like "zelic" we know you've got NO hispanic history, so stop being a pretentious wanker.

To summarise, Paul Dempsey was the highlight of an otherwise embarrassingly bad SBS commentary team, even Les disappointed me. I think most of the people on here could do a better job.

Ned Zelic without a couch to spread his legs, is like Foster without Barcelona.

Fozzie was repetitive & got too emotional. Very little actual analysis, which is what I really want to hear.
Most of the time he went on & on like a cheer squad member.
In fact quite a bit of the stuff that he said Spain, & Xavi & Iniesta were doing they actually weren't doing at all, it was just in Fozzie's imagination. Like those art critics that go on about the hidden meaning put into the painting by the artist, only later to find out it was painted by a two year old elephant in the Melbourne Zoo.

Yeah, Spain played well & kept possession very well but Xavi being ten years ahead of his time etc, bulldust.
Some of their games bored me because for all their possession they should have been able to turn it into goals.

Les has turned into a Fozzie yes man even when Foz is clearly just ranting.
I like Fozz & Les but more analysis & less hot air please?

Liked listening to Ned Zelic the most, he see things & points them out to the viewer & explains them, much like Mark Bosnich does. They are both worth listening to.

I would like to see more of Bosnich and Zelic and less of Foster.

Sure, Foster loves the socceroos, but he'd be more suitable for the Australian cheersquad. He just doesn't belong in the commentary box or on TV.

This. Bosnich and Zelic for me are the two best football panelists on Australian TV. Just don't let Zelic comment on Barca and Spain and he's good. More pundits like these 2 would go along way to making football shows a a lot better to watch.

As afro pointed out the highlight for me though was Paul Dempsey just fitted in seamlessly.

The only realistic one was Paul Okon and he never got ahead of himself, ZDrilic is good whenever Zelic doesnt bud in but Zelic aint bad definitly better then any FOX SPORTS analysts.

But lets be honest, Basheer had a shocker in the final "Casilas didnt even touch the ball" when he cleary did get his fingertips onto it and its funny coz he says it during the obvious slow motion replay. Fukn disgrace he was in the final what a shocker he had. Lost the repsect i had for him, he way better as a host.

They should have sent Paul Dempsy to SA to commentate and left Basheer in the studio

just to add that Les should fukn retire already the guys a fukn joke!!!!!!!!!!!
Mark Tomalaris would have done better but hes to busy at the bloody le tour de france.

Thank god Vitor Sobral didnt commentate!!!!! at least we were spared that one

Well said all round, I must admit that having an almost unaligned view point on the panel was delightful.

What I found pretty funny was that for the 2 Serbia games against Ghana and Germany the 3 pundits they got were the 3 Croatians in kalac, Zdrillic and Zelic. Just found it pretty ironic, or maybe more of a case of get some pundits who can actually pronounce the names:lol:

Also good to see two old boys of my old school Fairfield Pats in Zdrillic and Okon:d

mate tbh zelic and zdrilic have been there for almost every game and kalac here and there

Personally I agree that Spain and Barca play the best brand of football (so does Cruyff and I've heard pretty much every coach, commentator, and even opposition players say so). So there's nothing wrong with Foster having the same opinion. I reckon its Fozinho's open passion about saying so is what is getting him into trouble. Maybe if he toned his emotion down a bit, then we'd have a happy medium.

I actually thought Muscat's commentary was OK. He surprised me with his tactical understanding of the game, and was a rational counter to Basheer's occasional histrionics. I reckon he cops flack due to his on-field history, and usually from opposition supporters. But I'm from Melbourne.

Zelic seems to have a problem articulating what he actually wants to say. I agreed more with Kalac's half time assessment when he said the Dutch have come out to kick as many Spanish players as they can, its not how a World Cup Final should be played. Zelic said :"Its 0-0 so its worked". Kalac gave him a look that said :"WTF?"

As irritating as Basheer was, I found John Helm intolerable. HATE this guy with a passion.

I reckon we-as do the yanks- still have a bias for British-sounding match commentators over the locals. Look at Simon Hill- an English voice commentating A-League games. Better than aCockerill though. Having said that Tyler is the best English language commentator on the planet.

There is biased commentating in AFL. It happens every time the Crows play a Victorian team. :lol:

totally agree with most sentiments here and glad to see most people felt the same esp after i had a bit of whinge about it during the world cup final via the match day thread. I just wanted to see a good game of football between two great sides and the commentary more so than any other game and esp any final i've ever seen was the biggest put off. I totally wouldn't want to have been a holland supporter putting up with all that crap.

I may have rooted for spain and have heritage from there but i have family from holland too and so the final result didn't faze me one bit but fozz going on about spain every time he opened his goddamn mouth annoyed me so much.

I so wished we had martin tyler commentating the final! I never really noticed it but there has been a gradual push by sbs to commentate all the australian games. It never use to be like that and though they seem to be getting better, it just became stupid during the world cup final. At one point i just wanted holland to stick it in so they could shut up withthe negative comments.

It was almost as bad as that irish-american tommy-smyth from ESPN. he's the worse!! if we ever get him to commentate any australian games against manchester united (lol), I will punch myself in the face!

Edited by Bryan: 13/7/2010 12:41:51 PM

fozzie annoyed me for the final but apart from that i was happy durin the world cup

Nope, I agree... But, it isn't a tournament based on entertaining, its about winning the final.

AND, they did what they needed to over the length of the tournament. And unfortunately, or fortunately depending on who you're supporting that is exactly what tournament football is all about; doing what you need to, to make sure you're there at the end.

Very rarely (if ever), can you say the best side hasn't won the Bundesliga, Premier League or La Liga.

Coz they won the final?

=d> :lol:

Someone made a good point before about what would happen in commercial channels get hold of the world cup. It would eb a disgrace. We would have bruce mcevany or "rabbits" warren commentating on seomthing they probably don't understand. Yeah sure, they were a bit crap but we are lucky to have sbs supporting football here. Otherwise the games would be on fox and then only those who subscribe wouild get to watch it.

Personally I liked Okon the best anyway

You were surprised that a guy who has played over 500 top level club games and over 50 internationals, captains his team, and is moving into coaching, has a good tactical understanding of the game?

Well look at David Beckham. Fantastic playing record, but he sounds a bit thick and I can't see him being taken seriously doing a technical analysis. Or Vinnie Grella. LOL. I was more surprised with the fact that he could communicate as well as he did. A perception of him is that he's jut a brute

The things I remember from the SBS coverage this year was:

Bash getting excited, "Moore... it's in!!" when Craig Moore sailed a half chance head over the bar against Ghana. Plus other times he thought the ball was on target as it sailed over the top or wide.

Zdrillic on the panel at half time saying that Australia would have "definately" been 4 nil up if Kewell didn't get sent off against Ghana.

Also I just watched Les and Foz review of the Dutch Spain Final online. Guess what? Foz managed to mention yet again, that "Germany game"!

Winning the final doesn't necessarily mean you're the best team in the tournament. This debate's well worn now.

Muscat's biggest problem is his grunting and "ooohing" when something happens. Shut the fuck up if you aren't actually saying something.

They should make him turn his mic on and off :lol:

i thought all the sourpusses came from overseas, what a bunch off whingers

mate! Santo, Sam & Ed's Cup Fever has to win TV show of the year, it was outstanding!

If Germany were the best they would have beaten Spain and dominated the match. :roll:

Muscat is a brute, but he is also by far the most articulate media performer of the current A League players.

Some of Fozz's comments and Zdrilic's hair were fucking terrible. As if you'd sack a coach during the group stage...

Next WC, English commentators only. Thank you.

Did anyone else notice that a lot of the audio from the commentary on SBS was about a second ahead of the vision? Especially Bash and Muscat commentary. So you pretty much knew the shot was over the bar just after he kicked it!

This is an issue thats been happening for years from SBS commentary. Not sure what it is but I thought light travelled faster than sound!

After the final I went to training that night, and it was like my whole team was brainwashed by Fozz. Everyone was talking about the great football spain played, how they all wished that everyone played like that.

Foz was so biased :S

I prefer long balls going from one end to the other.

What about outside the bedroom?

If Spain were the best team they wouldn't have lost to fucking Switzerland.

That's just embarrassing. #-o

If you have ever played the game afro you would know results like that can happen.

just like the final ;)

That's just embarrassing. #-o[/quote]

I know, but half these guys don't know much about football they're just good players. But it shows how easy they believe anythign said from commentators :S

Edited by manchester12: 16/7/2010 12:01:16 PM

The best team won ;)

Third place :lol:

Yep...