Tonight's game between D.C. United and CF Montreal was a wonderful, wild 4-4 thriller! I am out of words to describe it. My syntax wasn't perfect on every call, but hopefully my excitement helped share just how engrossing and fascinating and exhilarating this game was!
Enjoy:
I'm fond of saying, on air, that teams and individuals love to have a quick turnaround after a frustrating performance so that they can try to quickly right the wrongs of that disappointment.
That storyline was at play in my work last week, as I was able to move on from some Wednesday frustration to enjoy an exciting game on Saturday, one I feel had some really good calls of exciting moments.
They didn't all make the highlights, actually. This compilation leaves out one of the best plays of the game, a defensive intervention by Griffin Dorsey, but it still provides a good sample of our broadcast.
This game was also rare for me because of how much Spanish it involved. Both coaching staffs speak primarily Spanish, while my partner (MetroStars legend and former New York Cosmos coach Giovanni Savarese), my producer, and both of the Spanish-language announcers were all fully bilingual. This left me embarrassed at speaking only one language and relying on automatic transcription and Google Translate after the coach calls. It wasn't a problem, just something I hadn't experienced in a while, since my days in Houston when the Dynamo competed internationally.
It's an area of growth for me: I hope to be able to understand so much more and to be able to communicate in Spanish beyond "lo siento por mi español."
I've got one more MLS game before the World Cup, in D.C. on Saturday, and I can't wait to see what happens in that one.
I’m not going to lie: I walked away from Wednesday night’s Apple TV broadcast pretty frustrated with myself. Our game—No. 1 (Nashville) vs. No. 2 (New England) in the Eastern Conference—had three goals, and I felt like I messed up two of them.
Not great, Bob!
I got caught storytelling on Nashville’s first goal and took too long to switch to calling the scoring chance. Then on the third goal, I initially identified Hany Mukhtar as the goalscorer, when I KNOW that I should wait until I’m certain before I say a name. I quickly corrected to Bryan Acosta, but it ruins the call.
Many other parts of the broadcast were good. A colleague praised our scene set, which opens the broadcast. I thought we covered a lot of topics relevant to each team. We got to tell some great stories (including the one that bled into the opening goal). I felt there were some good transitions from our promotional reads back to game coverage. We did an on-camera report after the game down on the natural grass surface. Plenty of things to be proud of and to build on.
For all of that, I was definitely holding onto the game’s big moments—which I feel I didn’t match—as I drove home. But as I tell my kids, we’re not perfect, mistakes will always happen, and what’s important is how you respond to them. So I’m ready to have a great call on Saturday, nail the big moments, and call these games at the top of my skillset.
The best part of my night? As I walked with my partner, Jalil Anibaba, and our Spanish play-by-play announcer, Moisés Linares, to the production truck, a young fan called out to me, “I like the suit you’re wearing! You look nice.”
