MLS Playoff Chase: 3 Points Any Way You Can

I read as much MLS coverage as I can, especially big-picture items about potential structural changes. Multiple articles this week about the next iteration of the MLS Cup Playoffs started from the premise that there is not enough urgency or jeopardy in the regular season, since 20 out of 30 teams make the playoffs.

As Paul Tenorio wrote,

If you go to an MLS regular season game today and your team loses, it doesn’t feel like it matters. Will this [playoff format] really change that? Will it feel in the moment like a game of consequence?

I understand and largely agree with the larger point. I actually hate that so many teams make the playoffs. It's not a reward for elite performance if two-thirds of the teams qualify. I would prefer four or six teams from each conference make it. But I really disagree with the notion that there's no pressure on regular season games. It is not the same pressure as exists in promotion/relegation situations, but it is pressure nonetheless. I found my game this weekend to be a prime example.

It paralleled one of the most memorable calls in my career 15 years earlier, when my Dynamo team was getting such poor results on the road that home games felt like our only chance for a win. Most people at the time didn't understand why I was so exuberant as to yell, "WOOHOO!" following a stoppage-time goal in a late-August regular season game. But I knew *at the time* (to Paul's point) that the difference between a 7-point week and a 5-point week was significant. I was right: That 2-point standings bump wound up giving us home-field advantage in our conference semifinal playoff series.

Similarly, Charlotte FC has only one road win this year. They are hoping for a top-four finish and home-field advantage in the conference quarterfinals. In a three-game week against three teams below them in the standings (Columbus, Toronto, D.C. United), their 3-3 tie on Wednesday night in Toronto was similar to my 2011 Houston team's midweek draw at New England, a team we unequivocally should have beaten. In both cases, the midweek result upped the pressure on Saturday's game, because taking only 5 points from three favorable matchups was just unacceptable.

It's not "your contract will be canceled because the club will drop to a lower division" pressure, I'll grant you. But it is pressure, knowing you only have five home games left in which you're confident of taking the full three points.

D.C. United, Charlotte's opponent, had its own kind of pressure, sitting precariously in the final playoff spot (the club has not qualified since 2019), but struggling to convince anybody, even themselves, that they will stay there.

The game itself, which I called alongside Manchester United legend Phil Neville, certainly had pressure. It may have been stultifying pressure, in fact, in the first half. But it led to high drama in the second, and it felt like we largely got the calls right. Have a listen!

MLS Is Back: Catching Up

What a summer! MLS has returned to play after the World Cup, and I have returned to calling games ... but clearly have been derelict in my blogging.

I'll share the highlights from my recent games, but quickly: There are many changes occurring throughout sports broadcasting at the moment. One of these has seen my role at ESPN drastically reduced. Having called multiple college soccer games every year since 2014, I was told I would be hired on a free-lance basis (if at all) this fall, rather than on a set contract, which had been the setup since the ACC Network launched in 2019.

This was not welcome, by any means. It feels very strange not to be prepping 50+ college soccer rosters and trying to track lineups as the season gets underway. But we are used to going where the work is, and I am excited about the broadcasts I do have and will have this fall.

Since MLS returned to action, I have called three games in three cities with three partners, and each has offered its own unique high points. Lata drama and controversy in D.C. while working with a football legend, Phil Neville. My first trip to wonderful soccer-specific stadia in St. Louis and Montreal. A wonderful chance to see family and bring them out to a game, albeit a wet one! A reunion game with my man Jalil Anibaba. A first chance to work with a player I covered for years, Lloyd Sam, who I somehow convinced that I thought he was left-footed!

Here are the on-field highlights:

D.C. United 2, Toronto FC 1

St. Louis City 1, Real Salt Lake 1

CF Montreal 1, D.C. United 1

More trips and more games to come! I'm excited to see what the fall brings.

MLS Game 4: Out of Words

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:

MLS Game 3: Bouncing Right Back

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. 

MLS Game 2: It’s Not Always Perfect

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.”

Back in MLS With a Bang!

My voice is more than a little froggy this morning after calling a wild 3-2 win for D.C. United over Orlando City in a Major League Soccer game Saturday night.

We don't have time or space to go through all my emotions leading up to the show, my first on the primary English TV feed of an MLS game since an ESPN game I called in 2021. Suffice it to say, I've been looking forward to it! The event itself certainly delivered more than I could have asked for.

Five goals, multiple lead changes, and a 90th-minute game-winner from the home team in front of their supporters? Yeah, that's how you draw it up. What's more, the decisive goalscorer, Kye Rowles, was the D.C. United representative we talked to on Friday to prepare for the match. I did not expect that he would be the hero less than 36 hours later!

Here are the highlights of a game I thoroughly enjoyed calling with my partner, 12-year MLS veteran Jalil Anibaba, who I only met on Thursday but already consider a friend. We had a blast!

For my first broadcast on Apple TV and my first full broadcast in almost six months, I felt very good about our show. Getting fooled by the 80th-minute chance and calling goal on a shot that didn't go in will not make my personal highlight reel, but it happens to the best of us.

It was also a treat before the game to say hello to a broadcasting legend, Dave Johnson, for whom the broadcast booth at Audi Field is named. He is battling multiple sclerosis and doing so with remarkably good humor, maintaining a busy schedule of Wizards and United broadcasts, working with Bruce Murry on the latter.

Dave is a true class act for whom I have so much respect. He showed that American broadcasters can put their own stamp on soccer. Ever the insider, he had confirmed both lineups and bench rosters way before us TV folks, helpfully sharing that information to help us prepare.

I have a few weeks for my voice to recover before I call three more MLS games in May, and then everyone's focus will flip to the World Cup.

But for now, I'm very happy to have gotten my feet wet. As I texted a friend this morning, "God was it fun!"

“You were ON today”: Closing out soccer season with a bang

Obviously, I've been derelict in posting, to say the least. But I want to celebrate the culmination of my college soccer season today.

My spouse often asks how my broadcast went, and after one of many "OK" responses, or perhaps it was an "it could have been better" night, she said, "You never say 'Good' or 'great' when I ask."

I had to admit it was true. I'm hard on myself and tend to focus more on the things I think I should have done better than the things that went right.

But today, my last game of the season, the Ivy League men's championship game, called in person on the Princeton campus, felt right. It was an exciting game, with an early goal, a dramatic penalty kick save, and a late goal. It looked great, on a crisp, sunny afternoon with just enough fall foliage still lingering. And in addition to my knowledge of the teams, player identification, storyline development, interviews, chemistry with my partner, and on-camera hit, all of which felt good today, I also felt like I nailed the big moments.

I haven't listened back to any of it, to be honest, but all of the big spots felt good as they happened. My partner liked the goal calls, and I spoke long enough to punctuate it but quickly enough to lay out and let the pictures and sounds of player and fan reactions carry the mail.

A colleague texted me later, "You were on today!" and it took me a second to figure out what he meant. But I'll gladly take it. What a fun morning and afternoon, a great way to close my portion of the college soccer schedule!

Bonus baseball! Stepping onto LLWS regionals on short notice

Calling Little League's Intermediate 50/70 World Series (for 13-year-olds) is one of the annual highlights of my broadcast schedule. It's so much fun and I look forward to it (and prepare for it) for months in advance.

But I can admit the lights shine brightest on ESPN's coverage of the 12-year-old Little League World Series, with regional games featured on linear television. Williamsport is the event so many of us grew up watching (I can still vividly remember some of the broadcast opening from when I was 9), and, of course, it's the one I aspired (in vain, as I knew it would be) to play in.

So when I had the chance to call two games in 12-year-old regionals, filling in for a fellow announcer experiencing technical difficulties connecting with our Whitestown, Indiana site (pictured), it was a no-brainer! I was already in Little League mode, paying attention to the regionals anyway, and still had pages left in my custom scorebook built to support Continuous Batting Order, in which every player (up to 14) is in the batting order the entire game.

So on August 6, I called the Great Lakes Region elimination game between Jasper, Indiana and Bowling Green East, Kentucky:

The following day, I called the Midwest Region winners' bracket final between Webb City, Missouri and Sioux Falls, South Dakota:

They were both tight, well-played games that seemed to fly by (less than 1 hour, 45 minutes for each) compared to the games in Livermore, which are an inning longer and inevitably slow down due to the addition of leads, pickoffs, and true stolen bases.

As I do at the 13-year-old level, I took pride in calling the teams by their league names, not just by the states involved. There's state pride involved, absolutely, and some teams even choose to order new uniforms that feature their state name. But most wear their original uniforms bearing their league name, and when you've beaten teams from all over your state to win the prize of representing that state, the town and the league deserve some specific love. Some towns have more than one league, too, as my hometown did when I played. After all, California didn't win back-to-back Little League world championships in 1992 and 1993; Long Beach, California did! 

The games were close and interesting and fun to call, and both were such an adrenaline rush, too: I was trying my best to get up to speed on these teams in short order, working with a new partner in Chris Burke and new production crews, and scrambling to get everything done. For the second game, I even had enough time to set up and appear on camera for our open!

It was incredible fun, an important contribution to our team's coverage, and a taste of something I can hope to work on again in the future!

Eastbank, World Series Champions!

My non-stop week calling games from the Little League Intermediate 50/70 Baseball World Series came to a thrilling conclusion late Sunday night, as the Eastbank Little League from Kenner, Louisiana (right next to Louis Armstrong Airport) edged defending champion West Seoul, Korea with a run in the top of the seventh inning to take the world championship.

Champions of the Little League World Series (12-year-olds) back in 2019, Eastbank becomes the first  individual league ever to win both the 12- and 13-year-old world championships (although Seoul in 2014 and West Seoul in 2015 presumably had some significant overlap).

Both teams were so sound and had such good pitching that we never expected a wild, 8-7 game, but that's exactly what we got. This video doesn't include our opening tease, which I was quite proud of, but here's about 25 minutes of 13-year-old Little League fun:

2024 LLIWS Preview: MOT, Middletown, Delaware

I have the privilege of calling a Little League World Series once again this year! This will mark my third consecutive call of the Intermediate 50/70 Baseball World Series, held from July 28-August 4 in Livermore, California. It's for 13-year-olds, played on a field slightly larger than Little League but still smaller than Junior League (50 feet from the pitcher's mound to home plate, 70 feet between the bases). Following this tournament and its qualifiers closely over the last three years, I've come to expect fantastic action and stories, and I'm looking forward to bringing them to you again this year!

The 2024 Intermediate World Series will air on ESPN+, and I will lay out the backstory for one of the 12 competing teams each day from now until the tournament's start on July 28. I hope you'll read along and remember a nugget here and there when you watch the tournament!

MOT, Middletown, Delaware

League:
MOT Little League
Location:
Middletown, Odessa, Townsend, Delaware
Championships:

Delaware Dist 1
East Region
Record: 8-0
Date Qualified: July 25
Noteworthy:
1st team from Delaware to reach ILWS

Coaches: Kevin Koerner, John Murray, Jeremy Clark.

At the 12-year-old age level, there have only been two Delaware teams to qualify for the Little League World Series since its founding in 1957. So it was a surprise to many when the Delaware District 1 champions, the host of this year's 13-year-old East Regional, swept it without a loss.

But nobody at MOT (pronounced Em-Oh-Tee) felt surprised, because this group had always shown it was capable. State champs as 10-year-olds and 12-year-olds, they returned 11 players from the squad that competed at 12-year-old regionals in Bristol, Connecticut last year. With some imposing 6-foot frames and big-game pitchers like Mason Guth and Jordyn Brown, they expected to make noise.

So when they took the regional stage and calmly dispatched Fairfield American (Connecticut) and dashed around the basepaths to stun Hub City (Maryland), Little League watchers took notice. But when they run-ruled Keystone (Pennsylvania) in the winners' bracket final, they became serious contenders. A much-delayed-by-rain win over South Vineland (New Jersey) Thursday night avoided the logistical nightmare of playing a delayed 'IF' game on Friday and sent MOT to Livermore.

These are heady times for MOT, with state championships at the 10- and 12-year-old age levels joining the 13s and the Senior League softball squad. Those players also start in the World Series this weekend, but in a less exotic (albeit cheaper logistically) destination of Sussex County ... Delaware. The 50/70 boys and their families are dealing with hastily arranged flights to California and, from the sounds of things, are having a ball. We'll see if that translates to the field, starting this afternoon on ESPN+!

Road to Livermore
Delaware Dist 1
July 5	at Dover	W	20-0 (4 inn.)
July 6	Camden-Wyoming	W	18-6 (5 inn.)
July 8	Milford	W	11-0 (5 inn.)
East Region
July 20	Fairfield American CT	W	5-2
July 21	Hub City, Hagerstown MD	W	5-4
July 22	Greater Nashua NH	W	18-5 (5 inn.)
July 23	Keystone, Clinton County PA (winners' bracket final)	W	11-1 (6 inn.)
July 25	South Vineland NJ (final)	W	2-0
Intermediate Baseball World Series
July 28	Vine Ingle, Macon GA	L	4-6
July 30	Livermore CA (elim)	L	5-6 (9 inn.)
Aug 1	South-West Germany (Goodwill)	L	0-3