My TV soccer season in the books

With the 3-1 FC Dallas loss to Seattle last night, my soccer broadcasting season came to an end. It was my first year working primarily (and, as it turned out, exclusively) on television, and my first year as a free-lance broadcaster rather than as a full-time team employee. As such, there were a lot of changes to get used to and adjustments to make throughout the year.

In the end, I worked 20 soccer games – 8 preseason, 12 regular season – with eight different partners in three different roles for productions by four different clubs and broadcasts on up to eight different outlets, depending on how you count it. To simplify, I called the preseason Disney Pro Soccer Classic (with a one-game cameo as a color analyst) and 10 regular-season FC Dallas games, adding one game of play-by-play for Houston and one game as a sideline reporter for Kansas City. Full schedule.

I fulfilled a major goal – earning a living (or something close to it) as a broadcaster, rather than as a communications professional who broadcasts – and owe a lot of people, both personally and professionally, for their respective roles in that.

The most memorable moment of the season was definitely Julian de Guzman’s dramatic goal against Vancouver on September 15:

I’ve had the pleasure to call some clutch late goals, both for and against my employer, since my first pro soccer broadcast in 2008, and this was one of the most fun. It was an important goal, the timing last-gasp, and the quality of the goal (how I wish we had an end-zone view of it!) satisfied the hopes of an electric crowd. That’s just about everything you can ask for. Comparing it against other plays, it loses a little bit of luster because the playoff chase went unrewarded, but anybody there that night will not soon forget it.

One of my other favorite calls from the season, one that may have flown under the radar, was this Bryan Meredith save against FC Dallas on May 9:
The play was a great one, but I felt the whole call worked well. I was able to transition from a separate point (Seattle fatigue) into the play via Fabian Castillo, I correctly identified Andrew Jacobson as the player who headed it back, and “Oh, what a stop!” felt like a good reaction to the play. After the play stopped, I was able to sum it up before turning it over to Ian Joy for the replay (which happened to come from my favorite angle).

I also really enjoyed my one foray as a sideline reporter, working for Kansas City in a June game in Philadelphia, but unfortunately all video evidence of that night seems to be lost. Kansas City fans were understandably quick to jettison any DVR recordings of their 4-0 defeat, and as far as I know, only the Philadelphia broadcast of the game still exists.

Looking back, I think the biggest improvement I made over the course of the season was ramping up the energy on my broadcasts. That applies mostly to on-camera segments, but also to play-by-play. I’m a low-key guy by nature, so I don’t like to get worked up until a moment really calls for it, but I am always excited to be calling a game. On camera, however, it sometimes takes a little bit of effort to make sure that excitement impacts the viewer. I think opening segments and slow moments in the game sounded much better in May, July, September, and October than they did in March and April. That change really started with some feedback from do-it-all analyst Brian Dunseth, so my thanks to him for that honest, helpful critique.

Overall, I felt good about my debut season on television. I would have loved to call a game every weekend and call some playoff games, but I got more comfortable each game and got better as the year went on, and that’s what you hope for. I’m excited to watch the MLS postseason and even more excited to call MLS games next year, hopefully as early as February or March.

Catching up ... and relocating!

I've been too preoccupied to post for the last month or so, so my apologies on that front. We've been in the middle of a move from Philadelphia to Shreveport, Louisiana, and that has taken up most of my time. Things are relatively settled in Shreveport now, so I can get back to the sports business at hand.

In the last 6 weeks, I've called the beginning of the FC Dallas resurgence (its first road win, 2-1 over Colorado - check out the highlights with the TXA 21 commentary, which are unavailable on the MLS website) and part of the Houston Dynamo's five-game win streak (its first win outside the United States, 2-0 over Toronto - check out the highlights). In the process, I got to work with two great color analysts: Ian Joy for the FC Dallas game and Eddie Robinson for the Dynamo game.

Ian has been my most frequent partner in crime in Big D this year, and we enjoyed celebrating his birthday after the July 14 game. Unfortunately for our FCD broadcast team, Ian has accepted a position as analyst for BeIN Sports USA, where he will be an analyst for mostly European matches. I'm disappointed that we won't be working together again in the near future, but excited for him because I think he's a terrific analyst and friend.

Eddie is a long-time colleague and friend from my days working for the Dynamo, of course, and I'm actually going to take some of the credit for starting his broadcast career! He had knee surgery early in the 2009 season and was watching training from the stands near me one morning. He had a litany of comments on a recent national broadcast we had both watched and clearly felt strongly about broadcasting, so I invited him to join me on the radio broadcast for a game when our normal analyst was out of town. He accepted, and though unfortunately no recording of the game exists (I'm pretty sure it was the 0-0 tie against New York), he did very well in his first outing.

Fast forward three years, and Eddie has transitioned to coaching in the Dynamo Academy and regularly working as a color analyst on television broadcasts. He was a rough, physical player, but anybody who covered the Dynamo knows that Eddie Robinson has always been an honest, articulate quote, win or lose. He is the same way as a broadcaster, candidly pointing out both Xs and Os and more subtle nuances with straightforward, easy-to-understand terminology that I believe help fans understand the action. It was great to work with him on a Dynamo game again and catch up off the air.

College football coming your way
Since then, my focus has broadened to include the college football season. I am excited to say that I am scheduled to call four Division I college football games in the next month for ESPN3, all involving Sun Belt Conference teams. Working on a college football television broadcast was one of my main goals at the beginning of the year (while I have called football before and worked on television before, it's my first foray into televised football), so I am proud (and a little bit nervous) to get the chance. Check out my updated broadcast schedule for a list of games, outlets, and partners as they are confirmed.

I'll be posting about those college football games on this site - both about the games themselves and about my experience traveling to and calling them - but I am still a total MLS junkie, and I still have three soccer broadcasts scheduled this fall, so I won't back off the soccer commentary either. That should mean increased blog content all fall, so stay tuned ...

Three keys for FCD against Colorado on TXA 21 Saturday night

After almost two months without working an FC Dallas game, I’m back on the call in the Metroplex on Saturday night, teaming up with Ian Joy on the TXA 21 broadcast of FC Dallas-Colorado Rapids at 8 p.m. CT.

These teams met back on May 6 in Frisco, with Colorado winning 2-0 after Daniel Hernandez and Blas Pérez were BOTH sent off in a three-minute span in the first half, leaving Dallas with just nine men for the rest of the game.

A lot has happened since then, and some Thursday night rumors have been heating up about Toronto midfielder Julian de Guzman potentially being traded to Dallas. But regardless of whether or not FCD has a new center mid, here are three of the key matchups for FC Dallas on Saturday:

1. Set Pieces – Big in any game, set pieces loom especially large because of Colorado’s recent troubles defending them and a serious FC Dallas size advantage. Colorado’s tallest regulars are Conor Casey and Jeff Larentowicz at 6-foot-1. After that, Drew Moor at 6-foot-0 and Jaime Castrillon at 5-foot-11 are next tallest. As you can see above, Colorado’s set-piece strategy has been to position Larentowicz and Moor as zonal markers along the 6-yard box, with 4-6 man markers at the top of the penalty area and nobody covering either post. That leaves shorter players, other than Casey, marking opponents’ primary targets, so driven delivery that lands between the zonal markers can put the Rapids under serious pressure.
   Dallas, meanwhile, boasts big targets in Matt Hedges (6-4), Brek Shea (6-3), Andrew Jacobson (6-2), James Marcelin (6-2) if he starts, and Hernan Pertúz (6 feet). That’s four players taller than Colorado’s tallest, not counting goalkeepers. What’s more, David Ferreira is back and can provide consistently dangerous service, something Daniel Hernandez has struggled to do. After Seattle scored two goals on poor Rapids marking last week, expect Schellas Hyndman and Dallas to look for set pieces early and often. On the other side, it will be interesting to see if Oscar Pareja sticks with the same marking system or tries something new to fix a recurring problem.
2. Defending the Dynamic Duo – Feared as one of the most formidable forward tandems in MLS, Conor Casey and Omar Cummings are a handful for any defense. Colorado is fourth in MLS in scoring at home, averaging two goals per game, which will test a young Dallas back line (Zach Loyd-24 years old, Hernan Pertúz-22,Matt Hedges-22,Carlos Rodriguez-21) that has grown confident after allowing just one goal in the last three games. All three of those games were at home, however; Dallas has the second-worst road defense in MLS, allowing 2.13 goals per road game. Meanwhile, Casey and Cummings have only started together twice this season, but the Rapids had 31 shots in those two games, and expect to see them put a lot of pressure on Kevin Hartman in goal.
3. Second Stanza – While Dallas is one of the worst second-half teams in MLS, Colorado is one of the best. The Rapids have scored 18 of their 25 goals in the second half, including nine goals in the final 15 minutes, which trails only the 'Goonies-never-die' Earthquakes in MLS. Dallas, meanwhile, has surrendered 21 goals in the second half, ranking second-worst after only expansion Montreal. Perhaps most surprisingly, Dallas has only trailed at halftime twice this season, yet its record when leading or tied at the half is a frustrating 3-7-7. Dallas is going to have to close the deal to break either its four-game road losing streak or its 14-game all-competitions winless streak.

* A reminder that you can use Twitter to ask questions of myself and analyst Ian Joy during Saturday’s game by using the hashtag #FCDTV- we'll answer some questions prior to the second-half kickoff.

These matchups are very subject to change, because both teams are unpredictable in terms of formation and personnel, especially with Colorado’s different formations (4-3-3, 4-4-2, 4-1-4-1) and Dallas’ continued injuries and now personal absences. Blas Pérez, sadly, lost his father this week, so you have to assume he won’t be in the lineup, which leaves Dallas without a proven forward. Brek Shea has been playing up top, but we know he’s more comfortable as a wide midfielder. Despite his inconsistency, the speedy Fabian Castillo has a favorable matchup against Colorado right back Hunter Freeman, so I think we might see Shea stay up top.

I'm really interested to see how these teams fare and how their coaches handle some big decisions this weekend - join us on TXA 21 for the broadcast at 8 p.m. CT!

Looking back: May 9 Dallas-Seattle broadcast

So I finished off a frenetic stretch of games, by my standards at least, with the FC Dallas home game against the Seattle Sounders last night. It was my fifth Dallas game in 19 days, which of course is far more taxing for the players than for me!

We knew both teams would be making a lot of lineup changes – Dallas because of injuries and suspension, Seattle because of its own busy schedule – so I had to make sure I studied everybody thoroughly. I was able to go to the open portions of both teams’ training sessions on Tuesday, which were not as helpful as if the practices had been open, but still something that let me take decent guesses at both teams’ lineups.

Ian Joy was my partner on Wednesday, and we got to call a game together from the stadium for the first time, rather than off a monitor. As we have in the past, I thought we worked well together. We had plenty of time before the game to work with the producers and font coordinators in the TV truck to go over the footage and graphics prepared for the game. We go over these before any game, but this felt more comprehensive and less rushed, and I think it helped us lead into those pieces of content during the broadcast.

For instance, we had video soundbytes of Andrew Jacobson talking about his partnership with James Marcelin and of Scott Sealy talking about testing young Seattle goalkeeper Bryan Meredith. So when those talking points came up during the game, we were able to work those in pretty seamlessly. I had talked with both Jacobson and Marcelin the day before and felt it was an especially effective point. In those conversations, I had asked Marcelin if his name should be pronounced mar-suh-lan, as it would be in French, and he confirmed it. Which meant I had to talk Ian out of the old mar-suh-leen pronounciation he had learned while playing with James in Portland. I think it may take a little while for mar-suh-lan to catch on, but that’s the correct way to say it.

As has become normal for Ian and me, we had a last-second lineup change, as Patrick Ianni pulled out with a recurring back injury shortly before kickoff, but Jeff Parke was an able – and ultimately very important – substitution. But more importantly in our open, I felt we hit the important points right away - FC Dallas playing so shorthanded and Mauro Rosales being the key man in the Seattle lineup - and set the stage well for the game. Once it started, the first half was one of the most entertaining halves I’ve called this year, with chances at both ends.

The play of the game came from Meredith - making just his second career MLS start - late in the first half, as he stretched to his right to tip away a Sealy header. For only the second time this year, we had a high end-zone camera behind that goal, one of my favorite angles, and it provided a great look at that play. It even made SportsCenter later that night, although unfortunately without the audio! In all seriousness, I was proud that I called, "Oh, what a save!" in real time and instantly identified it as "the play of the game." You can't always get those right, but I thought we were on top of that one right away.

The game turned in the second half, with Seattle shoring up its defensive midfield shape and bringing on the almost-always lethal Fredy Montero. I had a note to myself that whenever Montero goes at least five games without scoring, he almost always goes on a multi-game tear once he finally gets on the scoreboard. After scoring twice against Dallas, he has three goals and an assist in the last three games, so the Western Conference may be in trouble if he keeps going.

The only thing I really regretted from the broadcast (aside from my allergies forcing excessive use of the ‘cough’ button) was that I was reading a promo during the buildup to Seattle’s second goal. It was fairly unavoidable – we started the read during a throw-in near midfield – and I got out of it as soon as I realized there was a scoring chance, but it’s never fun to have that show up on highlights.

Other than that, it was probably the best broadcast I’ve worked on this year. Credit to Ian for livening things up when the game hit a bit of a lull in the second half, and I was also glad that we were able to talk about some of the positives for Dallas, like Matt Hedges’ debut at center back and the Jacobson/Marcelin partnership in the midfield.

After the game, Ian and I went down to the River Club for the Dallas soccer post-game experience. I got to catch up with Steve Davis and Mark Followill, who were both at the game, and meet Daniel Robertson of BigDSoccer.com for the first time. I’ve got one more game this month – Dallas-Philadelphia on May 19 – and am looking forward to being back.

May 9 video: FCD-SEA

From last night's Dallas-Seattle game, here are the post-game highlights from MLS:

and the online wrap-up Ian and I did for FOXSportsSouthwest.com:

Looking back: April 28 Dallas-LA Galaxy broadcast

Last week I called three games in eight days for FC Dallas. I have three more games coming up in May, including two in the next seven days, but I want to recap the April games one by one. I started with the Dallas-Vancouver match, then covered the mid-week Dallas-RSL game, and conclude with Dallas on the road against the LA Galaxy. You may have heard of them.

April 28 – FS Southwest Plus / FS Southwest joined in progress – FC Dallas at LA Galaxy

Ironically, I may have spent the least time preparing for this game (since it was the third in a row and I was plenty familiar with Galaxy personnel), yet it was definitely my favorite broadcast of the week. The biggest reason for that was probably comfort level. We were working from the same studio, with virtually the same production team, and with the same announcing duo, as the previous Saturday. Somehow knowing the routine and knowing what to expect really does help.

Along with our producer, Ian and I decided before the game to put a little extra emphasis on being energetic throughout the show. It may sound obvious, but it’s easy sometimes to slip into a lull in the game or feel the effects of starting a show at 9:30 p.m., so focusing on energy was a useful reminder throughout the night.

We got the lineups at what felt like the last minute – right after they’re turned in, about 60 minutes before kickoff – and had to make several adjustments to Dallas (with so many injuries, it’s a tough lineup to predict these days) while making one big adjustment to LA. For the second straight week, we got a goalkeeper change, with Bill Gaudette stepping in for Josh Saunders, based on ‘personal reasons.’ We couldn’t find out any more about Saunders’ absence, but luckily I’ve watched a lot of Gaudette games on TV over the years, from St. John’s to Columbus to Puerto Rico, so I knew what to expect. Once again, his was a storyline we knew the cameras would focus on.

For most games, we do a ‘tease’ for the show open, which is about 10-15 seconds of footage supporting a voiceover to set up the game. For the RSL game, for instance, we had focused on Salt Lake’s winless history in Texas and showed footage of its playoff loss to FC Dallas two years prior, the main chip in the rivalry. I enjoy coming up with the verbiage for a tease as a mental challenge of sorts. We skipped the tease for this game, and I actually thought the abrupt intro went well.

Without much time to think about it, I went back to something Dallas midfielder Bobby Warshaw had told me. Warshaw, who ended up not making the start, had told FC Dallas cameras on Thursday, “If you can’t get up for the LA Galaxy at the Home Depot Center on a Saturday night, you’re in the wrong sport.” So my intro ended up being, “Games don’t get much bigger than this for FC Dallas, playing on the road against the defending MLS Cup champion, the LA Galaxy.” (Looking back at it, I probably should have said “regular season games” for total accuracy, but it just didn’t flow.) Simple, right? Nothing magic about it. But somehow it felt like the right energy with which to start a show, and I thought we carried that energy throughout the broadcast.

This really felt like our best show, start to finish. It was an easy game to stay excited about, with chances for both teams and several swings of possession and momentum throughout the game. In the second half, we knew the regular FOX Sports Southwest audience would be joining the game in progress after the Texas Rangers broadcast ended, and they just happened to come in as Robbie Keane was stepping up to a penalty kick. Now I can’t imagine changing the channel on a penalty kick, even if soccer wasn’t my sport, so I felt like we had a good chance to pick up some viewers. The timing was tight, so in the end I called the penalty kick – a miss, shockingly – and then welcomed in the audience. I hope a few Rangers fans or casual fans stuck around because of that dramatic entry to the broadcast!

It became a dramatic game to call, with Brek Shea scoring another penalty kick (unfortunately often the least dramatic way to call a goal) and Dallas trying to protect a 1-0 lead. It would have been an invaluable point, but LA managed to tie the game in stoppage time. The call of that goal was an awkward one for me, as I called out, “Dallas …” planning to say “clears the ball,” but then had to adjust mid-stride, eventually saying something to the effect of “… gives it away late.” Maybe not the perfect call, but exactly what it felt like in that case, as FC Dallas went from its biggest win of the season to a tie that, while a decent result considered in a vacuum, surely felt like two points lost. I'm trying to track down a DVD copy of the game to share some of the game highlights with you, so hopefully I can do that on my next trip to Big D.

Despite the outcome for Dallas, I felt great after the game. I really felt like it was the best of the four games I’ve called for FC Dallas this year, and I can’t wait to get back on the air this week with two more games, Sunday against Colorado and Wednesday against Seattle.

Looking back: April 21 Dallas-Vancouver broadcast

I haven’t written a whole lot recently, because I’ve been staying busy preparing for and calling three games in eight days for FC Dallas. I have three more games coming up in May, including two in the next nine days, but I want to recap the April games one by one, starting with the Dallas-Vancouver match.

April 21 – TXA 21 – FC Dallas at Vancouver Whitecaps

The Vancouver game on April 21 was my first to call from a remote studio, which is always a challenge. You prepare for a game done from studio pretty much the same way you prepare for any other, but it’s definitely weird to put on a suit, pick up your color analyst, and drive to an isolated building where you share the parking lot with about 10 cars.

In this case, things got a little rushed because I could not resist watching the end of the perfect game thrown by my former Rice classmate, Philip Humber, and because I’m still learning the ins and outs of North Dallas driving. But I met up with my analyst, former U.S. international Ian Joy, and we set about finding the studio. From exchanging e-mails with Ian and our producer during the week, I could tell Ian was excited about the broadcast, but I don’t think I was quite prepared for his Scottish accent! Once I got used to it, however, we got along well.

I was plenty familiar with Vancouver from seeing the Whitecaps in preseason and in Philadelphia, and I of course watch every FC Dallas minute I can, so I felt confident in my research, but I wasn’t sure how we would be affected by not being there in person (especially a stadium to which I've never been). We found out one effect in short order.

When you call a game remotely, your production team is receiving a video feed from the home team's production at the site of the game. You get pretty much whatever angle they’re showing, but you get it without graphics; this is called a “clean feed.” You also get an audio soundtrack of stadium and field noise without the home commentators; this is called “international audio.” In the end, you’re sitting there with crowd noise in your headphones and a big monitor of the game in front of you, so it’s not quite as hard as you might think.

But when we got word about 10 minutes before we went on air that Kevin Hartman had pulled out due to back spasms and Chris Seitz was making his second FC Dallas start, there was a bit of scrambling to adjust the talking points in our second segment. While there is some communication and coordination between the two production teams in terms of replays, you rarely know which camera angle the feed will cut to next, so we had to wait until the camera focused on Seitz to really make our points about him. Fortunately, the last-minute change was a main storyline for everybody calling the game, not just the Dallas broadcasters, so the Vancouver feed gave him plenty of time.

The game itself went very well, I thought. Ian may be early in his broadcasting career, mostly having done radio work in Salt Lake City, but he obviously knows the game and is excellent at conveying that to viewers. He had faced Vancouver teenager Omar Salgado personally in training in Portland, so that was another nice ‘in’ that we had on a key storyline, namely Salgado’s first start of the year.

Dallas lost the game, playing OK despite rarely forcing Joe Cannon into a tough save, but I thought Ian and I worked very well together and worked with the production team to put together a good show. As it turns out, there were technical difficulties during the first 15-20 minutes of the game, resulting in our graphics and commentary not making the TXA 21 airwaves. Unfortunately, that included the only goal of the game, a great effort from Vancouver’s Camilo, which meant my only goal call of the night was lost to history. That was definitely frustrating to find out after the fact, but I know everybody on the technical end was working hard to get us on the air, and at least Dallas fans did get the clean feed during those early portions of the game.

Additionally, the broadcast was tape-delayed, which meant that when we got to a restaurant around 11:30 p.m., we were just in time to watch the last 15 minutes or so on TV. It’s more than a little odd reading the closed-captioning of your own speech, but it was cool to see the game’s distribution in person, something we don’t usually get to do and a good way to end the night.

I'll follow up with more from the April 25 and April 28 broadcasts later in the week, as well as look at some key trends heading into the FC Dallas matches against Colorado and Seattle.