USA-Costa Rica highlights

I had the privilege of calling the US women's national team's final game of 2019 on Sunday, a 6-0 cruise against Costa Rica that was most notable as the second game for new US head coach Vlatko Andonovski as he prepares the US for Olympic qualifying that starts in late January.

It was some adjustment to go from college soccer venues that mostly have fewer than 4,000 seats to calling a game in an 80,000-seat football stadium. Let's just say binoculars came in handy! But a true joy to cover this team for my only ESPN2 game of the fall and to work with Julie Foudy again. Here are the highlights:

USA-Germany highlights

I got to call the top two women's national teams in the world on Wednesday night, as the US faced Germany in what amounted to the championship game of the inaugural SheBelieves Cup.

Here's how the drama looked and sounded from Boca Raton:

Wonderfully busy start to 2016

I can assure you, fewer than 40 days in, that 2016 is a year I will never forget.

But if my year's signature moment already happened (I've been on my version of paternity leave since the NWSL College Draft on Jan. 15), that still leaves another 11 months to try and maintain a solid body of work.

Thankfully, I've set my plans for most of the next two months with a schedule that will be fun but will also challenge me.

That's not my pom-pom, I promise.

It starts this week, with two basketball games as part of my five-game stint covering the MAAC for ESPN3. One of those five is already in the books, although the game we were attempting to broadcast was curtailed by a leaky ceiling.

So on Thursday, it's up to the Bronx to see Manhattan play Quinnipiac (8 p.m. ET, ESPN3), while Friday will see me taking the PATH train back out to Jersey City to give the Yanitelli Center a second chance as St. Peter's hosts Niagara (7 p.m. ET, ESPN3). To complete my MAAC stint, I'll be up in Buffalo at Canisius for a men's game on Feb. 20 and a women's game on Feb. 25.

The MAAC is pretty much a one-bid league, but it's a really exciting one. While Monmouth is one of the most talked-about mid-majors in the country this year, Manhattan is the two-time defending tournament champion, and all the schools I've researched have either a great scorer, a great story, or both. Since moving to New York in the fall of 2013, I've been hoping to do some broader basketball coverage, and I'm excited to get this chance.

• Current 2016 broadcast schedule

Once March rolls around, though, it will be back to my bread and butter. While I won't be a regular part of Red Bulls radio broadcasts this year, I've got five televised MLS games and a US women's national team game already lined up, and that's more in-person TV work than I get in some MLS seasons. I'll work FC Dallas-Philadelphia Union for opening day on March 6, and then I'll call play-by-play for at least three Red Bulls games on the MSG Networks while lead voice Steve Cangialosi is on Devils duty. I've actually never called a TV game at Red Bull Arena (my MSG work last year came on the road), so I'm looking forward to that first.

These games really get me excited to start what I hope is going to be a terrific year of broadcast work (while I simultaneously figure out how to raise a child, cook for my wife, study for those games, and, y'know, sleep). I hope you'll enjoy any portion of it that you might catch!

Catching up with Megan Rapinoe, a soccer flashback, and more

OK, so I've been a delinquent blogger lately. I've got some good excuses, but let's try to provide a brief recap:

Since my one-off return to college football in Troy with the inimitable Mickey Matthews on Sept. 12, I have called four college soccer games (one men's, three women's) with three different partners, all in different parts of the country. I've seen some great goals, a landmark win for Mississippi State (which was extra cool to see because I saw them struggle last year), and a rematch of last year's national championship game in women's soccer.

The highlight, however, had to be meeting and interviewing US women's national team star Megan Rapinoe, a woman I respect as much for her off-field public personality and leadership as for her on-field exploits. By just about all accounts, she's one of the best role models you could suggest for a niece, nephew, child, or friend. She was on hand at the Oct. 18 Portland-Santa Clara game as the Pilots celebrated their 2005 national championship team, on which she played, and joined another former Pilot, Shannon MacMillan, and me for an interview at the start of the second half.

Even more good news is that my soccer season is far from over. I just arrived in Dallas to call the American Athletic Conference women's semifinals (today, for the American Digital Network) and final (Sunday, for ESPN3/ESPNU). With the tournament being held at SMU's Westcott Field, this brings back some memories: As a student, I called Rice's trip to the 2003 WAC Tournament at the same venue, culminating in a heartbreaking, last-minute loss to SMU, then the conference's powerhouse.

I'm pretty sure those were my first soccer games called on the road, and I definitely remember some technical difficulties (note the old-school connection via phone line and an actual phone). Probably a good thing that, to my knowledge anyway, no copies of those games exist!

The four teams left in this year's field are all competitive, with UConn leading the way at No. 10 in the country, and links to watch the games can be found here.

At any rate, next weekend I will turn back to the men's game, calling the Sun Belt Conference men's tournament in the somewhat remote town of Boone, N.C., home to Appalachian State University, in what will likely close the book on my 2015 soccer season.

Much more on that later, however. For now, I'm off to watch and call some top-25 teams play elimination games with a conference title and more on the line. Not bad at all!

Compliments en français

This is not going to be the most humble post in blog history, so bear with me.

In preparing to call the US-France women's game on Thursday, I worked really hard to learn the correct pronunciations for the French players' names. I watched the women's French Cup final, I watched France's friendly against Brazil, and I watched one of their qualifying matches against Austria. I also watched their behind-the-scenes YouTube videos from the 2013 European Championship. I read a lot of French articles and tweets about the French women's team, known as Les Bleues (feminine version of Les Bleus, as the men's team is known). By far the most French studying I had done since my junior year of college.

USA 2, France 2 - stream archive

I'm exhausted this morning after calling USA-France last night and getting home at about 1:30 a.m. last night, then rising early for working hours today.

But I'm happy. I had a blast calling the US game last night, and I'm very relieved that the United States' record home unbeaten streak survived my first game on the call, now extended to 84 games (73-0-11) after the 2-2 tie.

I got to call two excellent goals from cult hero Alex Morgan, her first goals for the US in more than a year (due in large part to injury), even if the enthusiastic screams obscured my voice at times.

More on the game later, including pictures and some reviews of my French accent, but here's the stream archive:

USA vs. France tonight at 7:30 pm!

Rentschler Field

Tonight I get to call the US women's national team for the first time when they host France at 7:30 pm at Rentschler Field in East Hartford, Conn. The game can be seen at USSoccer.com.

I can admit I've got a few butterflies for this one. Calling the national team is always a big deal, and it's the first time I've called the women's national team, let alone in a game pitting teams ranked Nos. 1 and 4 in the world against each other.

But I'm far more excited than nervous and really looking forward to the game. I talked with new US head coach Jill Ellis by phone yesterday and have been watching tape on both the US and France for several weeks now.

The US is about one year away from the World Cup, and while they still have qualifying to go through in the fall, it's expected to be a formality. So this two-game series with France (the US won on Saturday in Tampa, 1-0, highlights) is about preparing the team's contributors to play high-level opposition and to give them time to adapt to a new style. From its typical starting lineup, the US is without goalkeeper Hope Solo (personal commitment), midfielder Megan Rapinoe (foot), midfielder Shannon Boxx (maternity). Forward Abby Wambach (LCL) did not train on Wednesday, while forward Alex Morgan has yet to start since returning from an ankle injury.

France is at the end of its season (the European season runs fall-to-spring), and this is the only summer in a four-year cycle without a major tournament (2011 Women's World Cup semifinals, 2012 Olympics semifinals, Euro 2013 quarterfinals). But as you can see from their results at major tournaments, France is an elite team trying to learn how to be champions, and playing the US is the best possible test.

For more on the game, here are a few preview articles I looked through this morning:
Hartford Courant with Alex Morgan on the men's World Cup
Soccerly.com on US objectives
Soccerly.com on what the game means to France
L'Equipe with French captain Wendie Renard, including this quote: "The team is at the end of the season, obviously, and there is fatigue, but for the group, it is good to compare yourself to the big nations. If one day you want to win a title, you have to go through them. The fans will be against us, and it will be interesting to see how people react mentally …"

Two soccer broadcasts coming up next week

Storm brewing during Open Cup game between
Philadelphia and Rochester in 2012.

The eyes of the soccer world are on the World Cup in Brazil, and mine are as well. But soccer continues elsewhere, particularly in the United States, where the US Open Cup, USL PRO, and NWSL all continue playing. I’ve been fortunate enough to schedule two broadcasts so far during the World Cup, both coming next week.

First up, on Tuesday, I’ll be calling the online stream of the US Open Cup game between the Philadelphia Union and Harrisburg City Islanders. I love the Open Cup. I love the pressure the single-elimination Open Cup creates in each game, its potential for upsets, and (if I’m honest) its role as a niche competition overlooked by many. I lived in Philadelphia for almost a year in 2011-12 as my better half finished her studies, so I saw two games during the Union’s run to the Open Cup semifinals in 2012 (including their win over Rochester, pictured above), and I’m excited to be calling their home games in the tournament this year.

Tuesday's game will mean a little something extra to Philadelphia players because it will be the first game for interim manager Jim Curtin, and thus the first chance for players to prove they deserve playing time in the future. Harrisburg is off to a slow start and relies on four on-loan Union players during league play. That quartet will not be allowed to play on Tuesday, one reason Harrisburg is a decided underdog. Don’t write them off, though; the City Islanders have advanced in five of their nine all-time meetings against MLS clubs in the Open Cup.

My second broadcast next week, on Thursday, is exciting in a very different way. It will be my first chance to call a game for the women’s national team, the top-ranked team in the world, as they take on No. 4 France in the second of back-to-back friendly games. These teams’ recent competitive meetings (2011 Women’s World Cup semifinals, 2012 Olympics) were both highly entertaining (3-1 and 4-2 US wins), and France is one of the few teams that can hope to match the US in terms of skill, so this is as big a friendly as you could hope to call, and it will be streamed on USsoccer.com.

Watching tape (and by tape, I generally mean YouTube, although sketchy streams from France have also been used) on both France and the US has been a lot of fun. Both teams will bring some of the best players in the world, particularly on the attacking side of the ball, but we'll also get to see some newer faces at Rentschler Field in East Hartford, Conn., all hoping to make the squads for next year's Women's World Cup in Canada.

I took French in both high school and college and loved trying to read the daily sports newspaper L’Equipe when I have traveled in France, so determining the correct pronunciations for French players’ names has been a blast. It’s made for a busy few weeks of preparation, and it should pay off when I call both games next week!