The commentator on one of the recent World Cup games was enthusing about the efficiency of the German rail network. I think the commentator was John Helm, but Cable TV never tell us who is commentating so I may be doing him an injustice. What I’m trying to figure out is how he managed to be at the England vs. Ecuador game and the Portugal vs. Netherlands game on the same day – either the rail network must be extremely efficient or all the commentators sound the same (apart from the excellent Martin Tyler, who it certainly was not).
Or maybe he only goes to one of the games and does the commentary for the other one remotely. Eurosport used to provide almost all of their football coverage from a studio in West London, and one UK radio station provided "unauthorized" commentary by sitting some experts in front of a TV set. I’m not sure anyone could tell the difference.
However, John Helm (or whoever it is) obviously wants us to know that he is actually in Germany. Unfortunately, being there doesn’t seem to help much – for example, when Michael Owen went off injured, "John Helm" told us that this would disrupt Sven’s master plan because England would start hoofing the ball up to Peter Crouch. No, of course they didn’t, because as we know, Crouch is good with his feet and not so good with his head. He’s got a good touch for a big man, you know.
The other annoying part of the commentary is that they seem to be obliged to say "FIFA World Cup" and "FIFA World Cup stadium" every few minutes. Oh, and if Sepp Blatter is at the game we always get a shot of him, because he’s an important person.
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