Soccer and Lalas

Every time I watch a game courtesy of Fox, I sigh with resignation because Alexi Lalas will show up sooner or later and share his unsophisticated thoughts on soccer. I suppose that he has appeal for some viewers or perhaps he's just on because his truculent behavior matches the house style of this network. In any case, he never fails to annoy me. He was not talented as a soccer player- shirt pulling, tripping, and being belligerent seemed to be his best skills.

I'd rather watch Rebecca Lowe, Lee Dixon, Robbie Mustoe, Robbie Earle, Graeme LeSaux, and Kyle Martino (although Martino takes too long to say his piece and doesn't seem to have quite the feel for football that the others do). I should also add that Lowe has taken to showing up in American bars and conversing with the howling drunks who infest such places on game day.

The 2018 Champions League final is about to start and there's Lalas- the frowning uncomprehending basilisk- a complement to the immensely vulgar pre-game music by Dua Lipa that we're also forced to endure.

I see that the Guardian has expressed similar reservations about Lalas and Fox.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/jun/11/fox-sports-world-cup-coverage

I watched a bit of Portugal vs Spain today and the Fox commentators ably reduced the event to industrial grade soccer with a stream of patter more appropriate to high school coaching than top quality international soccer. Yech!

Things got progressively worse with the introduction of Aly Wagner so I just gave up. Fortunately, there was Telemundo. I don't understand more than 5 words of Spanish but it sounds so much nicer than the Fox crew.