Strikes Two and Three on Dave O'Brien

Watching World Cup matches called by Dave O'Brien/produced by ESPN has gotten almost comical. Three instances from this afternoon's England-Ecuador game stand out. The first was when Marcello Balboa called O'Brien out for completely misanalyzing the situation for the second time in a week.

Situation: England is struggling in about the 40th minute, tied 0-0 with Ecuador, England have been unable to feed the ball to striker Wayne Rooney, largely considered the core of this England team.

O'BRIEN: You look in the eyes of Wayne Rooney, and you can tell it's only a matter of time before he breaks free and puts it in the back of the Ecuador net.
BALBOA: Really? I see the exact opposite. He's saying, "Just give me the ball!!! Please!!!"

I don't know what was funnier, the fact that Balboa rebuked O'Brien again, or that they were arguing over something entirely subjective, completely irrelevant to the match, and impossible to know for certain without some sort of ESP.

The second moment came in the 60th minute when David Beckham scored the lone goal of the game on a free kick set piece, and O'Brien commented, "This is a great score by David Beckham because he puts it on goal." Thanks, Dave. As opposed to his ugly goals where they are shot outside the frame of the goal. Idiot.

Lastly came the studio discussion after the game. Brent Musburger thankfully defers to former US National team stars Eric Wynalda and Alexi Lalas for their expertise, but maybe he shouldn't. After showing a shot of David Beckham puking from dehydration on the field, Lalas commented, "And I'll bet he wasn't the only one in the stadium doing that, knowing how much English fans love their football." Wynalda rightfully challenged this failed attempt at humor. "So you're saying that people are puking all over the stadium?"

Awesome.