Woo hoo, after the hangover from World Cup 2006, Champions League season is finally here. I look forward to this competition mainly because it is the only major football being shown on terrestrial TV, yeah I am a poor bastard for not having Astro, I know.
Unfortunately, I missed the last round of matches because they were only shown on 8TV and TV9 instead of the usual TV3, and yeah, I am an even poorer bastard for not having these 2 channels too. Anyhow, the dimwits finally realised the folly of their ways and rectified this travesty. Naturally, I took this opportunity to satiate my thirst for live top level football (Malaysian footie doesn't count), waking up bleary-eyed at 3 am.
In my sleep deprived state, I immediately sensed that something was different. The voice commentating seemed to possess a fake foreign accent and it was not as clear as usual. Then it hit me, instead of the usual 'ang moh' commentators, who were always funny and gave interesting comments if nothing else, they used their own 'Malaysia Boleh' el cheapo pundit, who was neither insightful nor interesting. In fact, he was a total bore, the steady monotone being a veritable cure for insomnia, not that I needed one at that moment. It seems like they just selected someone who can make out the which players are which on a TV screen and just because he can adopt a fake accent.
Commentators are useful whenever a match gets boring, which coincidentally happened to the one I was viewing, giving obscure trivia at lulls in the game. Our local hero though, gave out something like 2 bits of trivia, I was not sure because he could not be heard at times over the din of the crowd. Well, even if he was not a fact maniac, he could at least know his football right? Wrong, as it turns out, as he gave the wrong call at least twice.
As a viewer, there are three things I look for in TV pundits, passion, humour and knowledge. Looks like our local commentators can only get two out of three at most.
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