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England’s Not Going To Euro 2008, But Steve McClaren Is….
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Cue epic epic riots in England.
Tis true. Despite his well-documented failures in leading England to the tournament as a participant, McClaren will be making his way to Swissaustria as a member of the media. Ole Steve will be asked to offer up his “expert analysis” on the various games during the finals for BBC Radio Five Live. So what McClaren is going to do is give you all the inside tips and then you can figure out how not to apply them to your assessment of the English national team. Also, they made sure Fabio Capello’s English still isn’t good enough to understand a word he’s saying, so as not to have a repeat performance heading into WC 2010 qualifying.
The suits at the network were also nice enough to hand Steve a soft first game, the June 8th matchup between co-hosts Austria and Croatia. The same Croatia which effectively ended England’s Euro hopes.
Good move/bad move? Well, ratings are ratings, and I’m pretty sure intent isn’t counted when Five Live is counting its listeners at the end of the day. So the question becomes: will more people purposefully tune out McClaren’s broadcasts, more people tune in to hear what kind of “expert @#$%ing analysis” he’s giving, or will they simply not care and tune in for the footy? Who knows.
What I do know is there will be a lot of broken radios in England during the Euros.
Daryl beat me to it. I predict record listenership for the beeb in Scotland. As for me, I’m going to be getting the games every way I can, so aside from appreciating the sweet sweet irony of it, I won’t much care which pundit I get.
The other reason this doesn’t make sense is that Steve McClaren has zero charisma. To be a radio personality you need… a personality.
Also, we won’t be able to see his shiny teeth through the radio. Will we?
[...] will be making his way to Swissaustria as a member of the media. Ole Steve will be asked to … MORE >>Creadit By weight [...]
That’s true – I can’t think of any England manager I would want less to listen to. Say what you will about Keegan – at least he’d be fun. Sven wouldn’t be too ideal either, but at least if Sven did it, it would open up new material for his puppet alter ego.
My how the mighty have fallen…the BBC that is!
Get shot of Ian Wright and end up with Steve McLaren…ITV it is for me!
You say that now Paulo, but a couple of games with Clive “that night in Barcelona” Tyldesley will have you running back to the BBC.
[...] beer you drink, the better chance your team has of winning the Euros, I guess. The news just gets worse by the day for England, doesn’t it? Tags: Euro 2008 News, Romania, Raiffeisen, Czech Republic, [...]
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I’ll be tuning in to see how McClaren thinks he can get away with this, and probably tuning out again in anger. I don’t imagine anyone in England is going to be pleased to hear McClaren’s voice during the tournament. Listeners in Scotland and Wales might feel differently though…