Daily News & Analysis of the English Premier League

← 2008/2009 Premier League Fixtures As Predictable As League Itself ‘Squeaky bum time’ for Russia and Sweden →

Julie Foudy: You Are ESPN’s Weakest Link, Goodbye!

June 18th, 2008 By The Gaffer --> Comments

julie-foudy Julie Foudy: You Are ESPNs Weakest Link, Goodbye!At the start of the Euro 2008 tournament, ESPN pundits were asked who was going to be their star of the tournament. Pundit Julie Foudy picked Thierry Henry. Her choice showed how clueless she is about the sport.

I’m still scratching my head why ESPN selected Foudy as a member of their Euro 2008 broadcasting team. Maybe the network thought it wanted to break up the male monopoly by having a token female on its staff?

It would have been wiser for ESPN to have selected Seamus Malin instead of Foudy, a former member of the U.S. women’s team.

If you have any clue why Foudy was selected, please share your comments below.

Related Posts

Tags: ESPN · ESPN2 · Football Coverage on TV Networks

Viewing 48 Comments

    • ^
    • v
    I think she was rightfully selected on the basis of ANYONE BUT SEAMUS MALIN.
    • ^
    • v
    You gotta stop the extra early morning postings...they make no sense.

    If you follow the international scene long enough, you know when push comes to shove that Henry steps up for country.

    I don't think any of us though realized this team was just that old, to the point it borderlined on sad.

    I haven't minded Fowdy at all. Actually the more over the top hate (seems to me like these people want the gig themselves...not going to happen people) Fowdy gets, the more I want ESPN to keep her center camera.
    • ^
    • v
    She is the worst!
    • ^
    • v
    Look shoot for me being somewhat nationalistic but some of us appreciate having an American on these studio shows breaking up the lens of everything being viewed from a purely European perspective. I understand the Brits invented football and many feel the Americans

    a) have no business playing it
    b) have made it a girls sport
    c) have generally corrupted what is a beautiful game.

    However if these matches are going to be aired and produced for an AMERICAN audience, it is important to have an American perspective. Who better than a former national team member who actually follows world football unlike Eric Wynalda and isn't a total anglophile like John Harkes to give a balanced reasoned perspective.

    Those who want to make our coverage or matches resemble that of the match coverage in the UK don't realize the game will never grow beyond its small core base of fans here or will even reach the masses of latino and southern european fans who are used to a different type of viewing experience including different types of commentators. The inclusion of Pedro Gomes a cuban-american from Miami who knows soccer and used to attend Strikers matches growing up is a good step in the right direction.

    Foudy commented on the 1998 and 2006 World Cups in the ESPN studio and while their were complaints the attacks on her during the Euros have been over the top and quite frankly in some cases (not from you gaffer but from other) purely sexist and smacking of two things:

    1- A women should not comment on a man's game.
    2- An American should not comment on a British/European game.

    Those who have made these types of implied comments need to understand the bigger picture and appreciate that this is 2008 and not 1958.
    • ^
    • v
    ew ew, thake her picture off please. my eyes are burning!!!
    • ^
    • v
    "when push comes to shove [...] Henry steps up for country" - I must have missed that game.

    Foudy's been OK; you might criticise some of her predictions but her knowledge of the world game seems fine. And I really enjoyed Gullit hitting on her yesterday.

    I thought Pedro Gomes has been very poor, but maybe he just rubs me up the wrong way.

    Overall, the top layer of competent American talent is very thin, but that's only to be expected given the sport's relative profile.
    • ^
    • v
    She hasnt been too bad and Kartik is right, its not surprising to have an American or two in the coverage - we are lucky its not Marcelo Balboa and the likes of Wynalda.
    Julie has been fine - so she doesnt know as much as Andy Gray but she does know as much as Tommy Smyth.
    I have no complaints with her really. All in all ESPN havent done too bad a job and there is an awful lot worse than her out there they could have picked. Its an American network - be thankful you have it at all and its not PPV like the last one.

    PS) Henry scored one goal in 2 games against tough teams. A one in two ratio is pretty good at the best of times - and one of those games he played on a team with 10 men against the best defense in the world.
    • ^
    • v
    I can't say she's the weakest link. My problem, and it's probably shared with a lot of hard core American fans, but still my problem, is that I'm thoroughly anglicized in all of my conceptual thinking about the game, and when she talks about soccer in American terms ("go ball", "offensive zone", etc), it grates. But she's not unique in that respect, and certainly not the worst.
    • ^
    • v
    meh, Barry Glendenning of the Guardian picked Russia to go to the Finals and extolled the virtues of Gomez as the German scoring machine of the tourney.

    There is a reason why people aimlessly bet on first goals and golden boots. They are difficult to predict. Take her to task for something tangible, back it up with a funny youtube of her making an ass of herself or concede that YOU, Gaffer, are making an ass of YOURself.

    I think the pre/post match stuff has been mostly fluff (as with virtually every pre/post match report of any sport on TV ever unless you are so unbelievably biased due to an extreme interest in your team's game or win) but Foudy hasn't deserved to be pulled out for ridicule in my mind. She is much better than the crap ESPN has thrown out in the past and is better than Smyth. Sheesh.
    • ^
    • v
    She says "offsides": it isn't plural, it is an "offside", lady! Gullit hitting on her after the Holland's game was hilarious.
    But, yes, she is clueless about the game, compared to others. Hey, again, ESPN has done fantastic so far, and I am not going to badmouth them for picking her to sit in the studio.
    Remember the dark days when you had to pay $200 for the whole tourney? And the days of a 2 hour Premier League highlights show on your local Fox Sports station in the middle of the night. Or, even more recently, the days of Wynalda, O'Brian, and Balboa in the studio?
    Come on, life is good nowadays!!!
    • ^
    • v
    OMFG thank you gaff.
    I've been saying this since the tournament started.

    She is horrible. Has no clue what she's talking about.

    I'm going to keep saying it, I can do a better job than her.
    • ^
    • v
    The perception of Foudy among knowledgable viewers: she "mails it in".

    It should be obvious even to casual viewers that she is not doing enough preparation for the broadcasts.
    • ^
    • v
    Did anyone catch her yelling KOBE! KOBE! KOBE! the other night when they were doing Celtics v Lakers highlights?
    • ^
    • v
    To be honest Foudy has not been good, in fact the guy next to her sucks too. This is football or excuse me soccer. They constantly use phrases like fastbreak and screen pass this is not basketball and the constant comparison is demeaning to the great sport that is football.

    ESPN and their entire team are guilty of trying to dumb down the sport by having Julie go over goals and point out stuff like she would have had so much vision that it could never have happened to her.

    I am bored with the English ESPN and watch in Spanish even if my spanish is limited to Yo hablo espanol, it is 1000000% better than listening to that in studio nonsense.
    • ^
    • v
    I have a theory...I think ESPN is facing so many sexual harassment lawsuits that they overcompensate and trot out women for the sake of trotting out women. "Hey, we're nice to women, see how often they show up on our studio telecasts? See how often we promote the WNBA?"

    Foudy = ESPN's defensive posture
    • ^
    • v
    American ingenuity has fueled the world economy, changed science and technology and generally made the world a safer and more humane place to live in. Yet I am constantly shocked by the number of Americans who show their guilt or dare I say their inferiority complex by claiming we cannot use our terminology to describe the game our viewers. The game must be described in a European or British fashion. These people have some chip on their shoulder and feel in order to prove how much they love Football or understand it they must bash everything American. The funny thing which I'll mention later in greater detail is Europeans themselves don't find the American coverage of the sport or the fact we play it as offensive as some of you.

    Why do some of you feel the British/Euro terminology is by default the proper terminology? Is it because this is their sport and we are barbaric heathens that like Nascar and the violence of American Football over the subtle beauty of football? Of course not! Again, Europeans don't view this way outside of some ignorant journalists on Fleet Street, but American soccer fans feel they must show how unlike fans of American sports they are.

    It is because some of you are so reared in the American Soccer culture that anything American in this sport is somehow inferior to its European counterpart.

    Everytime I go to the UK I am amazed by how many foreign names their announcers mispronounce (names that strangely many American announcers reared on Baseball, a game that has lots of ethnic latinos in the big leagues can pronounce properly) and by how poor their general production quality is compared to any mainstream American TV production. Yet I don't scream, "Hire some Americans." It is what it is: a program geared to a British audience.

    This is American TV, not the BBC or ITV. Rece Davis and Julie Foudy are explaining terms to generally an American audience. Why do some of you have to act like complete eurosnob elitists in knocking any American commentary or discussion of this game. If you don't want us playing the game then just say it. Say the US shouldn't have a domestic league or a national team because we will always be inferior to the Europeans (even though we as a nation have conquered everything we have ever set out to conquer) and that you wish all the announcers and studio guests were European.

    Gaffer made a simple suggestion of Seumas Malin who I grew up with and like. But he
    too would be waaaaaaaaaaay too Americanized in his terminology for many of you.

    The funny thing is people in England or in Europe aren't this way about Americans and their interest in the game. They are generally pretty curious about the US National Team, MLS/USL and how the game is covered here.

    It's Americans who somehow feel they are inferior as a football fan that have to prove how smart they are about the game by showing how European oriented they are and by bashing all things American that propagate this culture and it flat out sucks.
    • ^
    • v
    Kartik
    I gave you a strong agreement above but I disagree here:
    The funny thing is people in England or in Europe aren’t this way about Americans and their interest in the game. They are generally pretty curious about the US National Team, MLS/USL and how the game is covered here.

    I dont think anyone in England particularly cares about the US National team or MLS.

    Also when i am watching Baseball - I prefer to have American commentators and the same for NFL - when Sky used to do the NFL (and they may still do this) they had English people at half time doing the studio bit and by God they sucked. Sometimes its best to stick to who's good at it.
    That said I think Foudy has been fine - Tommy not so much and I dont like Seamus (and I am half Irish). I am just delighted I am seeing this for free and also on ESPN360 - this coverage has been alright for me.

    In England we trot out some right muppets, Tim Sherwood on Setanta , Mark lawrenson (an acquired taste but not mine), Barry Venison and his awful suits used to pop up on Sky...
    • ^
    • v
    Well my experience has been different abroad. No the US team isn't on their mind but when I tell them I'm American they are curious. Of course they've never heard of any American players, but who would? Right now Canada has better players than we do (as I just wrote to a listener who complained about my always having the "negative" Jaime Trecker on my show) and our few positive results are due to our vast financial advantage over federations like Canada, Jamaica, Honduras who actually have better players and ones making more of an impact in top leagues. Actually in the case of Canada and Honduras they have better players in MLS than any of the top yanks stateside.

    Brazil-Argentina tonight. Sure the Euros have been good, but it doesn't get any better than this. I spent $25 so it better be a cracker!