On the final episode of the World Cup Buzz Podcast this week, analyst Laurence McKenna mentioned how he was looking forward to the World Cup video montages that are often created and distributed on YouTube. While more will be certainly be released in the coming days, I’ve found three which I think you’ll enjoy.

Each of them is quite different than the other. The first one is from American TV network ABC which combines video of a U2 live concert with highlights from World Cup 2010. The second is a more creative version from the BBC which is quite unique to say the least. And the third and final one is from ITV in the United Kingdom and is more commercialized but still worth watching.

So, based on these video montages, are you an ABC, BBC or ITV person?

ABC:

BBC:

ITV:

HT to The Original Winger for unearthing the ABC and BBC vids.

Today marks the launch of a brand-new campaign by BBC Five Live to encourage soccer fans to create the mother of all Mexican Waves from around the world.

To launch the campaign, BBC Five Live collected snapshots of key individuals doing the Mexican Wave and pieced them all together into the above video. The people featured include yours truly, Miley Cyrus, rapper Dizzee Rascal, LL Cool J, Richard Hammond (from Top Gear) and many others.

At the Big Mexican Wave website, users upload photos of themselves in one of four Mexican Wave poses, which the site then automatically turns into a 30 second Mexican Wave video of the user, combined with 5 live presenters and celebrities. The finished result can then be shared on Facebook, Twitter and via email.

Every person who uploads their photo will get a completely unique Mexican Wave – each video will feature the user alongside a random selection of photos from other users’ uploads and celebrity pictures.

At the end of the World Cup all photos will be turned into the Big Mexican Wave where you can watch yourself in the ultimate celeb packed Mexican Wave video, where you could see yourself supporting your beside the stars.

Anyone want to guess which bloke is me in the above video? Make your guesses in the comments section below.

The trailer for the upcoming relaunch of Special 1 TV, this time on BBC 3, has been launched (see above video).

While I’m excited about the show coming back on the airwaves, I must say that I am very underwhelmed by the trailer. They could have put some effort into it rather than this weak attempt.

Let’s hope the show itself is a lot more creative. There’ll be so much fodder for the first episode that creator Mario Rosenstock may not know where to start. Rafa getting the heave-ho. The Special One being special and moving to Spain. Sven in charge at Ivory Coast. Rooney being Rooney, and so much more.

Special 1 TV, the cult TV show that was a hit on Setanta Sports from December 2007 until May 2009, is making a triumphant return to the airwaves this June courtesy of BBC. The new show, still under the “Special 1 TV” moniker, will be available on BBC 3.

The show was a bigger success in the United States than the United Kingdom. And I’m sure there were far more people who watched the episodes via YouTube in the States than in the UK.

The relaunch of Special 1 TV on BBC3 this summer is perfect timing especially with all of the fodder Mario Rosenstock – the man behind the show and the voices – will have available to him during the World Cup. Imagine what they can do with Jose, Sven (managing Ivory Coast), Rooney (hopefully winning the World Cup for England), Drogba and so many other characters.

“Special 1 TV episodes will be produced by production company Caboom for BBC3 and BBC online ahead of each of the England games, capturing the mood, atmosphere and anticipation from Jose’s South African studio in the lead up to what’s undoubtedly going to be one of the most exciting World Cup tournaments of recent years. With Wayne and Sven embedded in the tournament, Jose will be doing what he does best – shouting in his opinion from the outside,” according to a post on the production company’s website.

Damian Farrell from Caboom says that “We are delighted to be working with the BBC on a World Cup version and very excited in particular with the opportunities presented to us in working with BBC online to further build on the social media and online potential of content like this. The show will also feature a puppet version of England manager Fabio Capello whose approach and attitude to the beautiful game will undoubtedly stand in complete contrast to puppet Sven’s tactics of hanging out in South Africa for the month, on an all expenses paid trip courtesy of the Ivory Coast.”

“Special 1 TV” begins on BBC3 on June 11th with daily episodes available on BBC online during the World Cup.

Some of the words that come to mind when I view this video are stupendous, incredible and goosebumps. It’s BBC’s promo video for the 2010 World Cup that it’ll be airing across its television channels to get everyone excited about the Beeb’s coverage of the tournament. And, as usual, it’s incredibly well done and leaves me wanting more!

BBC promo’s for World Cups (in a sense, they can’t be called commercials) have always been a ritual of previous World Cup tournaments. They’re usually well done. And this one has got to be considered one of the best. Brilliant work!

Hat tip: 101 Great Goals

Fans of English soccer in the United States have everything they could possibly wish for: All Premier League games shown live through television and the Internet. A daily UK sports news program from Sky Sports. Matches shown in HD, when and where available. Ways to get around the BBC blocking radio commentaries. And an Internet that is thriving with discussions of every facet of the Premier League you could possibly wish for.

Except, there’s still one thing missing. The final thing that would make the English soccer experience in the United States complete. It’s Match Of The Day.

BBC’s Match Of The Day has been on air since 1964 and, even 46 years since it’s launch, still has an important role in influencing the opinions of soccer fans throughout the British Isles. But just as it’s required viewing in the UK, the program would be a perfect fit for the United States.

Here’s why:

The United States has one of the widest selection of Premier League games (and other leagues) in the world. However even with 20 hours or more of live Premier League games shown on US TV each weekend, there’s a massive gaping void when it comes to highlights of the games and the goals.

Take, for example, the average of seven Premier League games that are shown live on a typical Saturday across ESPN2, Fox Soccer Channel, Fox Soccer Plus and FoxSoccer.tv. You have to be a hermit to watch all 14 hours of Premier League action on any given Saturday. If you began your viewing at 7:45am, you would have to watch the 7 games one after the other (thanks to the help of a DVR player) with no break until the DVR finished showing you the last game at approximately 9:45pm that Saturday. That’s practically impossible even for the most hardcore soccer fan.

Imagine it’s a Saturday and you spent a couple of hours watching the early kick-off game on ESPN2. But for the remainder of the day, you had errands to run, chores to do and a family to spend your time with. After returning to your home by late afternoon, your obvious inclination is to find out what the results were from the day’s games and to watch the highlights. If you want to do this, your options are:

1. Watch the games you taped. You can fast forward through each one, or skip to the end to see the goal highlights. But it’s messy because it takes a lot of fast forwarding and rewinding and you completely lose context out of what happened in the games,
2. You can watch Fox Soccer Match Day on tape (from Noon to 12:30pm ET) and see goal highlights from some of the games shown on Saturday morning but not all of the highlights will be revealed due to some of the games being shown on tape delay later that afternoon on Fox Soccer Channel,
3. You can visit a website such as 101 Great Goals and watch highlights from each of the games. While the experience is pretty good, it ruins the element of surprise because you’ll know what the final results of the games were before you click on the links.

While the third option is the most comprehensive in terms of guaranteeing you’ll be able to watch highlights from each game, the videos are technically illegal in that the company who has the rights to show the game highlights legally online if Fox Soccer Channel.

On a Saturday, there is no legal option to watch all of that day’s highlights in one program either online or on television. Again, I repeat, there is not one legal option. You can either stumble through the three options above or wait until 24 hours later to watch the Sunday night show, the Barclays Premier League Review Show.

If it was a weeknight, you could wait until 10pm to watch Fox Soccer Report. But soccer fans in the United States are left stranded on weekends in the States.

In a random tweet I posted on Twitter earlier this week, I asked EPL Talk followers whether they’d watch an American version of BBC’s Match Of The Day. Out of the 57 responses I received, the vast majority were in favor of the idea. However, the more I thought about it, the more I thought it would be better to just have a network air the original Match Of The Day program live on US TV rather than to create an American version of it.

I believe if Fox Soccer Channel acquired the TV and online rights to BBC’s Match Of The Day program, it could make a mint. The program would be a must-see for fans of Premier League clubs each Saturday afternoon and could be shown live at 5:30pm ET which is exactly the time the program airs on British television (10pm UK time). The program would fit nicely into Fox’s schedule right after the 3:30-5:30pm ET Serie A game ends.

It’s not just the highlights of the day’s Premier League action that makes Match Of The Day a must-see program. It’s also the analysis, no matter how good or bad people think it is, that is offered by the BBC pundits as well as the genteel Gary Lineker, as host, who is impossible not to hate.

One of the reasons why Match Of The Day would be popular in the States, other than providing excellent highlights, is that it has a magical appeal to the program because it’s been forbidden for so long. There’s a mystique around the show because Americans have heard Brits romanticize about it for so long. Plus, because it’s currently not legally available for viewing in the States (thus enhancing the mystique), many soccer fans end up getting it illegally through P2P file sharing such as BitTorrent.

While Match Of The Day may encourage some soccer fans to watch fewer live Premier League games on Fox Soccer Channel, there will still be many fans who prefer to watch live games in their entirety while others will prefer to watch a highlights package. Plus, the program would be the perfect gateway for new soccer fans to get initiated into the English variety of the sport and to encourage them to watch more games on Fox Soccer Channel.

I’m sure that although the TV rights to BBC’s Match Of The Day don’t come too cheaply, it would definitely be worth Fox Soccer Channel’s time to do their due diligence necessary to see how much it would cost and how it could frame advertising around the program. Because the BBC doesn’t feature any advertising, Match Of The Day runs 80 minutes without any commercials. While this may seem like a problem for Fox, I see it as an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to beam a one-of-a-kind highlights show that soccer fans would be very passionate and loyal about. The program could be “Brought to you by [insert advertiser's name here].” What an opportunity to position one sponsor as the “one who brought Match Of The Day to you.”

It’s time for Match Of The Day to come to the United States. That time is now.

In the build up to, and during, the West Ham/Millwall match violence took hold in and around Upton Park.

One man was stabbed in the chest, and a BBC reporter has heard that a second stabbing has occured. Another fan said that his father had to receive medical attention after having a dart thrown at his head. There have been five confirmed arrests so far.

The Metropolitan police say that the hooliganism is likely to have been organised beforehand.

These events have been responsible for interruptions to the play; riled fans invaded the pitch a number of times resulting in the players being taken off.

This is all after West Ham player, Calum Davenport, was stabbed earlier in the week whilst staying with his mother.

Update: Fans are being told to stay in ground whilst fighting continues outside

Over the weekend, the BBC gave football fans the length and breadth of the world the news that they’d waited years to hear. Finally, after 13 years of clueless ramblings, smug arrogance and a frighteningly poor knowledge of the game he professes to love, Tim Lovejoy is to be booted off as a regular presenter of 5 Live’s 6-0-6 football phone in show. A variety of failed shows on a multitude of channels have yet to deflate the ego of this man of football who’s speciality is replacing the idiot who stands next to you in the pub.

Now perhaps you’re not aware of the worst football pundit in Britain, but unfortunately fans in the UK have had to suffer his dreadful insights, punditry and attempts at comedy on a variety of channels. A man derided by fans the length and breadth of the country, he’s the kind of presenter that football in the modern era has given us, knowing nothing about the game pre-Premiership yet somehow became one of the most recognisable faces in televisual football journalism. A “new” Chelsea fan, who claimed to also support Watford, Real Madrid and L.A. Galaxy, he encapsulated the worst of the cliche ridden muppets that began to corrupt the footballing airways in the mid to late 90′s.

He created Soccer AM, which became a cult hit when arrived back in 1996 on Sky, but as the show continued to regurgitate the same old jokes, boring features, sexist agenda’s (no women allowed on as fans of the week), banal features and having guests that knew even less about football than Lovejoy for 11 years , it became clear that Lovejoy had developed a messiah type complex.  By moving from TV to radio, at least fans were spared his grinning lunacy as he rambled on like a chimpanzee on mogadon.

I would recommend that if you ever want to buy a book so unintentionally funny it’s hilarious, you’d be hard pressed to beat Lovejoy’s “autobiography” that was released in 2007. This reviewer clearly adored it, but his abysmal attempts at being a proper football presenter on 6-0-6 have really been a treat for anyone who likes a football presenter to know nothing unless it’s written down for them or available to click on a PC. Things he doesn’t like are “rubbish”, players he likes are “the best in the world”.

His radio show is the audio equivalent of having your teeth pulled with no anaesthetic as he berates callers who don’t think England are the greatest team in the world, sticking up for Ashley Cole (no really), and generally defending one of his celebrity mates who callers dare to think isn’t one of the greatest players in the world.He also had a lovely conversation last week where he showed his delightful arrogance for two minutes. He just never says anything of any depth at all, calls League One, League 3, and feels he actually has INFLUENCE on the Premier League.

It’s hard to find any pundit that evokes the same level of hatred amongst football fans in the UK regardless of the team they support, hell even Chelsea fans hate him. It’s a great day for football fans that the BBC have finally seen sense and given him the boot for next season. Thankfully we only have to put him with him for another 3 weeks at the most and he can go back to his cookery and lifestyle programme on Sunday mornings and his dreadful web channel that seems to have been designed by a 5 year old child high on skittles.

Thankfully, the BBC have brought Danny Baker back and stolen Colin Murray permanently, so if you want to listen to two of British media’s best shows, then you can do a lot worse than listen to Danny when he host’s the Tuesday night 6-0-6 or Colin when he presents Fighting Talk. Once you’ve listened to those two shows, then try and last more than 5 minutes listening to this drivel.

Thank you BBC, now you just have to get rid of Spoony and you may have a half decent football phone in show again.

When the final whistle went and those West Ham fans who’d spent most of Saturdays game against Chelsea abusing former old boys, Frank Lampard and John Terry, had disappeared to the pubs around and about, I bet they never thought they’d ever see either player back at Upton Park that soon. Obviously they were unaware that both players have agreed in principle to play for West Ham in a testimonial match for the Hammers’ academy director, Tony Carr as a celebration of his 36 years working for West Ham.

Now the West Ham fans have to swallow their pride after Saturday and think about how their actions toward those two former players reflects on Tony Carr’s night. Here’s a guy who’s given years of service to West Ham United and brought through countless players since he took over the role as Director Of Youth Development in 1973.There’s no doubt if Chelsea had played anywhere that weekend, they’d have got a lot of stick, especially Lampard and Terry and the chants weren’t that bad in the context of some of the things that are sung at football matches.

Yet, Lampard hasn’t helped himself before, with some comments about how his time was at West Ham, that he didn’t enjoy it as well, his family was badly treated by the club, he also said in a Chelsea supporters meeting he’d love to score the goal that sent West Ham down as well as the allegation that when he broke his leg playing for West Ham, some fans were cheering. I’d hate to think that was true, in fact I find it very hard to believe that West Ham fans would do that at all.So the abuse he got on Saturday was to be expected really.

People forget that Lampard has a history of slating West Ham whenever he seems to be interviewed but to say Lampard had a tough week last week would be an understatement, with the anniversary of his mothers death, an on air argument with a sad little shock jock and then the gauntlet of abuse he ran at Upton Park.

West Ham fans didn’t sing anything about his mother, but they did about the rant with the DJ and splitting up with his girlfriend, Terry got the same about his mother’s shopping indiscretion. That’s what happens at football matches, away players get rude songs sang at them, always have done, always will do. Some of the criticism the West Ham fans have received seems to be rather calculated in my opinion and I don;t think the stick they got was any worse than they would have received at Arsenal, Tottenham and Fulham.

I’m sure the majority of  West Ham fans that attend Tony Carr’s testimonial remember it’s a celebration of someone that has brought through the calibre of  Joe Cole, Lampard, Carrick, The Ferdinand brothers, Glen Johnson, Mark Noble,Tony Cottee, Paul Ince and the latest batch of Collinson, Tomkins, Sears and Stanislas. Let’s hope the minority don’t spoil a celebration of a man who would bleed claret and blue if you cut him, a more humble and proud Hammers fan you’d be hard pressed to find. Save all your singing for the next time you play Chelsea and give them the stick you feel they deserve, just don’t overstep the mark or spoil Tony Carr’s night.

Which is the better Premier League highlight show? BBC’s Match Of The Day or TWI’s Premier League Review Show?

Millions of people around the world watch the highlight packages that feature the best bits of each Premier League match, so the shows should be quite similar, right? Wrong.

Read on to learn the major differences between the two:

Match Of The Day
BBC
Running Time: 1 hour 24 minutes (with no commercials)
Player and Manager Interviews: 20
Pros: Classic opening and closing tune, better on-screen graphics, in-depth analysis by co-hosts, more impartial to clubs outside the Big Four, no commercials, more interviews, goal of the month segment and Gary Lineker.
Cons: Highlights from Saturday matches only, Mark Lawrenson states the obvious far too often and no interviews with Sir Alex Ferguson.

Premier League Review Show
TWI
Running Time: 1 hour (with commercials)
Player and Manager Interviews: 16
Pros: Interviews with Sir Alex Ferguson and Martin Tyler’s commentary. Plus it has highlights of all the matches through Sunday.
Cons: Some highlights feature voiceovers instead of actual commentary, too focused on the Big Four and includes TV commercials.

The above statistics are from this past weekend where I watched both shows side-by-side. Of course, we were treated to everything from Liverpool against Man United to West Brom versus West Ham.

TWI’s Premier League Review Show opens with the song “My Saturday Self” composed by Peter Lawlor. The visuals paint a picture of a futuristic space-age world where some of the top Premier League players beam a football from player to player.

In last weekend’s episode, the program began outside Anfield as it showed footage of the Spirit Of Shankly supporters union protesting against American owners Hicks and Gillett. After a lot of build up and hype, the producers then began to show the highlights of Liverpool against Manchester United, undoubtedly the biggest match of the weekend.

A big difference between both programs is that the Barclays Premier League Review Show always plays the biggest matches at the beginning of the match and winds its way to the smaller teams near the end of the show. While Match Of The Day began with highlights of the Liverpool match, it tends to mix things up quite a bit and often begins with the match that has the most interesting story. For example, when Hull played Fulham on the opening day of the season, that game was the opening one showed on Match Of The Day instead of the typical clash involving a Big Four club that the Premier League Review Show would highlight.

To me, the Premier League Review Show is a glitzy package that reinforces the belief that the Big Four is what really matters in the Premiership.

Match Of The Day, an important fabric of the English game, began in 1964 and hasn’t changed much over the years. The biggest thing going for the program and the true differentiator between it and the Premier League Review Show is the analysis provided by the co-hosts.

In last week’s episode, it was Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson on the seat. Hansen’s analysis was eye-opening. For example, there was good insight by Hansen where he showed onscreen the workrate of Robbie Keane in the game who, despite not achieving much up front, was chasing the ball and pressuring Man United’s midfield quite effectively, forcing them to make mistakes.

Hansen continued by showing excellent replays of Albert Riera in action during the game with some beautiful touches and Hansen pointing out how much of an impact Riera made down the left wing by floating in dangerous crosses into the Man United penalty area.

Hansen then turned his focus to Gerrard and Giggs, and how both of them made some awful mistakes after coming on the pitch as subs. Gerrard letting Giggs through who almost scored. And Giggs letting Mascherano through to pass the ball to Kuyt and then to Babel for the winner.

The list goes on and on. While Lawrenson wasn’t as insightful as Hansen, Lawrenson later provided some good analysis of Chelsea. He discussed how Scolari lets the full backs be more adventurous coming forward than Chelsea with Mourinho, and how Ashley Cole and Bosengwa had wonderful games down the wings.

When it comes down to it, it all depends what you’re looking for in a Premier League highlight show. If you want analysis to show you things that you might not have seen, Match Of The Day is your ticket. If you want highlights of just the goals and most of the focus and priority on the Big Four, then the Premier League Review Show is your cup of tea.

What are your feelings about either show? Share your feedback by clicking the comments link below.

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