In the aftermath of the Los Angeles Galaxy’s 2-2 tie with AC Milan, you would think the talk would be about the team’s great play Sunday evening.  You’d think that wouldn’t you?  Instead all anyone wants to talk about are Beckham’s shenanigans with the Los Angeles Riot Squad.  I can’t blame them, really, it is a story worthy of any tabloid’s cover.  And at the risk of being just as off topic as these other news sources and blogs, I too am going to take a divergent path on the Galaxy’s most recent fixture.

There was another attempted assault last night.  Not on any fan in the stadium, but on the fans in their living rooms.  Anyone forced to watch the game on Fox Sports West was unfortunately treated to one of the most horrific play-by-play calls ever broadcast over the beautiful game.  The culprit?  Jim Watson.

I don’t know Jim Watson personally, I’m sure he is a nice guy, who doesn’t enjoy making children cry or kicking out canes from underneath the elderly, but I can make one conclusion about the man…  He is unfit to ever call a soccer game again.

The tangled web of mis-pronunciations and sporting inaccuracies that he wove Sunday night was shocking.  Let me list just a few that I can recall off hand:

-For 90 minutes I had to listen to Clarence Seedorf’s name pronounced as SEEdorf (like the letter “C”).  For the average American, I would have no issue with this mistake.  However for a professional journalist covering the sport of soccer, it is quite simply Watson’s job to research the correct way to say the name of one of the best midfielders of the last ten years.  Perhaps even more frightening is the fact that no one corrected him.  Would baseball fans accept announcers who mispronounced the name Pujols?  To, color commentator, Mark Rogondino’s credit he pronounced it correctly all game long.  But that is not surprising, because Rogo actually knows something about the sport he is covering.

-While reciting one of the many soliloquies to Ronaldinho’s greatness over the course of the evening, Watson regaled the LA public with the tales of his Youtube adventures.  Reciting the different videos he had watched of the star online, most likely because he had never seen the player in action otherwise.  In doing so he talked about the infamous Golden Boot video, wherein the Brazilian bounces the ball off the cross bars numerous times.  A video that has been outed as CG.  But Watson says that the video was in the San Siro.  The video was made 4 years ago while Ronaldinho was playing for Barcelona, not AC Milan.  Once again, a mistake that could be forgiven of the lay person, but not of someone who is covering the sport of soccer.

-During the second half, Rogo had to correct Watson when he alluded to the player Josh Tudela being with the Galaxy.  The fact that, once again a man being paid to cover the Galaxy not just for the AC Milan game but for the entire season, does not know that Tudela was waived by the team, is down right shocking.  Does he not do even the slightest bit of homework before switching on the mic?  Would Chick Hearn or Vin Scully, in their primes, ever have made this mistake?  Unlikely.

And as unfair as that comparison may be, it is what Southern California expects of its sporting markets.

But why stop in LA?  Across the country American soccer fans for too long have been willing to settle for less, because we felt lucky that we even had soccer coverage in the US.  Lucky that the media spent any time at all on a sport that “would never succeed here.”

That time has passed.  Like any movement that grows from the grass roots level, there comes a time when we have to look at that movement and decide to change our expectations.  This is that time.  A summer before Fox Soccer Channel starts broadcasting UEFA Champions League coverage, on a network that still only shows standard definition.  A year before ESPN shells out more than ever on covering the 2010 World Cup.  This is the time when our expectations have to change.

Soccer can no longer afford to be what other sport’s broadcasters settle for.  Men like Jim Watson, Jack Edwards and Dave O’Brien will no longer cut it.  The market is here for soccer in America, that has been established.  That was step 1.  Step 2 is to demand more of our providers.  That starts with all of us.  Email your local affiliate, tell them what works and what doesn’t.

And for us Galaxy fans, maybe send Fox Sports a link to this page saying that you agree.

You can read Jrodius’ non-soccer blogs at GoingGuerilla.com or follow him on Twitter.

Make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed to get the latest breaking news and analysis!