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The World Cup 06 is almost over, with just the final to go. Two unfancied teams France and Italy have reached the final (though Bhagyesh had told me about France being the strong contenders for the final from "one of his high profile contacts"). But the World Cup has produced some beautiful footaball and some excellent matches. But I want to talk about the World Cup telecast on ESPN.

ESPN has vast experience in telecasting football matches throughout the year. So one expected the telecast to be of highest production values. There were some good things like, match analysis by Gerry Armstrong and Steve Mc Mahon. But it's sad to say that overall I was not particularly impressed with ESPN telecast.

The first thing I missed was John Dykes. He is superb for football presentations. Harsha Bhogle, I m sad to say, is no match for him. He has made many goofs during the telecast. he may be very good at Cricket, but not competant enough in Football, which was clearly visible ( I remember, during ESPN School Quiz, he once couldn't pronunce Hyypia. Any football fan must know this Liverpool star's name, though it's difficult spelling). So John Dykes was obvious choice, but ESPN tried to give so-called 'Indian flavour' to its broadcast, targetting the millions of Indian football supporters who crop up in each World Cup.

This effort was also evidenced by its new 'expert' Noel De....( I don't even remember the name of that fellow). He was hoorrible. He had no credentials to seat with experts like Steve and Gerry. He often contradicted with other experts. He couldn't remember the names of players. Yesterday, Steve even said, maybe sarcastically, that 'Portugal's striking power is as empty as Noel's trophy cabinet'. This summed up Noel's performance in WC for me.

Apart from these, even technical aspects were way below standard. The match staistics sometimes showed wrong stats, wrong names ( It even once showed Beckham scoring goal for Netherlands!). The highlights package (?) during half time was never complete. It showed very few chances. Didn't show good tackles. Maybe it was compiled for audiance, who think that shot on goal is the only piece of action in a football match.

The telecast consisted of only football matches with no follow-ups analysis during the day, something like Football Focus, Here We Go for EPL. The commentary was also substandard, with just one person commentating and best names like Andy Grey and Martin Taylor were missing. Apart from these shortcomings there were few good things about coverage as well.

The best part of the coverage was match analysis by Steve McMahon and Gerry Armstrong. Their gameplay at the start of the game was fantastic. It really gave insight about what goes behind the scenes. The one to note particular was during the match between Spain and France. Steve showed how France deliberately played Henry into inactive off-side position and used their mid-field to great effect. Another was semi-final between Germany and Italy. During Grosso goal Gerry pointed out that Odonkor came out too early off the far post, because of his lack of experience, which resulted in Grosso's goal. Steve should stay for EPL as well, though Gerry will leave for his Spanish duties.

The World Cup will be over today, but within a month there will be a new feast of football with start of new European season starting next month. I am really looking forward to that!