CNN’s Piers Morgan – Soccer’s Best TV Pundit!
Alan Black
CNN’s Piers Morgan does a weird thing with his mouth after he speaks. His lips pinch tight. As if the torpedo tube is being sealed until the next salvo. It can be quite intimidating. It fits the style of a man who was previously employed as a tabloid editor in the warfare of English newspapers. Morgan has seen the skeletons. He can smell blood in the water. And thankfully, for soccer fans in America, he has taken up punditry as a moonlighting gig on the Fox soccer network. He comes to it like a shark.
Former sportsmen occupy much of punditry on TV sports – hardly a qualification for being an analyst. Deciphering their elliptical sentences can be more frustrating than understanding a coach’s chalkboard full of arrows, circles and plays. Wooden is being kind to some of them. Some deploy shouting to cover the pointlessness. Others dribble or throw it back to the host. Tautology and statements of the obvious – the lingua franca. But you can’t say that about Piers Morgan. He lets rip with editorial finesse.
Granted, he is limited to soccer, the foreign sport that is not so foreign to Americans anymore. On Sunday, Morgan was a pundit on the Fox network’s showing of England’s big soccer clash between Chelsea and Manchester United, hours before the Superbowl. Not that his vatic utterances proved correct. He called the Manchester goalie “flappy hands, the worst goalkeeper in the league,” yet the keeper made two world-class saves. He predicted a “long day” for Chelsea but they were leading 3-0 at one point. None of this mattered. When Morgan opened the torpedo tube and fired on his targets, the pleasure was in the direct hit. It was erudite entertainment. When he condemned Chelsea fans for their loud abuse of a Manchester United player connected to a racism scandal currently being played out in English soccer, it showed Morgan was willing to bring ugliness into a discussion of the so-called beautiful game. Had a former player/pundit been in the seat, it is doubtful the issue would have been raised in the studio.
Having Morgan on is a good move by Fox, to be encouraged and developed. Add to the pundit payroll conversationalists, narrators, writers, women, academics, poets and self-congratulating contrarians. Bring us a narrative arc, not verbal replays of what we have just seen; bring us fiction that we can shoot down and jeer at from the pit of the sofa. Bench the wooden empty heads. Let players do the talking on the field. There, we love them.
Photo: thisiscow
Alan Black is the author of two books, “Kick the Balls – An Offensive Suburban Odyssey”, and “The Glorious World Cup” with David Henry Sterry. He writes for the San Francisco Chronicle and Huffington Post.
Tags: CNN, CNN Piers Morgan, HP1, Piers Morgan, soccer latest, soccer news, soccer pundit Piers Morgan, Superbowl, talkshow host Piers Morgan, tv commentary soccer
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February 6, 2012 7:44 am
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By Christian Liver, February 26, 2012 @ 1:03 pm
Sounds interesting I would love to see some new types of punditry, but only very occasionally. I wouldn’t like to see a intellectualizing of football overall.
I feel the air head ex players are in tune with what essentially is a mindless game. Football is an opportunity to switch the mind off and perhaps that is what makes it so appealing.
Certainly there are the talented journalists and ghost writers who concoct the fascinating soap opera that surrounds each match but even they know to paint with large brush strokes using carefully chosen colors.
Debating sexism and racism in the football arena perhaps doesn’t do the subjects justice. I am skeptical about these sports media shows of concern especially as they are sensationally inflated out of proportion to court controversy and merely sell the game as opposed to genuinely tackle the issues.
That said I do love when a celebrity from another entertainment realm gives his views on the game.
I was listening to the radio one day and Hawskbee and Jacobs where talking to Ray Winston about West Ham going down. Winston was playing a blinder, dazzling everyone with his erudite commentary of the situation when Andy Jacobs suggested they would have to sell some players. Winston responded with a throw away ” yeh who are they gonna rape…” he stopped himself and awkward dead air ensued.