There are two common themes in Johnny’s football week on TV: Rio Ferdinand is not great, but TNT’s Goals Show absolutely is and Sky Sports should follow it.
The Champions League. There isn’t one of us who doesn’t miss it on ITV with Clive and Andy when many millions used to watch. That’s a long time ago. Now it’s on TNT and you have to pay to see it. I’m sure there are ways to get it for free and congratulations if you’ve found one.
An anti-piracy operation in Italy has shut down platforms that were illegally streaming matches from Euro 2024 to more than 1.3million users and some streamers have faced big fines. Even so, a couple of illegal million viewers over the whole of Europe doesn’t seem that many. There’s some furious spinning from TNT over the new format, trying to make out it’s more popular than ever without giving us any numbers except that ‘4,785m of hours were viewed across all platforms. Best of the 2024-25 season so far’. I suppose that includes all the ‘give it 10 minutes’ and turn-offs but tells nothing about the number of people watching the whole thing and how much they enjoyed it.
Frankly, when broadcasters say, ‘yeah it’s the best ever’ but don’t provide figures that prove it clearly, we are entirely justified in suspecting they have just originated a wacky way of defining ‘best’, otherwise they’d just tell us actual facts, not feel-good obfuscations. Prime says they got four million for City v Madrid. I’ll leave you to judge if that’s a lot, considering the ubiquity of Prime across the whole of Europe and beyond.
I think it’s a safe assertion that viewing is much, much less than when on free-to-air and it has been increasingly marginalised because of that. I don’t know how much TNT costs, I’m afraid to say. But then, I watch football all the time, every night of the week and during the day if I can. I am not a normal football consumer. I have so many subscriptions I lose track; long gone are the days of one sub for Sky doing everything.
The question is, at this important stage you can watch every game but is it any good? The early Milan v Feyenoord match was Paul ‘Dempo’ Dempsey and Adam Virgo, who are in Italy. Virgo is always an intelligent co-comm who does Italian football too and they’re a good pairing. Dempsey does have a dose of Partridgean timbre and I can imagine him shouting ‘eat my goal!’ but there are many more annoying and both show good knowledge during an excellent game with a tense finish as Feyenoord won on aggregate.
Prime have got Celtic v Bayern and start with a 90-minute preview and at one point they’ve given Gabriel Clarke (freed from ITV) his own wee podium, which looks odd, unless I’m hallucinating. Gabby presents with an unusual selection of Lenny, Clarence Seedorf and Martin O’Neill. Shearer is an enthusiastic co-comm. Alex Aljoe is also pitchside and is cheerful and bright. But by ten to eight, everyone is flagging after such a long build-up. Their ‘this team can make history tonight’ schtick is pushed hard but 90 minutes is such a long time to keep it up. Jon Champion is commentating, who I like going back to his 5 Live days but Prime, if it had serious ambitions, should have used someone new and cut themselves a distinctive niche, not just copy other broadcaster’s bookings.
A tight game, Bayern scored at the end, Celtic did well and got a draw but go out.
The other games include Atalanta v Brugge which is excellent. Brugge are superb and win it 5-2 on aggregate. It’s really great football. Comms are Adam Summerton and Lucy Ward, who is getting lots of work. I’m assuming they’re doing it off Tube but you can’t tell either way.
Adam deserves a high-profile mainstream gig. I do enjoy his mix of throat-tearing passion and his knowledgeable, informal chatting. Mind you, he might enjoy working the usually excellent Italian games and has no desire to have to watch Leicester play West Ham or some such desultory Premier League fixture. Lucy points out the snobbery towards the Belgian league quality undervalues Brugge; a good point. Brugge are stunning and totally Atalanta Atalanta. Scotswoman Emma Dodds does the half-time chat. She’s from a village one loch away from me, y’know. Karen Carney and Owen Hargreaves are OK but largely surplus to requirements between adverts.
Benfica v Monaco is very much treated as the third of TNT’s three games with Mike Minay, who is often on BBC Manchester and was NWF Awards Journalist/Broadcaster of the Year in 2020, alongside Robbie Savage. I didn’t see much of it.
Robbie is back the following day with Ian Darke to cover Dortmund v Sporting. Ian tries the ‘you never know’ stuff but is pretty unconvincing as Dortmund are already 3-0 up. This is the trouble with every game being broadcast – they have to pretend dead rubbers like this are in the balance for as long as possible. Fair play to Robbie, he doesn’t flinch from saying the tie is likely over and to be fair, it’s such a poor match, they don’t pretend it’s anything but largely awful.
Madrid v City pre-game is extensive, the interview with Carlo reveals a rather cheeky older bashful dude, very not a football manager, more a gardener at a stately home. Pep’s background makes it look like he’s in jail.
Rio is with Reshmin Chowdry and Joleon Lescott. They get totally sprinklered which sends the pictures off air. Rio sounds like the family dog trying to speak.
Meanwhile PSG v Brest has Mike Minay and Glenn Hoddle for a game that is already 3-0 and soon becomes 9-0 and is totally over as a contest and PSV v Juventus has Adam Summerton and chewy-accented, Norn Irish Stephen Craigan, which I stay with because it seemed likely City would be put to the sword and the stats suggest they really were. PSV turns out to be a really entertaining, tight game, helped by Adam’s raft of facts and figures, with two well-matched sides. Half-time and Lescott is very much behind your Rios, Joe Coles and Crouchies in the pundit Rolodex but he seems more thoughtful than most; he breaks down City’s awful defending well and I like his minor key bluesy Midlands accent. I’d like to hear more from him. Rio saying “phenomenal from Mbappe” sounds like he’s under water, speaking through custard.
The second half of the PSV game was relentless and brilliant fun and they scored a great goal. The boys on comms are purring, bright and excited. Timothy Weah scores a brilliant 25-yard piledriver and the VAR nerds did everything they could to disallow it but after ages the ref decided not to. The VAR is especially terrible all night and wastes time confirming perfectly obvious decisions and provides nothing, the referee looks totally neutered by it – little more than a slave to his earpiece. It goes to extra time and the resurgent PSV won. Commentary throughout is just caught up in the action and really compliments it.
Thursday was an extravaganza of Europa and Conference League games, the only sensible way to watch was through the Goals Show with Matt Smith, Don Hutchison, Martin Keown and James Horncastle with Julien Laurens. It starts at 5.30pm and lasts five hours. Even though 90 minutes of pre-game build-up before a game is too long, this never flags. Talk is intelligent and interesting and occasionally funny for hours. All guests wear their knowledge lightly and it illustrates what can be done in football broadcasting. Hutch and Horny (sounds like a buddy buddy cop movie) are good about Roma and Galatasaray. Informed chat – it’ll never catch on. I could listen to Don talk about European football all day. Excellent discussion on “brittle” Osimhen and a comparison between Antony and Angel di Maria, both terrible at Old Trafford but great everywhere else. Great film of Robbie Keane managing in Hungary, helped by Rory Delap.
Cosmopolitan and educated, even Martin was excellent, brought up in quality by such a good environment with such good company, even if he did say Antony was playing for Real Sociedad. If you are interested in European football, this is the place to indulge your passion. Very much not for ‘best league in the world’ acolytes, who don’t want their assumptions challenged.
The second half was as good, with a similar texture. Great piece on the Shamrock Rovers success story.
The overall feel is of reading a comprehensive detailed magazine as they watch and talk about all the games. Since Sky broadcast every second, third and fourth tier, they should consider a Goals Show for those. It makes sense and means you don’t have to choose a match to watch. This sets a standard unmatched anywhere. So good. In content and style, it’s the best football show in the whole of broadcast football’s real estate.
