The World Cup’s “buzziest clash isn’t going down on the field,” but rather it is “happening in a climate-controlled studio” in L.A. between former soccer players and analysts Zlatan Ibrahimović and Alexi Lalas on Fox, according to Jason Gay of the WALL STREET JOURNAL. The role of a pregame/halftime show is to be “interesting enough that you don’t fall asleep on the couch,” but any enrichment and information is “icing on the cake.” At a minimum, “Zlatan vs. Alexi has achieved cultural liftoff in a you-gotta-see-this way.” Lalas’ presence on the panel “creates a bloodlust, the audience hopeful that the two European superstars will take their U.S. colleague to the football woodshed.” It is “almost a proxy for soccer’s never-ending war between Those Who Know and The Newbies.” Former soccer player and analyst Thierry Henry is the “star of this outfit, almost always the first to dissect whatever just happened.” For all the attention Ibrahimović’s “Lalas barbs and boasts have gotten,” he has “offered mostly mild analysis.” However, the panel has “lots of time to figure this out” throughout the rest of the tournament (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 6/23).
LACK OF EXPERTISE: The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand, speaking on “The Athletic FC Daily,” said, “Lalas is really smug, and that’s an issue when you’re on TV. And then he’s sitting next to a couple of legends in Zlatan and Henry and Rebecca Lowe is the host. You kind of have to bring insight and great content if you don’t have the playing credentials, and he doesn’t really. … In my time covering sports media, watching sports, he’s one of the more unlikable people ever on TV.” He added, “The big thing that they could do is put Alexi Lalas on the team that’s outside of stadiums. … They’ve had a crew outside of the big games. … You could do that and then just have Henry, Zlatan and Rebecca Lowe as your main studio. And those three, they had that this weekend or the last Friday with the U.S. game, it just feels better. It gives them more time to speak. ... You might be utilizing Lalas better that way” (“The Athletic FC Daily”, The Athletic, 6/22).
SHAKING IT UP: In London, Aaron Timms wrote for this tournament, Fox has enlisted a pair of elite European strikers, Henry and Ibrahimović, to “terrorize Lalas and shake proceedings up.” Henry’s “now-viral humiliation” of Lalas in the studio kickaround segment the other day was “absolutely filthy, and in the arena of on-set debate the action has been no less processional.” Timms wrote Henry is a “wonderfully unimpressed on-screen presence. … This vast gulf in on-field pedigree has become more awkward as the tournament has progressed, with Lalas retreating into a meek silence whenever Henry reveals his depth of footballing experience.” Often over the course of the tournament’s opening days it “has felt as if Lalas’s fellow panelists are laboring under a contractual obligation to find him interesting.” Timms noted at points Ibrahimovic has “made it clear that he shares this disdain for the unquiet American, but he can’t touch Henry’s variety and subtlety when it comes to showing Lalas up.” Timms: “If the culture of American soccer -- including on TV -- moves in the same positive direction as matters on the pitch, the sport should eventually outgrow Lalas” (London GUARDIAN, 6/21).
ABOUT TIME TO GO: In N.Y., Will Leitch writes no one has “had a worse tournament than the long-despised Fox broadcaster” Lalas. Leitch: “Lalas’s practiced stupidity has been driving U.S. soccer fans insane for years, but this year he has been openly mocked on air by fellow analysts Thierry Henry and Zlatan Ibrahimović, both of whom, unlike Lalas, are legendary players and both of whom clearly despise Lalas.” Leitch adds, “There’s no reason to have Lalas on the broadcast anymore -- U.S. Soccer has long outgrown him -- and seeing actual stars lay waste to him has been deeply satisfying. … Lalas is toast after this Cup” (N.Y. MAGAZINE, 6/23).
