These musings were originally titled, “Max Bretos is an Ass.” While this remains true, I found that the more I thought and wrote about him, the more I kept coming back to his regular “analyst,” Christopher Sullivan…he…he fascinates me.
I know enough about football to know that Mr. Sullivan understands the beautiful game, which makes his work that much more mystifying. Mr. Sullivan played in a quality collegiate program (from which he graduated with a degree in business and finance), fashioned decent professional career for himself mainly in the pre-MLS period (no small achievement for an American player), represented our country on almost twenty occasions, and, in addition to his television work, is a successful soccer trainer. And yet…
…he usually sounds like a man trying to make himself understood on the more intricate aspects of the game in a language he has only recently learned to speak. His attempts to find the appropriate vocabulary to make his points are something between Sisyphean and Tantalusian. This is exacerbated by syntax and diction that can only be described as “labored.” His speech often reminds me of my freshman year in high school when my direct translations of German sentences into English looked something like, “He the ball kicked.”
Mr. Sullivan also has a penchant for speaking what I can only describe as “Spangloguese,” with occasional lapses into “Fretalian.” For some reason he insists on putting much of his soccer-specific knowledge into the various languages of which he may or may not have an understanding. To call something a “bicycle” or “overhead” kick is not enough, it must be a chileno. This would almost make sense if he used the foreign language terminology when he was commenting on a game from one of the relevant countries, but alas, this is not always the case.
The combination of all of these things is that he sounds like somebody who has suffered a traumatic brain injury in the past, but whose friends and family now lovingly, proudly, and maybe a little patronizingly, say of him, “He’s really doing quite well!” Or, and I suspect this may be closer to the truth, somebody who has, in the past, overindulged in certain “recreational activities” and is now paying the proverbial piper in his middle years.
Whatever the case, I find him to be a compelling figure. Max Bretos, on the other hand, really is an ass.
I can’t stand Sullivan’s overpronunciations. Most galling is how he says “CONCACAF” as if it’s an actual Spanish word rather than an acronym. I have mixed feelings about Bretos. On the one hand, he’s certainly an ass. On the other, he seems like a lovable ass who doesn’t take himself too seriously (unlike Sullivan).
Max may not take himself seriously, but he still has an overly-high opinion of himself- particularly how funny he is.
Well I adore him! I love his voice for one thing, but more importantly, the way he explains the game technically and theoretically. What an improvement over the Mexican announcers, for example, who yell “Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!” like 2-year olds., or some of the Brits who actually take sides when they call the game. No, he is just marvelous, and I am always overjoyed when I see that it is he that will announce a game I’m about to watch.