This chapter is in itself appropriate for the chapter “The Sky Conference”, because this circumstance is particularly conspicuous there. However, the overall topic here is the match action that is also forgotten, overlooked, ignored in live matches and summaries. This is neither to be confused with generalities nor with platitudes, even if these are just as much represented within the digressions.
Theoretically, capturing the action of the game and conveying it to the listener(!) is following an old, but unfortunately long forgotten, tradition, gladly taken from actual radio reports, a task that in itself is suitable for conveying excitement when the (reporters and viewers) see identical pictures. The often very high level of expertise, which is combined with specialist knowledge at this or that point, spiced with linguistic fluency and a suitable reporter’s voice – some voices, as one will certainly be able to confirm, are never forgotten and are immediately recognised by their sound and promise suspense – should ensure that the viewer is brought close to the events and can, as it were, neither look nor listen away. Football enjoyment in perfection. The fact that the matches are sometimes more exciting and dramatic is fine with the colleague – he has to put up with it anyway – but he should then focus his attention on captivating the viewer/listener with the less successful pure match events and progress. He therefore has the chance to make the broadcast exciting even if the game would not be so if viewed purely. A classic example: a 0:0. Not only does he have the chance, he actually has the duty. In any case, the broadcaster, who is concerned about ratings, should impose it on him. Didn’t he? Well, go for it!
If the game doesn’t allow it, the question is what keeps the viewers and listeners on this channel. It is quite possible that a few marginal notes, which can be conveyed in a humorous way, are saved, divided up, which, according to journalists’ duty, are (allowed to be) appropriated, read up on before the event. Of course. Whether the switcher (in the absence of word alternatives; in any case, this stands for the clumsy viewer/listener) in the case of the recently introduced “compressed uneventfulness” — which, seen as a pure play on words, may actually be perceived as funny, if it were not so tragically seriously meant and in accordance with the truth — the permanent pointing out of faults now preserves him in his capacity or turns him off, may be clarified on the one hand by surveys, on the other hand by the opposite attempt to point out the positive aspects and the tested consequential effect. The assertion is clear. One could achieve an increase in ratings, quite simply.
So it should be clear that in rather unentertaining games – well, even the perceived number of these could be counteracted by mediated suspense and drama, as an alternative to the “a very weak game” audible at least once in far more than half of the games – it is permissible to insert a side story now and then. You tell us which player joined the club and for how much, which striker has gone how many minutes without a goal (please, something positive once in a while!) or who is playing how many games for the club, who has come on for whom compared to the previous week or what tactics the coach is using or what changes he could make. All well and good. It is not only suitable for demonstrating the required expertise, but can also be used to bridge less exciting phases of the game or interruptions to the game. All well and good.
But a broadcast must not degenerate into a mere list of details that have nothing to do with the game? Often enough, the impression arises that the reporter has prepared himself thoroughly in the sense that his note is full of such “bridging texts” and he feels obliged – in the absence of recognising other entertainment values and indeed in the absence of the so much demanded football understanding — to read off this note completely in the course of the game, regardless of the possibly dramatic events on the pitch? Because: when things are really heating up and he has the chance — ah, chance, the thing would be a no-brainer if he would only jump on the bandwagon, use his (hopefully existing) fluency and simply tell what he is seeing — to captivate the spectator, he rambles on in monotony and dissemination of his knowledge. At best, the viewer can still tell that something is happening on the lawn by the raising of his voice during the reading of a marginal note. He reads out the transfer fee and the duration of a player’s contract while the attack is in full swing, then realises that he almost misses the goal with the note, which is completely uninteresting at the moment, but raises his voice to suggest the suspense of what is happening.
Here, this is quite difficult to portray lyrically. The recognised fact remains: game action is not captured, far too rarely captured, no, it is rambled far too often and above all the sensitivity has been lost as to when it is really exciting on the pitch and when one should only be concerned with it. The effect, of course, is triggered by the fact that you switch to recognising and reporting mistakes quite early on anyway, which then makes it quite impossible for you to suddenly switch to positive. By the way, the early switch happens quite independently of whether a goal has already been scored. When the goal is scored, the error analysis is included, which robs the game of its beauty (how, please, are you supposed to play a great attack when the opponent is only watching? Even your own recreational team would score a goal there…) and at the same time, of course, it talks the tension out of it. If there are no goals, the game is weak because nobody gets through, if there is a goal, it is only due to catastrophic mistakes, so it is nothing great. When there are several goals, it then occasionally swings to “at least it was an entertaining game. However (it must be added) both coaches will probably get a few more grey hairs in view of the hair (!) pulling mistakes.”
So: with these games declared weak very early on, it becomes impossible to change the tone, so to speak. To take just one example from the recent past, which may also have stuck in the reader’s memory: in Gladbach’s fantastic 6:3 victory in Leverkusen on the second matchday of the 2010/2011 season, you simply could not see a weak game. If the announcer then fails to capture the spectator, then, there you go, there is only one thing left for him: “Profession missed. Take your hat.” But he did not succeed. After a quarter of an hour came the remark, “An average Bundesliga match. No more, no less.” There is already something so pejorative, apart from being facetious, which certainly doesn’t belong in this place, so it just becomes difficult to put the tone down again. And so it happened that until the end (the Sky Live reporter) he only talked about the catastrophic mistakes that Leverkusen had made, and how messed up their start to the season was now and what Jupp Heynckes would now have to come up with to get back on track and so on. In this context, it should be mentioned again here: In what way is the (albeit negative) fate of Leverkusen more interesting than the (positive) fate of Gladbach? Isn’t there the opposite perspective – and also the corresponding spectators – who want to cheer along with their victorious team, apart from the neutral ones who could simply see a great game and goals? No, anyone listening to this report with the original commentary by the Sky “expert” would almost inevitably write the funeral speech for the broadcaster directly afterwards.
In any case, there was nothing to be felt or heard of great play, and that with 9 goals. At any rate, the tone of voice would not let anyone who tuned in at 2:4 know that something special was happening here. . Which game would he like? It certainly wasn’t that one… He’s hoping for a really boring 0-0 again so that his prefabricated sermons are at least halfway appropriate? At least it’s a theory …
