Did Anyone See the Luxembourg-Netherlands Match?

Day one of the Euro 2008 qualifying matches is over. I’ll have a brief summary report on the next EPL Talk Podcast, scheduled for release on Sunday night. But how many of you out there had the “pleasure” of watching the live televised match today between Luxembourg and Netherlands?

In all of my years of watching football on TV (nearly 30), this was the worst coverage I’ve ever seen. Although I’m sure it wasn’t Setanta’s fault, it did make Setanta look poor in my opinion.

For those of you who didn’t see it, here’s what happened: During the beginning of the match it seemed that the wrong video feed was being played. Sure, we were able to see the match but while you were watching, the live video started rewinding, then fast-forwarding, then pausing and back-and-forth for several minutes. It almost seemed that they were playing the wrong video feed and the feed that was being played was the one from the video editing room.

To make matters worse, the camera angles were horrible. At times the camera was zoomed so close to the action on the field that you couldn’t see what else was going on around the player. Othertimes, the camera would zoom in and zoom out making me feel sick from the motion going so fast.

As all of this was happening, the commentator appeared silent for the most part, but now and again he made some comments alluding to the fact that “we’re back again,” only for the video to carry on with its horrible display again.

And, of course, we can’t forget the audio. It sounded as if the commentator was speaking from a tin box. A crawl across the bottom of the screen apologized for the audio technical difficulties, but why one wasn’t displayed to apologize for the video difficulties, I’m amazed.

I managed to watch the Dutch score their only goal of the match, and then quickly turned it off. Hopefully the coverage didn’t get worse from there, but this was the first match I’ve ever watched on TV that was unwatchable.

I’m guessing that the coverage had nothing to do with Setanta, and that they were at the mercy of the company providing the feed for the video and audio. But my oh my I’ve never seen a football match look so bad. It makes you appreciate the job that TWI does.