ESPN Euro 2008 Gamecast Live Commenter Isn’t Biased At All

There was finally a goal after 124 minutes of play during the Croatia V Turkey quarterfinals and it looked as though Croatia had fulfilled their semifinals destiny by scoring within the extra time of extra time. It appeared as so to most of us, including the “Gamecast” correspondent who was live commenting the game. His/her line when the Croats scored? “GOAL. Croatia have won it! Klasnic!” Too bad the ref had added enough time to play a new game because the Turks scored 120 seconds later to equalize. But that doesn’t mean the commenter was a biased bastardo that was rooting for Turkey. Not at all. Until, you look at what he wrote moments earlier.

Let’s see here:

• “Turkey win a free kick wide on the right. Nihat’s free kick is about the worst I’ve seen.”
• “Turkey corner. Nihat off. Good news.

Yeah. That about sums up the fact that a Croat was live commenting the game for ESPN. We weren’t rooting for a particular team because Spain wasn’t playing, but reading the gamecast notes sure had us cheering on Turkey. And guess what? They beat the Croats about five minutes ago on penalties. The live commenter’s parting notes:

What a cruel game football can be. Croatia deserved to win that game, on their approach to it alone, and when they scored in the 92nd minute they must have thought they were through (I certainly did!) but now they’re out. Astonishing.

Astonishing, indeed.