Comcast deserves red card for this soccer telecast

I have decided that, at least for a while, I am not going to criticize local soccer telecasts in any way, shape or form.

This decision comes after watching the Comcast SportsNet coverage of last week's game between the San Jose Earthquakes and Real Salt Lake — perhaps the most abominably produced, incompetently announced sporting event I've ever witnessed.

It was the ultimate minor-league effort for what's supposed to be Major League Soccer.

The folks at Ch. 2 and RSL would have to put a whole lot of time and effort into planning a telecast that bad.

Apparently, nobody involved in the CSN telecast had ever watched a soccer game on TV before. Somebody forgot to tell them that there are no timeouts in soccer. That the action doesn't stop.

Thus, it's incredibly idiotic to cut away from the action on the field to show us video of the San Jose coach sitting on the sidelines being interviewed. Gee, if you're going to do that, we don't actually have to SEE him in order to HEAR him. Or, for that matter, if you feel obligated to show us his face, do it as an insert in the corner of the screen.

Same goes for the interview with the injured player.

Unfortunately, it's not unusual for American TV to cut away from live action to show us highlights. Sometimes it's handled well; other times less so.

But these dopes actually cut away from Saturday night's game to show us two goals the Earthquakes scored against Real — LAST YEAR.

I am NOT making this up. I'm not clever enough to fictionalize something like that. That's sort of Ripley's Believe It Or Not crazy. But, unfortunately, we had to believe it.

And then there were the announcers — play-by-play man John Shrader and (alleged) analyst Troy Dayak.

I understand that I was watching the Earthquakes' TV home team in action. I get it. They're working for San Jose fans, and that's who they were trying to keep happy.

But Shrader and Dayak's level of homer-ism was so out of control it was ridiculous. It's only a slight exaggeration to say that, listening to them, RSL committed foul after foul while San Jose was blameless. And every call against the visitors was good, while every call against the home team was bad.

And, by the way, I came to these conclusions in the first half of Saturday's game, when the game was scoreless. Although it's also true that, if I were an Earthquakes fan, I wouldn't have been as jarred by Shrader and Dayak.