This is Gus Baby

This is not Dave O'Brien at the World Cup, but I was afraid that it would be. Gus Johnson became the voice of soccer on Fox Sports when he called the first leg of the Champions League epic clash between Real Madrid and Manchester United.

For a first outing it was not that bad. I was at work for the game, so I listened to it on Sirius and they used the Fox Sports audio featuring Johnson and Warren Barton. To be honest, I'm not the biggest Johnson fan to begin with. Never been a huge fan of his over the top style.

But to his credit he was a true professional during the game, he seemed to do a great deal of research in preparing for the game and that showed during the broadcast.

My concern about Gus was that he would not let the game breath and he allowed the game to breath, which was good to see. What makes English announcers so good is that they don't talk over everything and Gus did not. Fair play to him.

Gus said a couple of little things that annoyed me, the main one being when he called the ball a "football"

I think that Awful Announcing summed up Gus's performance perfectly.

"Gus didn't sound like a basketball announcer calling soccer, he sounded like a soccer announcer,'' Awful announcing wrote. "The rhythm of his calls and his excitement as the action reaches a crescendo is a fantastic pairing."

Special 1TV: The end of the season

The Special One puts all of his chips on red for the Champions League Final.

Special 1TV: WikiLeaks Edition

Special 1TV looks into FIFA awarding of world cup bids and making a shocking discovery.

Special 1TV: The Return is coming

After the fall of Setanta Sports, Special 1TV was left blank, now its coming back. Here is the promo for it. I can not wait. I hope The Boy is coming back too.

Soccer's Lost Souls

Three years ago, Jose Antonio Reyes and Ricardo Quaresma were the talk of the football world. Both were talented offensive player that played with flair. Fast forward a couple of years and both have almost lost their ways.

Reyes dazzled as a young player at Sevilla and then Professor Wenger made a move to bring him to his football factory in London.

Things started well for the young Spaniard, but it soon turned sour after reports surfaced that Reyes was not happy in London and wanted to return the Spain. Arsenal loaned Reyes to Real Madrid for the 2006-2007 season, but he did not impress enough to earn a permit deal. Arsenal then decided to sell Reyes to Atletico Madrid where he spent a season before he was sent out on load to Benfica for the 2008-2009. While playing well at the Portuguese giants, a full time move was not agreed upon. So to start this season Reyes will again be with Atletico Madrid looking to settle with a club for more then one season. Despite being only 25, Reyes has played for five different clubs and is in the process of being an lost player on the world stage.

Quaresma is the Portuguese version of the Reyes, a ton of talent but has yet to settle at some of the worlds better clubs.

Quaresma started his career at Sporting and then moved to Barcelona, but things did not go well there and he high tailed it back to the place of his birth, this time with Porto. After a couple of impressive season at both club and national team levels, Quaresma found himself at Inter Milan, where people thought that he would flourish under Jose Mourinho, just like Ajen Robben did at Chelksi. But that has not happen, after failing to impress during the first half of last season, Mourinho sent Quaresma out on loan to Chelski. While at Chelski things did not go that well and at the end of the season he was returned to Inter. Things have gotten so bad that Turkish side Besiktas have asked about taking him on loan for this season. Just like Reyes, Quaresma has already been through give 5 teams and his only 25 years old.

Despite having great skills Reyes and Quaresma both have to establish themselves this year or their dreams of being a world class player will be dead for good.

Gimmick Infringement?

For the last two years Irish boardcaster Setanta has been making the world laugh with the puppet series Special1 TV. The series includes puppets that depict The Special One, Wayne Rooney, and Sven. The series is classic and has drawn critical acclaim. Now they have company in the puppet sports world.

Now Nike is getting into the puppet business with the Kobe and LeBron commercials during the NBA Finals. Nike will have to show me that they are on the same level as Special1 TV. I really don't think that they will ever be up to that level. It's weird that Nike would go in this direction, maybe they saw the success of Special1 TV and wanted to get in on the sports puppet world.

Best of Special1 TV

The gang wraps up the season with a best of episode, classic bits.

Save Carlos

A new signing for the show. The worlds most famous Hammers fan joins the crew for next season.

Abs by Ronnie

The puppet Ronnie teaches you how to get ready for the summer.

Special One TV: Wormholes

Wenger has lost his mind and thinks that hey might be in the Champions League Final despite being knocked out by Manchester United.

Sven has Swine Flu?

Squeaky Bum Time

The season is coming to an end and its squeaky bumb time.

Managers Looking For Work

The boy looks at how the economy has affected out of work managers, good piece of journalism.

Wiki Wayne

The boy explains the FA Cup, wikipedia style.

Sven has lost it

Sven weirds everyone out and Wayne always makes sure that he keeps the right amount of injury time. The muppets, as my friends at Sox and Phils, call them return to celebrate Easter.

Sven is looking for a job

Fresh off getting the sack from Mexico, It is looking for a new job.

Champions League Predictions

I know the draw came out almost a week ago, but things have been busy around the OTWT home offices. Here are my predictions for the quarterfinals of the Champions League, which should be tasty. The ties will be played April 7/8 and the second legs will be played 14/15.

• Villarreal - Arsenal: Arsenal, they seem to be moving forward and could be a team that shocks the world in Rome.
• Manchester United - Porto: About five years ago this was the tie that introduced England to the Special One and changed English football forever, I think United will have an easy time with this one going through 3-0 on agg.
• Liverpool - Chelsea: Here we go again, I have this feeling that this year the games will be very different then they have been. I go with Liverpool on Pens.
• Barcelona - Bayern: The tie of the round, this has goals written all over it. I have this feeling that its going to be a United Barca final in Rome, so that would have to mean that Barca go through in an exciting tie.
  

Jose on Springer

Sir Alex might be going nuts, but Jose and Sven appear on an American talk show and the sparks start flying.

No Jose

The Special fails to show up and take his beating after Inter is smashed out of the Champions League. Its Wayne and Sven that take you through the program.

Going Global and Wayne comes on late

The Special One is moving across Europe and Wayne comes on late and fails to make an impact.