Robert Green’s Goalkeeping Gaffe Deserved All Of Martin Tyler’s Harsh Words

I’d like to state up front that I’m not bringing this up to drag goalkeeper Robert Green’s name through the mud any more than it already has been. It was a mistake that turned a win into a draw, but England can rebound from it.

Still, it was a bad mistake, and when ABC color commentator Martin Tyler (an Englishman) spent some time dwelling on it, some Americans took offense. Notably, this fellow from Gawker TV.

After the American goal that tied things up, Tyler repeatedly—and condescendingly—cried foul.

[...] Tyler: “It was a hit and hope shot. But if you buy a ticket, sometimes you win a raffle.” Ungh.

The author either doesn’t know much about sports, or (more likely) chose to set his knowledge aside here.

The “raffle” line is simply a re-phrasing of an idea commonly held in other sports. Put the bat on the ball, make the fielders do their job. Challenge the hitter and make him miss. Create turnovers and give your offense a chance to win. In other words, maximize your number of chances. It wasn’t a knock on the United States; it was a simply a reference to a tried-and-true model.

The United States got lucky here. It wasn’t a hideous shot, but I doubt that Clint Dempsey expected it to go in. He was simply continuing to test the goalkeeper and make him do his job. Robert Green failed to do his job. It was indeed a “howler.” The most important story here wasn’t, “good job, Clint Dempsey!” It was, “damn, Robert Green, what’s up?” And this is the story Tyler focused on.

The author objects to something in particular that Tyler said:

And finally, he said, “It’s not one that you see regularly. If you’re watching a game like this for the first time—and maybe some of you are—that just doesn’t happen. That really doesn’t happen in schoolboy play, because it’s tough on schoolboy goalkeepers to say that they would make a mistake like that,” which basically suggested that the Americans were not only lucky, but probably never watched a “football” match before in the first place.

Actually, a healthy slice of Americans, prior to this weekend, didn’t know exactly what the World Cup is. Many Americans who watched that goal probably figured that it was a screw-up, but didn’t really understand how big a deal it was. When Tyler spelled it out, he offered these fans a measure of context.

Yes, Mr. Tyler, we get it: Green made a mistake. And that’s the point—it’s not our fault that your country’s goalie couldn’t stop what you claim was such a horribly non-threatening shot. So, please, shut up about it already.

In the headline of this post, the author calls Tyler “butthurt.” Huh.

(H/T: Sharebro Andy Hutchins)