WHEREIN JOHN COLLINS CONTINUES TO BE POOOOOOR AND THE CBC CONTINUE TO ANNOY ME

[Collins: 'Poor defending by the centre half.'

Geez, so didn't expect you to say that, John.]

Former Fulham player John Collins joined CBC's commentating team during this World Cup and the 'expert analysis' he has contributed thus far can be accurately described in one word: Poor. Not that his analysis has been literally poor -- although, yes, there's that as well -- this is more about the fact that the man cannot divorce himself from saying the word 'poor' at least 20 zillion times in every single segment he's in. Grating doesn't even begin to describe it. The other day's Holland/Brazil quarterfinal presented the man with yet another opportunity to be an obnoxious broken record and disappoint he did not. After Jason de Vos finished giving his ramble on how Holland managed against Brazil's non-defense, Scott Russell (who, bless him, is likely being briefed during each break on how to simply pronounce players' names properly) turns to Collins and asks what his thoughts are. Of course, our Collins pipes up with what has become an old stand-by for him during this tournament: 'Poor defending. Poor goalkeeping.' That was it. That was all he said. Other canned responses from John have included: 'Poor finishing', 'no chance' and his signature 'Pooooooor'. The man can't be stopped.

Worse than John Collins' poooooor analysis has been the CBC insisting that we be subjected to the opinions of drunk fans at half time. Via field reporters stationed at different ethnic bars around Toronto, viewers are made to put up with a variation of the same thing every day:

Saphia Khambalia (shouting over a crowd in Little Portugal) : Who do you think is going to win today?

Fan wearing a Portugal shirt, scarf, etc. replies: PORTUGAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL!!!!!!! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Saphia Khambalia: Back to you, Scott.

I get it, CBC. I get that Canada's a funny old place to be a football fan. I get that once World Cup fever hits, Torontonians en masse bust out their grandmum's/grandad's/mother's/father's/distant- relative-you-spoke-to-one-time's flag and go nuts for a team that they don't give a hoot about for the four years in between World Cups. Your concerted effort to package the multiculturalism of this city which, is already very visible during the World Cup without all your extensive spotlighting (please see: car flags and College street during Italy games) is veering into try-hard territory. Scratch that, actually. It has arrived in the land of try-hard. It has set up shop, put in a down payment on a nice house in the suburbs and is now planning a family.

[During Spain/Paraguay: 1. Reporter promptly screws up David Villa's name. Where's Scott Russell's people when you need them, huh? 2. When she asks the Paraguay fan on the right what he thought of his team's performance in the first half he says he 'wasn't really paying attention' and then rambles on about how he only just started following Paraguay that morning after hearing about 'this really hot fan'. I wish I were joking.]

A gaffe of Chris Kamara proportions from the CBC's man in South Africa, Kim Brunhuber, completed the CBC's circle of epic-fail today when Brunhuber lamented that Dirk Kuyt hadn't scored a goal yet in this tournament. You are physically there at World Cup, right, Kim? Watching the matches and such? Well, watch harder, sir. You're missing important stuff... like goals.

The one thing I can say the CBC have done exceedingly well however is that it's basically been wall-to-wall World Cup on the network. When CTV had the World Cup, it felt like matches were jockeying with all sorts of other shows for airtime. The CBC have showed most matches live on their main network. I think it was every single match, actually. And when matches were running simultaneously they were on their sister channel, CBC Bold. They've have also been great with repeating matches played in the day again in the evening as well as streaming matches live online and on-demand.