Was it how much the South Americans missed Luis Suarez, suspended for his goalline handball in the quarter final? What about the rare sight of Arjen Robben scoring a headed goal. Or the fact that Dutch hatchetman Mark Van Bommel committed a bazillion fouls, yet escaped a booking until deep in injury time...which he got for kicking the ball away?
For me, it was the absence of inane chat disturbing the background of an entertaining football match. For ITV's co-commentator, Jim Beglin, was absent because of illness, leaving Clive Tyldesley on his lonesome. And thankfully, because even Clive Tyldesley can't talk non-stop for ninety minutes...unless Manchester United are playing...and so there were some lovely long silences to cherish.
Football is by no means unique in its use of ex-players as pundits in the television coverage - just check out rugby, cricket, tennis and formula one to name a few other sports. But these sports have found articulate, interesting, entertaining personalities to sit in the studio or in the commentary box, and appear to have loads to choose from.
Football coverage, in contrast, is characterized by a load of ex-pros who steadfastly refuse to be critical or unpleasant towards the players they are watching (many of whom are contemporaries) and are capable of no more insight than "He ought to have done better there".
Sometimes its the sheer mauling of syntax which does my head in - for example, I find Jamie "the defence, literally, literally fell asleep there. Literally" Redknapp completely unwatchable. Sometimes its the outrageous and poorly hidden bias - check out Redknapp again, ex-Celtic player Andy Walker, and pretty much any studio pundit during an England game for this. And sometimes it's the sheer laziness and lack of effort put in.
The award for the latter goes to none other than Mr. Alan Shearer, whose nuggets this season included "nobody's even heard of Hatem Ben Arfa", the French striker who, prior to joining Newcastle had eight caps for France, significant Champions League experience with Lyon and was the subject of a £8.5m move to Marseille in 2008. This followed on from pieces of useful info from his World Cup campaign, which included "Germany might look to bring on Gomez for his pace". That'll be the 6ft 2in target man Mario Gomez, who has the turning circle of a bus and the pace of a wheelie bin.
It's slightly insulting to know that my licence fee contributes towards his six figure salary, especially as his job description appears to consist of 'smirk at anything Gary Lineker says, and look constipated at any other time'. Though it's not as insulting as my licence fee being spent on Strictly Come Dancing.
There are good pundits out there - the analytical and thoughtful Lee Dixon and the brutally honest Graeme Souness emerged this season as reasons not to change the channel during half time, but the fact that Alan Hansen now seems to be making an active effort to trot out tired cliches on Match Of The Day rather than points of interest seems to suggest that the producers of the programmes feel their target audience has an average IQ in only double figures.
But you don't have to look too far for wisdom regarding the beautiful game...but you won't often find it on British TV. Thankfully, there are still some journalists out there who see more to football than headlines such as '
So why not put these folks on the telly? They may or may not be articulate (Lowe has commentated for ESPN, so hopefully he falls in the first category) but they can't be any worse than some of the stuff already on the studio sofas.
Either that, or I'll just have to pray that the latest addition to the Sky stable, Gary Neville, turns out to be bright, thoughtful, impartial and witty.
Some hope.
L.
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