The Art of Football Commentary

I want to share a historic example, and we need to travel further back in time to Switzerland.

It's 1954.

Nine years after the Second World War ended, the FIFA World Cup is taking place in Bern, or Bern.

And the final is between the newly created West Germany and Hungary.

Hungary at this point in time is one of the best, if not the best team in the world.

And they had already beaten the same West German team eight to three in the group stage.

So Hungary are obviously going to win this one.

The final is just almost a formality.

Eight to three?

8 to 3 is insane, actually.

That's nuts.

Yeah, and look, you could say a football commentator has three big jobs.

The first is simple but hard to do well.

Call the game.

Tell you what's happening on the pitch and who scores the goals, right? The second job is to help us, the audience, understand what's happening.

Provide analysis, give some insights, especially when things are a little stale on the pitch.

And today that's shared between two people.

And then there's a third one

that makes the good ones legends.

They arouse you, they narrate the important games, and they make you feel it even more.

And at a World Cup, when a commentator is calling their own country, that third job, that creating arousal, often carries a sliver of something else, a little bit of nationalism.

Watching your team during the World Cup with your own country's broadcaster in your ears, it becomes evident they want their team to win.

You're in this together.

So I want to show you a historic example full of tension sourced from the German SWRDE and the ARD Radio Archive.

This is a sports commentator by the name of Herbert Zimmermann calling the 1954 finals for West German Radio.

I want to share a historic example, and we need to travel further back in time to Switzerland.

It's 1954.

Nine years after the Second World War ended, the FIFA World Cup is taking place in Bern, or Bern.

And the final is between the newly created West Germany and Hungary.

Hungary at this point in time is one of the best, if not the best team in the world.

And they had already beaten the same West German team eight to three in the group stage.

So Hungary are obviously going to win this one.

The final is just almost a formality.

Eight to three?

8 to 3 is insane, actually.

That's nuts.

Yeah, and look, you could say a football commentator has three big jobs.

The first is simple but hard to do well.

Call the game.

Tell you what's happening on the pitch and who scores the goals, right? The second job is to help us, the audience, understand what's happening.

Provide analysis, give some insights, especially when things are a little stale on the pitch.

And today that's shared between two people.

And then there's a third one

that makes the good ones legends.

They arouse you, they narrate the important games, and they make you feel it even more.

And at a World Cup, when a commentator is calling their own country, that third job, that creating arousal, often carries a sliver of something else, a little bit of nationalism.

Watching your team during the World Cup with your own country's broadcaster in your ears, it becomes evident they want their team to win.

You're in this together.

So I want to show you a historic example full of tension sourced from the German SWRDE and the ARD Radio Archive.

This is a sports commentator by the name of Herbert Zimmermann calling the 1954 finals for West German Radio.