UPDATED: Europe: Still trying to get that teevee thing down

Soccerus interruptus

by Will Bunch | Columnist

Published Jun. 25, 2008, 7:41 p.m. ET

Imagine if the NFC Conference Championship game was tied midway through the 4th quarter, and suddenly Fox had technical difficulties and had to cut to babbling talking heads in the studio for 10 minutes while dramatic go-ahead and game-tying touchdowns were scored, then the picture is restored briefly to show the winning score, but cuts out again on the last 5 minutes of play.

That would NEVER happen in America -- we take our sports too seriously, and would never let a little thing like a lightning strike kill such a major telecast.

Not so for the folks broadcasting Euro 2008, who allowed a little bad weather to ruin the broadcast of what probably would have been the most incredible international match I'd every seen -- a dramatic 3-2 Germany win over spunky upstart Turkey....would have been, if I had actually seen it. I'm hoping they don't have the same problems tomorrow, when Spain plays Russia in the other semi-final.

If you haven't been watching Euro 2008, you've been missing some great sports and some great spectacle.

When it's actually on.

UPDATE: From the Guardian:

The last word goes to Ravi Hiranand. "Here's how the game ended on TV in Hong Kong," writes Ravi. "Five guys in a studio listening in on a phone call between one of the presenters and someone sitting in the stands attempting to describe what's happened over the noise of the crowd and an awful mobile phone connection. Of course, it's all in Cantonese. Brilliant."

UPDATE II: Here's a more detailed story. The entire match was only available on Swiss TV...and al-Jazeera. If tht doesn't sound like a terrorist plot, what does? By the way, this fiasco also exposed ESPN's dirty little secret when it comes to world soccer -- those announcers so vividly describing the scene on the field? Uh, they're actually in Connecticut.