O'BRIEN'S SOCCER POINTS ARE MUTE.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH MEDIA

Despite what they try to tell you in that World Cup ad slogan on ESPN and ABC, one game doesn't change anything.

Three games is what we gave network play-by-play man Dave O'Brien -- all three of the U.S. team's broadcasts -- to determine if all the criticism heaped upon him back in April by the soccer snobs was justified, to see if he's indeed worthy of his bosses' gut decision that he'll be the one to take coverage of soccer up a notch in this country.

We did change our opinion of him as each game was played. It got progressively worse.

Put it this way: When the U.S. team boards a plane to head home in disgrace, O'Brien should be handing out the peanuts on the flight.

All the tedious examples of how O'Brien managed to batter around all the proper kickball cliches, bungle names of players and contradict the graphics that ESPN and ABC put up on the screen are in greater detail in the blog entries (www.insidesocal.com/ tomhoffarth) from all threegames. But don't take our word for it.

Deadspin.com blogger Brand Hollihan took hatred to a new level right after the U.S.-Czech Republic telecast:

``I'm not a futsoccerbol fan by any means, but I will say that ESPN is doing their damndest to make this sport as unappealing as possible. Dave O'Brien is tantamount to the third plague of Moses when it comes to sports commentating ... Every time the Davester makes an inane comment about the number of runs the Americans are behind, or how many downs they have left, I wish I had been the firstborn in my family so that Yahweh could strike me down in the final plague.''

A fan forum at BigSoccer.com has a thread to ``the official complain- about-ESPN/ABC'' postings, and another for fans to list their ``favorite inane thing said by the announcers so far.'' O'Brien's voiceprints are all over it.

Then there's an online recall effort (www. petitionspot.com/petitions/ World--Cup--Announcers) that started a few months back, begging ESPN to hire better play-by-play men for the World Cup and questioning why O'Brien, a halfway decent baseball guy, would even be groomed for this job.

Petition author John Sheehan of Fort Wayne, Ind., said more than 500signatures have been added to the 4,000 that were on the virtual document at the beginning of the World Cup. The petition also has a link to it off the World Soccer Weekly site that supports the influential daily radio and weekly TV show by Steven Cohen and Nick Gerber.

The signatures have been forwarded to ESPN -- which Sheehan refers to as ``Enriching Soccer Practically Never'' -- but there's been no response.

``Real fans who understand the sport want real announcers who know the game they are covering,'' Sheehan said. ``As a person that has played, coached and followed the game for more than 20 years, I find O'Brien's lack of knowledge appalling.

``I don't blame O'Brien though. ESPN is at fault here. They claim to be the `world-wide leader in sports,' but in the realm of soccer most of their coverage is comical at best. They are basically saying to the soccer community that anyone can commentate on soccer since nobody cares anyway. Their ratings would indicate otherwise as they are drawing quite well. But they would have a much larger share if they didn't drive real fans away to Setanta (broadcast in German) or Univision (in Spanish), as many fans would rather hear announcing in a language they don't understand than to hear announcers make a mockery of the game.''

Some newspaper critics have damned O'Brien with very faint praise. USA Today's Michael Heistand wrote Monday that O'Brien was ``workmanlike and dutifully used terms such as `nil' and `pitch.''' The best that Neil Best of Newsday could write was: ``To the untrained soccer ears, he sounds like a solid, unspectacular pro.''

Before the World Cup, executive producer Jed Drake said naming O'Brien over a more experienced

JP Dellacamera as ``a calculated risk. ... We wanted to take a signature voice from a mainstream sport and make it the signature voice of this event. We hope it pays off.''

Dellacamera, on ESPN's B-team with John Harkes, would have been acceptable. Many endorse the foreign-born Derek Rae, who does the Champions League games for ESPN. What about Seamus Malin?

Jack Edwards anyone?

(Let's not even go there).

O'Brien might never win with the diehards. But even the casual fan has to be more than casually annoyed.

O'Brien said last week in an interview with USA Today that he was aware of ``a backlash before I did a single game ... there's kind of a petulant little clique of soccer fans (who are) mean-spirited ... they're not really the audience we want to reach anyway.''

Congrats on that. You not only turned away the sport's most passionate viewers, but when the rest of us are content with turning down the sound and seeking out Andres Cantor doing the game in Spanish for the ``Futbol de Primera'' radio network (KLYY-FM 97.5 in L.A., as well as XM Satellite Channel 147), then it all becomes a mute point for ESPN and O'Brien.

Instant criticism: ABC/ESPN soccer studio analyst Eric Wynalda seemed pretty level-headed when he immediately called out U.S. coach Bruce Arena in the firstfew minutes of Thursday's postgame analysis.

``I'm more concerned about the managerial position of the United States' national team ... I'm going to be the first one to say it: Bruce Arena screwed up this World Cup for the U.S.,'' Wynalda said.

``This team, as much as it was being touted as the best American team, was poorly managed ... the strength of Bruce Arena has always been to put people in positions where they'll be successful. On several occasions, that was not the case ... Bruce did not make the right moves.''

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, 2 boxes

Photo:

(1) Dave O'Brien, right, and Marcelo Balboa have been the A-team on the ABC and ESPN coverage of the World Cup.

ESPN

(2) no caption (Ray Whitney)

Box:

(1) WHAT SMOKES

(2) WHAT CHOKES