Carbonero's husband is Iker Casillas, so she should know her stuff.
Incidentally BBC Sport's Connected TV App is showing live Women's Football from BBC Alba, which I've not known happening on the traditional Red Button service before.
A quick look online tells me that Jon Champion is not the lead commentator on ESPN. The lead is apparently Ian Darke and they also have Adrian Healy and Derek Rae, meaning 4 British commentators. The only non Brit is Fernando Palomo.
ESPN also have Daniel Mann (from Sky Sports)
Co-commentators are: Stewart Robson, Steve McManaman, Alejandro Moreno, Efan Ekoku, Kasey Kellar and Taylor Twellman
I don't see anyone booking Cheryl Cole or other England WAGs as pundits though! I think she meet him through her work as a sports journo rather than the other way round.
Can anyone explain how ITV have got in this position where almost all the commentators are unknowns, I thought usually freelancers or pundits who usually work for other channels come back to ITV for the summer tournaments.
Is it a situation where the BBC's all year round football portfolio actually gives them an advantage here, as having to do highlights only every week means they have multiple commentary teams on ar every week. ITV have on average one live match a week, meaning they only really have one team in the spotlight.
When ITV's Champion's League coverage changed to Tuesday evening in 2012 they only needed one commentary team going forward so they 'sacked' Jim Beglin and Peter Drury as they were no longer required. Therefore only Clive Tyldesley and Andy Townsend are retained on ITV's staff. With a reduced commitment they have therefore simply relied upon freelancers for any FA Cup matches on ITV4. It has basically left them in this position.
Whilst it's good that ITV has retained World Cup coverage until 2022 I'd worry at their ability to cover those tournaments adequately with the BBC.
Indeed - the 2012-13 season seemed little different, as Peter Drury was still engaged on a freelance basis, but Beglin was used less and less. However, Drury was offered World Feed work for this World Cup(perhaps including the final) and elected to take up that offer over ITV's. Therefore, ITV elected not to use him at all this season just gone as they built up their World Cup team.
John Champion was to have been ITV's number 2 (hence his increased ITV workload this season), but decided quite late on to take up ESPN's offer. Thus, everybody was shifted up a position (Sam Matterface was to have been number 3, Joe Speight number 4) and Arlo White etc. brought in to cover. ITV are doing this a rather bizarre way, what with Speight remaining off-tube throughout (whilst also acting as backup commentator should transport fail the onsite commentator) and White and co possibly even coming from London. Compare that with Euro 2012 or the World Cup four years ago, and the class of the commentary is night and day between ITV then and now. 4 years ago it was Tyldesley, Drury and Champion, now it's Tyldesley, Matterface (who was presenting on Sky Sports News 4 years ago!) and Speight!
Shouldn't be too much of an issue using the World Feed for matches they don't show live at this point (indeed that makes sense, especially with no extended highlights shows) - but be interesting to see if any make their way to live match coverage. If they're going to use the World Feed for anything it'll be the 2am kick-off tonight, and then I guess the ITV4 matches when there are double headers, especially as ITV are showing 5 of those over 4 days - with 4 matches on the Monday.
I'm in Spain at the moment and the difference in how the Spanish networks cover football to the UK is clear. While in the UK the coverage is male dominated, often with ex players turned presenters, here they are not afraid to use female presenters and reporters. Sara Carbonero on Telecinco is considerably easier on the eye than Adrian Chiles - although my Spanish isn't good enough to know if she has any idea what she is talking about, but I assume she is knowledgeable about the game.
Is there any reason why the UK coverage is so male dominated?
I think you answer your own question - they use ex-players. The BBC did use Jacqui Oatley as a commentator on Match of the Day a couple of times, and made a song and dance about it - I recall it was a main news headline on Breakfast for example - but that didn't last long. Outside of women's football ITV did use Gaby Logan as a presenter for a while, and Sky use Sarah Jane Mee on highlights, and have recently used Natalie Sawyer on the odd Football League game, and BT have used female presenters to a limited extent, but in general there are few presenters, and the experts are ex-pros.
