Japan vs Usa Women's World Cup

Credit ESPN for not turning the USA-Japan Women's World Cup final into an us-vs.-them melodrama. And the network is likely to be rewarded with the second-best US TV rating for a women's soccer game.
watch the USA-Japan Women's World Cup final. ESPN steered clear of flag-waving during the match.

But turning the U.S. team into star-spangled boot would have been a stretch given that game announcer Ian Darke is British. He offered up points you don't often hear on U.S. TV sports. After noting, "You can almost reach out and touch this atmosphere" before the USA-Japan kickoff, he wished German Chancellor Angela Merkel a happy birthday, noted Japan's "obdurate" defense and that "it's getting near dawn in the land of the rising sun" — then joked that the action gave him his "19th nervous breakdown."

The quirkiness left game analyst Julie Foudy as the only voice that could have wrapped the game in Old Glory. But she didn't succumb to boosterism as the U.S. team couldn't finish on various scoring opportunities, saying, "It wouldn't be a U.S. game without my blood pressure going up. I'll need medication after this World Cup." Darke shared her queasiness as overtime began: "Now it's going to be even more agonizing to watch."

ESPN's pregame coverage was also muted as it neither overhyped the U.S. team nor overplayed the Japanese team's potential to bring good news to a nation still recovering from its devastating earthquake and tsunami. And there's always one great thing about TV soccer — no commercials.

Postgame, ESPN studio analyst Tony DiCicco noted, "This is the soccer equivalent of the (1980) 'Miracle on Ice,' " and ESPN's Bob Ley said it was Japan's "Lake Placid moment" — a bit of big-picture hyperbole that seemed harmless in small doses.

And like Olympic athletes who momentarily draw big TV ratings but then have no platforms that keep them in front of mass audiences, the U.S. soccer team faces obscurity until next year's London Olympics. But with its Sunday afternoon time slot, and given that overtime in any sport helps ratings, Sunday's final is likely to be the second-highest-rated women's soccer game on U.S. TV. It won't come close to the 11.4% of U.S. households who watched the U.S. team win the 1999 Cup final, but it likely will top the No. 2 rating: 2.9% for the 1999 USA-Brazil semifinal.