Those deadly vowels straight from the Mancunian perimeter suck the light from any occasion with the force of a black hole. At the end of 90 minutes it feels like you might be in one. Very little survives a Lee Dixon event.
This wasn’t by any means his darkest night. Indeed he confessed to being on the point of tears after Cape Verde cancelled the mighty Spain in this classic elite dump of a World Cup opener.
“You might hear it in my voice, I’m a bit emotional,” he said. “They deserve that point more than anything. This night is Cape Verde’s.”
It might also be Dixon’s best moment as a summariser, begging the question why his wider portfolio is so dire? The late eruption of atmosphere is unlikely, however, to shift the football commentariat towards sympathy, let alone appreciation. Memo to Lee: Don’t visit Reddit.
Football’s patterns speak for themselves in many ways, relieving the pundit of the need to go deep. The benefit of experience should be sufficient, giving a sense of the play, why a player reacts as he does, makes one choice above another, etc.
