Kevin, I think you've hit it precisely. I noticed it especially during tonight's Japan-Turkey match. The ESPN commentator (I don't know his name, though he sounds a lot like Marv Albert) basically named each player who touched the ball, and described each individual move "A carries the ball up wide but it's tackled away by B who loses it to C." It's clearly a style that's based on the "play-by-play" of American football and baseball broadcasting. In their defense, they do make some comments about the general flow of the game and the strategy, but mostly it's "X steals the ball from Y and is called for the foul". I've gotten more and more annoyed with it as the tournament progresses.

It's too bad: this would be a perfect opportunity to teach us ignorant Yanks (and I include myself) some of the fine points of the game, including the laws, positional play, strategy and tactics, etc. They could have a message box that periodically appears at the bottom, maybe titled "IT'S THE LAW!" that would say something like: "The goalkeeper may not touch the ball with his hands if it's kicked to him by a teammate, but may if it's headed to him." Or review the offside law, or explain what's happening on a free kick or corner kick. More importantly, they could have a commentator who knows the game well, who could give an insightful analysis of what was going on that was aimed at people who know something about the game but are not experts. Oh, well, dream on....

Aloha,
Mark