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Yesterday's live soccer match between the Hong Kong Golden Select and England was so bad that I was longing for more commercial breaks.

  The most entertaining part of the bore-fest on ATV was the Nike commercial featuring Eric Cantona.

   But the match itself, or at least England's role in it, was dreadful.

   Golden could not be faulted for mounting a brave defensive effort but England's chronic lack of creative response was unbelievable.

   It was no surprise when the chants of 'What a load of rubbish' filtered through the TV screen.

   More appropriate for what was supposed to be an exhibition were the injured Paul Gascoigne's facial muggings.

   The brilliant midfielder's disturbing contortions when the camera focused on the England dugout raised the question again of genius and madness treading a thin line.

   At least that was exhibitionism of a kind.

 But the best entertainment of the day was the Cantona commercial in which the Frenchman and a group of top players (including Paolo Maldini, Jorge Campos and Ian Wright) take on a team of devils and demons.

   Cantona settles the issue by ripping a literal fireball shot through the demon goalkeeper's chest.

    The European Cup soccer final (ESPN, on Wharf Cable) between Juventus and Ajax was probably the best in 10 years. End-to-end action and plenty of attempts on goal.

   But the colour commentary of Tommy Smyth continues to leave much to be desired. The man has taken inane nattering to a new art form.

  On initially encountering his style I tended to think how quaint it was that he still talks about the ball 'nestling in the old onion bag' or 'rattling the rigging' - like some throwback to 1960s Roy of the Rovers comics. It had a sort of nostalgic, pre-Kenneth Wolstenholme feel to it.

  But now, after two seasons of his Premier League and European Cup ramblings, I have to reconsider.

   It's not just the obsession with train-spotterish facts, but the way he almost always gets it wrong when trying to explain a sequence of action or a refereeing decision.

  For 90 per cent of the time you can bet if Tommy says it's offside it's probably a hand ball or a foul tackle. In contrast, the ESPN baseball commentary teams are perfectly in command of their subjects and not given to cliches.

   The best pairing is Jon Miller with former Boston great Joe Morgan.

  These guys' conversational tone is so relaxed you could switch the pictures off and almost forget the game.

  This is especially true in the late innings of a blowout as in last Monday's broadcast of Sunday Night Baseball where the Chicago White Sox hammered the hapless Detroit Tigers.



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How Eric Cantona turned into an artistic butterfly

Eric Cantona

Commercial steals show as England players fail to make a game of it