The veteran announcer discusses UCL favorites, the revised format and how respect at youth levels shapes footballers
Clive Tyldesley doesn't get paid to predict scores. It is, in fact, the very opposite of what he does. A long-time presence in Premier League circles, Tyldesley is now among the leading voices in Champions League coverage in the United States. And he doesn't like speculating on what might happen.
"I don't get paid any more for predicting. I lose my job if I get the result wrong after the game, but they don't give me any more money for getting the result right before the game," he tells GOAL.
But that doesn't mean that he lacks opinions. Tyldesley has been around the game for 50 years now. He knows how it can evolve and change. He can also identify a winning team when he sees one. For example, 2024 PSG, he says, are the poster child of Champions League success – beat the big teams early, find a rhythm, and walk your way through a final once everything falls into place.
"They grew as a force through the course of the season. They beat the best of English to get to the final, and won the final with more style than anybody who's won a Champions League final for quite some time," he says.
This year, things might look the same. He has backed the "usual suspects." Even a struggling Real Madrid can piece a run together.
But being in America has forced him to consider other perspectives. It is in his interest, he admits, for the USMNT to piece together a strong World Cup run next year. And even if he doesn't have biases while calling games for CBS and Paramount+, it is always a good thing to see U.S. internationals perform on a European stage.
Tyldesley's true passions, though, remain at home. He is heavily involved with the FA these days, raising awareness around the Silent Support campaign, which encourages parents to think before they speak to youth players and referees during local games. A more respectful ecosystem, he argues, will bring about more understanding – and perhaps even better footballers.
"A very tiny percentage of them will go on any kind of level, but those memories are still, I think, very, very important and particularly important to the players that did graduate into the professional game," he says.
And perhaps that's what it's all about: enjoying this, at all levels of the game. Tyldesley covered all that and more in the latest edition of Mic'd Up, a recurring feature in which GOAL taps into the perspective of analysts, announcers and other pundits on the state of soccer in the U.S. and abroad.
Getty Images SportON COMMENTATING IN AMERICA
GOAL: You're well known in England, but what's it like announcing for an American audience? Is that on your mind?
TYLDESLEY: The key to good journalism is research and truth and balance, but also to recognizing your audience and relating to them, to make sure that you are not talking over the heads of your audience. You're not patronizing them, you're not you're not misleading them in any way. And so the starting point when CBS asked me to commentate on a Champions League game, the guidance that I got from Pete Radovich, who is my big boss, who enlisted me initially on a personal level because he wanted the experience for the American viewer to be almost identical to it as if they were watching the games in Europe.
This is elite European club football, and he wanted the game to be presented with the same flavor that it would be to a European audience. I don't call it "soccer." I don't call it "the locker room." Pete encourages us to use the same vocabulary that we would in Europe. But I think you have to be mindful that you are introducing the sport to a certain number of the audience, and so I'll always speak in yards rather than meters. I've tried to do transfer fees in dollars. I will maybe try to relate a bigger picture. For instance, the Real Madrid dynasty within the Champions League, I tried to relate to similar dynasties in NBA and NFL down the years, just to try to conjure up the size of the achievements that we're talking about.
Similarly, when Manchester City were going for the treble, there's nothing really quite like that in American sports. I remember referring to the Triple Crown, the horse racing triple crown, and just trying to find touch points, which will help an American audience that maybe hasn't followed European football as avidly as some do in the States, to try to relate it to maybe their favorite sport – or the circle the sporting culture that they're more familiar with.
AdvertisementGettyON AMERICAN PLAYERS
GOAL: Do you feel a bit of pressure to hype American players?
TYLDESLEY: I think you feel pleased for them when they make an impact. I mean, two things about it. One, it's one of our boys, so to speak, yeah. I said "straight out of Brooklyn" when Tim Weah scored. I'm never going to be Ray Hudson. But you try to find some moments immediately after a goal. You have to try to find some unique words for it: Interesting, fantastic, incredible is not enough. You've got to try to find words which, if you like, define that particular goal, and why it's special.
But I also think that it is a big two years for the game in the USA. I think it's really important for the next finals that the USMNT are strong. I think every World Cup benefits from a strong showing from the host nation. I remember back in 2002, that World Cup. It took on a completely different magnitude because of South Korea reaching the semifinal. In 2010, even though South Africa went out in the group stage, for a West African nation to then take on the mantle, I felt as if all of Africa were behind them.
The World Cup will be a different experience next year if the USMNT reach the knockout stages. It's good for the game and for the international game. I think there are a dozen or so Americans potentially involved in the Champions League this. And I know it's only right that CBS and Paramount+ keep a special eye on on their progress.
GettyON CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
GOAL: On the Champions League this year, who do you rate? Who do you fancy to win it?
TYLDESLEY: You're not looking too far beyond the usual suspects. The very fact that there are six English Premier League teams in the competition underlines the might of the English Premier League, both the financial might and the strength in depth of those. The Liverpool and Arsenal and Manchester City squads now have all improved during the course of the summer. Chelsea are going in as well as FIFA World Champion. So you'd be surprised if there wasn't an English team in the final.
You would never dismiss the famous names of the competition, because I think Real Madrid retain a certain aura, and I think that the better Italian teams are better than they have been in probably a generation. But I don't get paid any more for predicting. I lose my job if I get the result wrong after the game, but they don't give me any more money for getting the result right before the game.
GOAL: On Madrid, that was obviously a big talking point before the season, how they going to look under Xabi Alonso. You saw them play. What did you make of them?
TYLDESLEY: Well, if they keep losing a major international defender every week, it's rather going to undermine their attempts, particularly as I think that their squad is maybe a little unbalanced already, with the Real Madrid's inevitable perennial leading towards attracting attacking talent. They've added to their artillery during the summer without reinforcing their defensive sort of group in quite the same way. We saw in the opening game against Marseille how difficult it is to go to the Bernabeu and win or survive. Marseille made a better match of it than many might have imagined. The Real Madrid penalty we settled the game effectively, should never have been given, in my opinion.
But they've still got exceptional talents. I just think if we've learned anything about the Champions League in the last five years, it's never to discount Real Madrid, even if they're two down with two minutes to go. Certain sports performers and teams just have an aura about them, and it's an aura that new recruits to the club inherit that belief, and probably even more tellingly, it's an aura that impacts opponents. So even when an opponent gets close to victory against Real Madrid, there's still a doubt in the back of their minds as to whether they can see it through or Real Madrid will find a way to win. And I remember Pep Guardiola talking quite regularly about Manchester City needing to serve an apprenticeship in the Champions League.
For all their success on the English stage, for all the talent at his disposal, all the resources at his disposal to add to that talent, you've got to play some years in the Champions League before you can graduate and believe you can win. PSG maybe underline that point as strongly as anybody. They grew as a force through the course of the season. They beat the best of English to get to the final, and won the final with more style than anybody who's won a Champions League final for quite some time.
AFPON THE UCL GROUP PHASE
GOAL: We're in year two of a revamped group phase. Simple question: yes or no?
TYLDESLEY: I'm always wary of change to something which doesn't really need changing. I was a skeptic a year ago. I'm a believer now. It worked very well. It was an unusual season in so much that nobody could have anticipated or predicted that Real Madrid and PSG would struggle in the early stages of the competition in the way they did. And so there was a very veiled advantage to Liverpool for winning the league phase, because it was clear, even on the morning of the draw, that they were going to get either Real or PSG, and that didn't seem fair. But it's a cup competition. It's not actually meant to be fair. You get what you get in the draw.
And in order to win a competition, you've got to beat the best. And sometimes it's as well to, you know, to play them in the round of 16 than it is to play them in the finals. So I just think that the format produced more matches with true jeopardy in the preliminary stage of the competition, more eye-catching matchups, less sort of dead-rubbers in December. There are times when we've reached Match Day Six without a decent game to cover. It's not as if it diluted the drama that the Champions League knockout phase always seems to serve up, because we still had some wonderful games to remember at the sharp end of the competition. But yeah, I thought it worked very well indeed.