ESPN Names 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup Commentators

ESPN announced its roster of commentators for coverage of the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup from South Africa June 14-28 on ESPN and ESPN2, during which the champions of each of the six FIFA confederations—CONCACAF (United States), UEFA (Spain), CAF (Egypt), CONMEBOL (Brazil), AFC (Iraq) and OFC (New Zealand)—the upcoming host country (South Africa), and the past winner of the FIFA World Cup (Italy) compete one-year before the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Rece Davis, who worked the 2006 FIFA World Cup and Euro 2008, returns as the studio host, joined by studio analyst Alexi Lalas.

The commentator teams, who will be based at ESPN’s headquarters in Bristol, CT:
The ESPN lead U.S. Soccer National Team and Major League Soccer booth team of JP Dellacamera (play-by-play) and analyst John Harkes;
UEFA Champions League lead booth team Derek Rae (play-by-play) and analyst Tommy Smyth; and
Adrian Healey, play-by-play voice of the UEFA European Football Championship 2008 (Euro 2008) title match, and former English Premier League player Robbie Mustoe.

ESPN also announced that ESPN Axis—the virtual replay technology developed by Swiss company LiberoVision and ESPN’s production team and used for the first time during studio coverage of the UEFA European Football Championship (Euro 2008)—will be integrated into studio coverage of the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup.