‘After 30+ Champions League finals, jeopardy makes my work better’ | Football | Sport

Few individuals in football have witnessed more matches than commentary legend Clive Tyldesley. The broadcasting stalwart reckons he remains considerably behind fellow commentator Martin Tyler’s tally, yet reached the personal milestone of 30 Champions League finals in 2024. Throughout his career, Tyldesley has been privileged to observe some of the globe’s finest talents in action in Europe’s elite club tournament. His CV encompasses numerous unforgettable finals, yet the encounter that remains most vivid is Barcelona’s stunning fightback against Paris Saint-Germain in 2017.

PSG secured a commanding 4-0 triumph in the opening leg at the Parc des Princes, only for Barca to orchestrate an extraordinary turnaround – dubbed La Remontada – claiming a 6-1 victory at Camp Nou. Tyldesley returned to Catalunya as the sides clashed this week in the latest Champions League instalment and has reflected on that remarkable encounter. “I was there that night and just as some early research, I was looking back through a highlights tape of it, reminding myself of the outrageous decisions Barcelona got that night,” Tyldesley told The Mirror.

“One of which was given against Marquinhos, which probably the worst decision of all, which was the fifth goal, the penalty is just not a penalty. And I think today would probably VAR would have probably sent him to the screen.”

He remains thankful for having the chance to cover the world’s finest for such an extended period, stating: “I did a blog… about the Ballon d’Or and I was just checking out how many years Messi and Ronaldo dominated it. And, you know, to have seen those guys in the flesh, as often as I did, and in the very biggest games, both for their countries and for their clubs, that’s the privilege, really, rather than trying to pick out any particular game.”

Tyldesley is now engaged in a completely different tier of football, collaborating with the Football Association to bolster the grassroots game.

He has spent time alongside former England striker Darren Bent during the campaign, which helped transport him back to a version of football very close to his heart.

“It was a very nostalgic journey down memory lane for me to be at a venue on a bright Sunday morning where hundreds of kids were just playing football and enjoying their football and their parents and coaches were doing their best to keep some order and and make some progress with their sort of football education,” he says.

“I spent some of the very happiest times of my parenting on touchlines. . Our youngest is 30 now, so I don’t go to watch them quite as often, but the engagement and involvement that you have as a parent on a touchline or just outside a netball court, as it tended to be with my daughter, is different from any kind of relationship you have with the team that you support.”

Tyldesley speaks of the “parental” connection given by grassroots football, admitting that level of football will always have a part to say in the wider health of the game.

“I get asked a million times who do you support and rather flippantly, I often say, Barton Rovers Under 14s because that’s an amateur team in Reading which I supported with more of my heart and soul than I did ever support my boyhood club,” he said.

“Darren Bent… has been there [playing at grassroots level], just like Lionel Messi was there and Cristiano Ronaldo was there once upon a time. All the great footballers come from that source. I hear a lot of the footballers that I do speak to, talk in glowing terms about a teacher or a coach, somewhere in their youth, who gave them principles and standards, which they tried to apply all the way through their careers.

“We talk rather blandly about a grassroots, but that’s exactly what it is, particularly in youth football. And as any gardener knows, and I’m certainly not a gardener, the roots are everything for the health of the crop.”

Throughout his career, Tyldesley has commentated on fixtures around the globe at both club and international level, with each bringing its own unique difficulties.

He references his own mentor, the late Reg Gutteridge, when describing how he continues to tackle commentary and how anxiety about making an error can sharpen concentration. “The World Cup semi-final that I was lucky enough to call to 30 million people in Moscow is a completely different project to if you’re doing a Conference League game on TNT between two mainland European clubs to an audience of tens of thousands,” he explained.

“Reg would argue that if the audience was over 20 million, there’s an argument for explaining the offside law at some stage, just because they’re only watching two, three games a season, and you don’t want to exclude them, you don’t want to talk over their heads, you want to be inclusive and engaging.

“So the bigger the game then, editorially, I started to look at it sort of from the point of view of your auntie Edna and Uncle Joe, who are only going to watch two or three games a season and probably trying to focus on commentating to them rather than to you. That’s the kind of thinking. So it’s a test of concentration more than anything.”

He adopts the approach of “the bigger the game, the broader the canvas”, adding: “As my career has gone on into the 21st century, there’s more jeopardy involved now with anything that comes out of your mouth. We all know why.

“It actually makes us, as communicators, ask ourselves if that’s appropriate, if that’s the right way to express a particular view or describe a certain set of circumstances, it would become a little bit more thoughtful in a bid not to offend, or to get ourselves into any kind of trouble, then actually, I think the net benefits are good.

“I commentated on an England international in Bulgaria when some of the players started to receive racial abuse and the game was actually stopped. And people often say, you know, what’s your best commentary line, whatever, whatever? I’ve no idea. That’s up to you as a an audience.

“But in terms of reacting to a situation which was challenging, I got a big close up of Raheem Sterling suddenly on the screen as the game was stopped and I said something to the effect of ‘What must he be thinking? I will never know’.. And actually, a number of people got in touch with me afterwards and said, ‘Wow, that actually captured it as well as you could’.

“It didn’t solve the problem, but it actually gave an insight into the fact that as a white middle aged middle class individual I actually will never know what Raheem Sterling is going through right now, so don’t judge, you know.”

Following hundreds if not thousands of fixtures, what lies ahead for Tyldesley? Put simply, he remains thankful to continue pursuing the profession he adores at 71, although scarcely a week goes by without a fixture he yearns to be covering from the ground.

“I’ve been a lucky boy and…I’ve got no grounds to complain about any aspects of my career,” he remarks.

“But every Sunday afternoon or every Tuesday night that I sit in front of the television and I’m not working on Premier League or League Cup or FA Cup, it’s it’s not my choice. And I wish I was still working at more than I am.

“I say that with a certain amount of humility because we are all a matter of opinion. Obviously the opinion amongst most of the commissioners of at the channels that have got the rights is that they’ve got better commentators than me, which is absolutely fine.”

Clive Tyldesley is raising awareness of The Football Association’s Silent Support Weekend. For more information, please visit https://www.englandfootball.com/participate/behaviour/Silent-Support.