Opinion: A guide to commentating on Tour 2018

The stadium announcer proclaims to the crowd:

“And coming on for Club America is number 286, Jose Guillen!”What? 286? I frantically looked down to my notes and realised that the player numbers I had researched ended at 34! Such are the joys of commentating on pre-season games.

There are no such surprises in Premier League or Champions League fixtures - all squad numbers are nailed down before the season starts, making research pretty straightforward. But in pre-season, anything goes.

I spend weeks before the tour trying to find out as much as I can about the opposition teams. The trouble is that it’s something of a movable feast.

Often players wear a certain shirt number for one game and then…