This year's men's World Cup is "notable for women," according to Ronald Blum of the AP. Fox's Aly Wagner and Telemundo's Viviana Vila are the first in-match analysts on U.S. TV for football's showcase. BBC's Vicki Sparks is making a "similar breakthrough" in Britain, as is ZDF's Claudia Neumann in Germany. Vila said, "It took me 10 years. It was very disappointing that it took so much time. It truly was draining, unfair and ungrateful. It shouldn't be that way. But it made me stronger." Former England captain John Terry "caused a flap" during Sparks' call of the Portugal-Morocco game when he posted a video of a TV screen to Instagram and added the words, "Having to watch this game with no volume." Terry deleted the post and wrote that he "meant there was no audio in his house when he returned from the Maldives." No matter the interpretation, it is "clear women have had a difficult path gaining roles in sports broadcasts beyond studio hosts and sideline reporters." Fox's start-of-the-day studio show anchor, Kate Abdo, said, "Women traditionally have kind of been accepted into their hosting role, whether or not they were the strongest candidate, because for a long period of time there was just simply the idea that it was enough to look good on television. It didn't necessarily imply somebody being an expert. For women to break into that domain, which traditionally has been very, very male, has been more difficult." Vila covered news and sports on radio and "got a break when a game analyst failed to show for a match" and noted Argentine play-by-play man Víctor Hugo Morales asked her to fill in. She "impressed and earned more broadcasts." She said, "There was a lot of resistance at the start. Some responded positively. But I needed to work harder ... to gain credibility" (AP, 6/29).
