Don’t always feel the need to make a comment about a match if you haven’t watched it live.

Forming full opinions on a match requires context. In my opinion, that context can only be gained through watching live, preferably the full 90 minutes, not just highlights.

Certainly, you can make judgments on an individual player’s actions or a specific period of play by watching clips. No one has time to watch every match in full. However, much can be missed if you skip through a match, especially if a 3rd party chooses what to show and what not to show.

That’s not to diminish the tremendous amount of work networks put into editing and quickly sharing extended highlights of matches. NBC, CBS, TUDN, Telemundo, Univision, ESPN, SKY, TNT Sport, VIX, and others are doing the lord’s work.

My ritual is to watch the full 90 minutes and then rewatch the extended highlights. Sometimes, I’ll rewatch the match, but most of that is just me checking specific plays to see if I missed anything.

My rule is that I don’t comment on a game unless I watched the match live. I haven’t watched England vs Italy or Brazil vs Uruguay this week, so I won’t comment on them.