By Paul Kennedy
ESPN’s soccer crew will be working overtime Friday and Saturday with the World Cup 2014 Final Draw and MLS Cup 2013 fromKansas City.
For the draw, ESPN will have a two-hour live program on ESPN2 and WatchESPN, beginning Friday at 11:30 a.m. ET. Bob Ley will be thehost in Bristol, where he’ll be joined by analysts Michael Ballack, Alexi Lalas, SteveMcManaman and Santiago Solari. Taylor Twellman will join the coverage from Kansas City. (All five have been namedanalysts for the finals next summer.)
Reporters Jeremy Schaap, John Sutcliffe and ESPN Brasil’sRubens Pozzi will provide live reports from Costa do Sauipe.
ESPN will conclude its 18th season of MLS coverage with the Sporting Kansas City-RealSalt Lake final Saturday at 4 p.m. ET.
Adrian Healey and Twellman will call the game with reporter MonicaGonzalez on the sidelines. Host Max Bretos will lead the studio coverage at Sporting Park with Kasey Keller,Alejandro Moreno and Lalas.
— Among those working ESPN International’s coverage (59 countries and territories covering more than 22 milliontelevision homes) will be NASL champion New York Cosmos coach Giovanni Savarese, who will call the game in Spanish.
NATE SILVER WEIGHS IN. Before the draw, Nate Silver, of FiveThirtyEight.com fame, will preview the best- and worst-case scenarios for the USA.Afterwards, he’ll also weigh in.
TIMMY ON TWITTER. U.S. goalkeeper Tim Howard, who’s coming off a great winfor Everton Wednesday at Manchester United, will take over the @ESPN Twitter account during the World Cup draw to provide instant reaction and comments.
DRAW WATCH PARTIES. Click here for places where fans are gathering for World Cup FinalDraw watch parties. Email Soccer America with details of your watch party or tweet your watch party details using the hashtag #WCDrawWatchParty.