Even the greats grunt their way through 4:30 a.m. wake up calls.
Several weekends a year since NBC Sports acquired the U.S. media rights to the English Premier League in 2013, Argentine sportscaster Andrés Cantor will rise under the cover of darkness to put his stamp on a game of soccer.
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Four decades into a National Soccer Hall of Fame sports journalism career, replete with lifetime achievement awards and assorted accolades, the 63-year-old Cantor – long thought of as the most recognizable fútbol voice in America – might grumble on the earliest mornings inside his home near Miami, yet Telemundo’s lead Spanish play-by-play commentator for more than 25 years is living the life he always envisioned for himself.
“The day I’m not happy waking up knowing that I have to call a soccer game – wherever it happens to be or whatever league it happens to be – that will make me think,” said Cantor in late April.
“The minute I hop in the car on my way to call the game, I am the happiest man alive,” he declared days after calling a sunrise match between Fulham and Aston Villa. “And that passion hopefully transcends onto the screen because soccer is my life and I have the same passion now that I had since Day One.”
Ahead of Cantor’s 12th consecutive FIFA World Cup assignment, the jolt he felt in 1978 watching Argentina beat the Netherlands in Buenos Aires to claim the World Cup trophy has been a battery that 50 years later continues to power his broadcasts.
The San Marino High School grad first rose to prominence in the 1990s during his debut stint on television with Univision by unleashing his version of the classic South American reaction to a goal.
“Gooooooooaaaal,” he yelled at stateside audiences. “Gooooaal!”
On Saturday, in a pre-World Cup friendly between the U.S. men’s national team and Germany, American Antonee Robinson’s stunning volley prompted Cantor to bellow out his signature line for 23 seconds before taking a breath and doing it again for another 15.
“I don’t own it,” Cantor said. “You can say that I make it mine. But obviously it’s one word that is synonymous with my career and I’m very grateful that everyone enjoys not only the elongated goal call but also the passion that I put within the 90 minutes of each broadcast.
“I never said I invented anything. I just popularized it in the US.”
Spots on film and TV, including voicing himself for an episode of “The Simpsons,” guest appearances with famous late-night hosts, and the odd car, insurance or beer commercial are all testaments to the reach of Cantor’s success.
Audiences have a chance to hear him again Friday, when the U.S. opens its 2026 World Cup against Paraguay at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood. The first of eight group-stage matches over the next two weeks for Cantor, including a pair featuring Argentina as well as the second contest for the U.S. versus Australia, puts him on the road to calling a third World Cup final for Telemundo on July 19 in East Rutherford, N.J.
Four years ago in Lusail, Qatar, Cantor experienced a career highlight that left him in tears when Argentina, led by Lionel Messi, defeated France in a classic final.
Thirty-six years between World Cups after Argentina’s triumph in Mexico City in 1986, when Cantor “was witness to the greatest goal ever scored” in the competition courtesy of Diego Maradona versus England, the passion that fueled him in 1978 again put his heart on his sleeve like a pulsating neon sign in 2022.
“Inside of me, I want Argentina to do well,” he admitted, “but my broadcast self tries to balance the emotions as much as I can because I owe that to my audience.”
‘Single focused’
Forty-eight years ago, Cantor spent the summer of 1978 working the World Cup as an assistant. The experience crystallized his mind, heart and soul around what he aimed to do in life. Cantor and his family, who originally emigrated to Sacramento the year before, settled in the San Gabriel Valley after the World Cup, setting him on his unshakable path.
Enrolled at San Marino High, Cantor’s interests matched those of fellow junior Mark Petruska, who a couple of years earlier helped organize soccer into a varsity sport at the school alongside his older brother David.
“We got 12 other players to go to the principal and say, ‘Look, we got a bunch of soccer players here,’” recalled Petruska, who picked up the game at the age of 10 while living in England.
By the time Cantor arrived as a big-bodied midfielder, Petruska was also sports editor for the high school newspaper, the San Marino Titan Shield. Cantor signed up as the assistant sports editor and proved himself to be “a very dedicated, driven guy,” Petruska remembered. “He was single focused.”
They took turns filing game stories on soccer, doing their best to focus on something or somebody other than themselves.
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“If he didn’t score any goals, he would write about the game,” Petruska said. “If I didn’t, I would write about the game. It wasn’t like, ‘Oh my God, I was so amazing in that game.’ You can’t really do that.”
Nominated by a community member familiar with Cantor’s post-high school accomplishments, the broadcaster is among two dozen San Marino High alumni who, in 2024, were inducted into the school’s debut Hall of Fame class.
“We felt that Andrés would be the perfect person for our inaugural Hall of Fame so he was one of the honorees we chose,” said Laurie Modean, Hall of Fame co-chair.
That signature call
For an aspiring sports journalist keen on using a pitch-perfect voice like Cantor, whose timbre in high school sounded the same bassy way it does today, being in L.A. allowed him to soak in the city’s all-star sports journalists.
Cantor loved how Chick Hearn called Lakers simulcasts during the Showtime era. He listened as much as he could to Vin Scully at the peak of the Dodgers legend’s powers.
Devouring soccer coverage in the Spanish language newspaper La Opinión, or whatever was bylined by Grahame L. Jones, the British journalist who joined the L.A. Times in 1973 to cover the international game at a moment when it first boomed in America, Southern California media influenced Cantor “enough to understand how a good broadcast or a good written piece is put together.”
Petruska, 64, recalled Cantor telling him about a local Spanish radio station carrying games from Mexico, where the announcers unleashed their version of “goooooaaaaal” on listeners.
“You become eclectic and you borrow things and you incorporate things from everybody that you grew up either listening, watching or reading,” he said. “Yes, it did rub off.”
When the North American Soccer League debuted in the U.S. in 1974, Brazilian legend Pelé made a huge splash signing with the New York Cosmos.
As Cantor arrived in San Marino, the L.A.-based Aztecs played their NASL matches at the Rose Bowl. Cantor, Petruska and some of their buddies visited nearby Pasadena, where they saw all-time great Dutch attacker Johan Cruyff, a three-time Ballon d’Or winner who played for the Aztecs in 1979.
“It was such a display of talent,” said Petruska, then a tall, blonde surfer-looking dude. “Me, Andrés and us soccer guys were just so happy to see soccer coming into the United States.
“I think Andrés brought his cultural enthusiasm to people who already loved soccer, so we just found this connection of soccer that was always in us.”
After graduating from San Marino in 1980, Cantor would pick up Petruska in his Chevrolet Vega during their freshman year at USC and treat the 110 Freeway like a Formula 1 track, pitting only to grab the latest La Opinión.
When Cantor wasn’t pretending to call a game or singing Rod Stewart hits, Petruska said talk invariably turned to dreams and aspirations.
Cantor couldn’t understand why his pal hadn’t pursued journalism, too. Petruska explained that his father, John, a renowned DNA expert and biology professor at USC who passed away in 2019 at the age of 86, declared that “my options were either you’re a doctor or shoe salesman, so my journalism dream died.” They fell out of touch when Petruska, who made a good living as a contractor and for the past 16 years served as mayor of the suburban city of Broeck Pointe near Louisville, Ky., moved onto campus while Cantor dropped out of school to pursue his ambitions.
“If you’re going to be something renowned and well known in a field, you have to dedicate your time,” Petruska said. “You can’t be the guy I was in college being in a fraternity and distracted by other things. It’s never going to get you the success you’re aiming for. But I think, just for who Andrés was, I think he was actually born to be a sports journalist.”
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