Tony Meola (seen at left above) is a former U.S. keeper who’s calling World Cup games for Fox alongside J.P. Dellacamera. Troy Aikman (seen at right above) is a former NFL quarterback and long-time NFL on Fox analyst who is not. But Meola’s voice sounds quite a bit like Aikman’s, and that’s led to a whole lot of tweets on the subject, especially during Tuesday’s Nigeria-Argentina match.
First, here’s an example of Meola’s commentary on Lionel Messi’s goal (starting at 0:35):
Oh yeah, there’s a resemblance there. And Twitter has noticed:
The analyst for the Nigeria/Argentina match sounds like Troy Aikman. Expecting him to drop a “that’s exactly right Joe” any minute now.
— Josh Peterson (@joshtweeterson) June 26, 2018
https://twitter.com/HeelSammy/status/1011673585285394432
https://twitter.com/ebardonr/status/1011674351274545158
https://twitter.com/rhettweller/status/1011676919547420672
And this isn’t the first game where people have noticed the vocal resemblance. This has been a recurring theme throughout the World Cup:
https://twitter.com/dwcowell/status/1008371162437640192
https://twitter.com/richardkhal/status/1008392259094450176
Meola is on one of the two Fox announcing teams that’s in Russia for the tournament, not calling matches from studios in L.A., so we’re pretty sure it’s actually him and not Aikman on these broadcasts. Or else this is a really elaborate ploy, involving him tweeting signs from St. Petersburg:
https://twitter.com/TMeola1/status/1011506359194607618
Meanwhile, Aikman is Instagramming from a trip to Hawaii (and throwing in some Hawaii tourism links):
So, it seems likely this is Meola and not actually Aikman. But Fox should definitely take advantage of this vocal similarity at some point; Troy and “Troy” could make a pretty funny football-and-futbol video. And hey, if Aikman ever needs a Thursday night off, he now knows where to find a vocal doppelganger…