Perhaps only Jeff Stelling can rival Chiles as the best football presenter on TV right now. On Match of the Day 2 he brilliantly combines thoughtful and detailed analysis with laugh-out-loud humour. He’s by no means the slickest host (this week he forgot the word “goalkeeper”) but that’s all part of his laconic charm. He can put proper questions to his pundits, forever asking them to explain exactly why players have done such a thing in terms that fans can understand.

Best of all is the regular “2 Good, 2 Bad” section, where Adrian simply narrates a deadpan summary of all the cock-ups and silly moments that have taken place over the weekend – which in other hands might be awful, but thanks to Adrian’s wit is fantastic (“If you’re in the Portsmouth area, have you seen this ball?”).

Such is Adrian’s success on the sofa, it’s not surprising to see other broadcasters sniffing around him, and rumours are rife of a possible move to ITV. This must never happen, because there’s no way Adrian can replicate what he does so brilliantly in an hour late at night than in the five minutes that ITV provide before live games. He works best in the studio, where there’s time to kick back and take a more reflective look, and gently take the piss when the games are rubbish. You wouldn’t be able to do this while presenting Manchester United vs Rosenborg in the Champions League.

It’s not the first time ITV have been looking to brighten up their football coverage -a while back they were hoping to poach Jeff Stelling, but in the end he turned down their overtures. Again, he would have been completely the wrong fit for ITV, given he excels in the Soccer Saturday format where he’s frantically darting around the grounds. The only way he could do that on ITV is if they let him host the General Election (“Declaration at Enfield Southgate, Chris Kamara!” “Unbelievable, Jeff, Portillo’s out!”).

In addition, I don’t know why anyone with any sense would want to work for ITV given it’s seemingly forever looking to replace its existing hosts with someone more exciting. I’m sure Steve Rider and Matt Smith are thrilled by ITV’s support for their work.

On paper it appears the BBC has assembled the best team. Joining the regulars Hansen, Shearer, Dixon and Wright are two former World Cup winners, Brazil’s Leonardo and Marcel Desailly of France who should add a bit of variety to the staid punditry techniques of Hansen and Shearer. Celtic manager Gordon Strachan, who is usually one of the better of the team is back too, while the ever-insightful Garth “just how long can I make this question” Crooks will no doubt be on hand to provide his usual probing interviews in the tunnel.

ITV, on the other hand, has a right old mixed bag. Dutchmen Ruud Gullit and Jimmy Floyd Hasslebank are new to British punditry, as is Bolton’s Nigerian star Jay Jay Okocha. Boring old Andy Townsend (wonder if he will be driving his Tactics Truck over to Germany?), Robbie Earle and Ally McCoist are included, having made it back to the football big time after a season presenting highlights show for ITV’s coverage of the English lower divisions. Potentially more interesting is the inclusion of Big Sam Allardyce and Stuart Pearce.

On the commentary front, Motty, armed with his amazing statistical knowledge is of course back for his 48th World Cup finals for the BBC alongside the noisy Jonathan Pearce. Clive Tyldesley will be the main man in charge of the mike for ITV, probably accompanied by the ponderous, yet quite insightful David Pleat or the new Boro boss Gareth Southgate.

Presenter-wise it is two dyed-in-the-wool BBC types heading up the programmes for both channels. Gary Lineker will be hosting most regularly for the BBC (complete with his witticisms and unfunny quips, no doubt), while defector Steve Rider takes charge over on the other side having joined the channel to front their Formula 1 coverage. Adrian Chiles is better than both of them combined, but unfortunately he is confined to the BBC late-night highlight show.

For those of you who are unaware, this season’s Champions League coverage has been most notable for Andy Townsend and Ally McCoist providing punditry, not from the studio with the presenter, but stood in front of a table on the side of the pitch. Here they’ve been rained on, drowned out by the crowd and once, brilliantly, had, “Go home BBC!” hollered at them. Absolutely everyone has taken the piss out of it and I can find nobody who think it’s a good idea. And yet they’ve been there all season.

For last night’s final, Ally and Andy were out there again, but Terry Venables was also providing punditry – from the studio! So some of the pundits were inside and some were outside, which I’m sure you can imagine really helped out with the banter and the discussion. Meanwhile for last week’s Uefa Cup Final, Ally and Andy were providing the punditry, but this time in the studio – because it wasn’t the Champions League, which is different.

Meanwhile, in the commentary box, David Pleat – third choice last season – co-commentated on both of the finals, with his high voice, irritating, “Evening all!” catchphrase and complete inability to pronounce anyone’s name. While this lunacy continues, ITV’s best presenter, best commentator and best co-commentator – Matt Smith, Jon Champion and Jim Beglin respectively – ended up doing Alan Shearer’s testimonial on ITV4.

Of course, we’ll have to endure six weeks of this during the World Cup. Who’d have thought we’d end up pining forMatthew Lorenzo’s Dallas Brunch?