Carli Lloyd, Maurice Edu, and JP Dellacamera will be part of Fox’s World Cup broadcasting team

Philadelphia sports fans who tune in to Fox’s men’s World Cup soccer coverage from Qatar this fall will see many familiar faces.

The network announced Tuesday that Delran’s Carli Lloyd, former Union captain Maurice Edu, former Charge captain Kelly Smith, and longtime Union (and Fox) play-by-play broadcaster JP Dellacamera will be part of the network’s coverage team for the tournament, which starts Nov. 20.

Lloyd, Edu, and Smith will be studio analysts. It will be Lloyd’s World Cup debut with Fox, after starting out with the network this past April. But it will not be her first time in Qatar, as she was part of FIFA’s draw ceremony in the same month. (She’ll also be one of two Rutgers alumni on Fox’s set, along with Alexi Lalas.)

Edu has been with Fox for a few years as a game and studio analyst on a range of properties. This will be his first men’s World Cup; he was a studio analyst for the 2019 women’s tournament from Fox’s Los Angeles headquarters.

Smith has been part of Fox’s studio team since the network began airing FIFA tournaments in 2015. This will be her fourth World Cup overall, after the 2015 and ‘19 women’s tournaments and ‘18 men’s tournament.

» READ MORE: Looking back at the Philadelphia Charge’s first season, 21 years ago

It won’t be surprising if the three ex-pros with local ties have plenty to say about U.S. players with similar connections to the area. There could be as many as four on the World Cup roster, if all are healthy and playing well at the time. Hershey’s Christian Pulisic and Medford’s Brenden Aaronson are locks; Downingtown’s Zack Steffen should be one of three goalkeepers on the squad (though it’s unclear if he’ll be No. 1); and Mark McKenzie of Bear, Del., is fighting for one of the last centerback spots.

All four of those players spent time with Union youth teams as kids, and Aaronson and McKenzie went all the way from the academy to the professional level here.

If you’re a Union fan trying to remember if Edu ever played a game with McKenzie or Aaronson, he did not. Edu’s playing career ended a few months before McKenzie’s Union first-team debut in 2018 and a year before Aaronson’s debut.

It almost happened once, but not with the Union’s first team. In 2017, after a brutal spate of late-career injuries, Edu started his last shot at returning to the field with the Union’s reserves. He played three games that summer, and in one of them, Aaronson was on the bench but did not play. McKenzie had made it to the Union’s reserves by then but was not on the game-day squad for any of Edu’s matches.

» READ MORE: Brenden Aaronson has made it big with England's Leeds United

Dellacamera will be on one of Fox’s five game broadcasting teams, teamed with U.S. legend Cobi Jones. The duo has worked games together for Fox in the past.

It will be Dellacamera’s 16th World Cup overall, his 10th men’s tournament along with six women’s tournaments. One of only three broadcasters to earn the National Soccer Hall of Fame’s Colin Jose Media Award for lifetime achievement, Dellcamera has been the Union’s lead TV play-by-play voice for the team’s entire history.

On Sunday, he will call his last local Union TV broadcast in the regular-season finale against Toronto FC (2:30 p.m., PHL17). Apple takes over all of MLS’ broadcast rights next year, and teams won’t have their own productions anymore.

But Dellacamera isn’t going off screen entirely. He will continue working for Fox, including as the lead play-by-play voice at next year’s women’s Cup in Australia and New Zealand. In 2024, he is expected to be part of the network’s team for the men’s European Championship.

» READ MORE: JP Dellacamera prepares for his final game as the Union’s local TV play-by-play voice

Fox’s lead game crew in Qatar will be John Strong and Stuart Holden, who have been the network’s top team for a while. The rest of the roster isn’t ranked, but longtime U.S. fans will enjoy hearing Ian Darke’s play-by-play at a World Cup for the first time in a while.

Darke gained viral renown at ESPN for his call of Landon Donovan’s game-winning goal against Algeria in 2010, and made headlines again for calling Abby Wambach’s dramatic equalizer against Brazil in 2011. He was with ESPN again in 2014, then with FIFA’s world feed crew in 2018.

When Fox hired Donovan to be a game analyst for this World Cup, executive producer David Neal made the easy call to reunite Darke and Donovan in the broadcast booth.

Also notable among Fox’s hires is Jacqui Oatley, a veteran of the BBC who will become the first woman to call play-by-play of a men’s World Cup on U.S. television.

All five broadcasting teams will be in Qatar, which is news on its own. In 2018, some of Fox’s game-callers worked off monitors at Fox’s studios.

Spanish-language coverage of the World Cup will be on Comcast-owned Telemundo, with broadcasts led by Dellacamera’s fellow Hall of Fame honoree Andrés Cantor. The network’s analysts will include former U.S. star Tab Ramos, former Manchester United and Uruguay forward Diego Forlán, and many others.

» READ MORE: Carli Lloyd became a part-owner of Gotham FC earlier this year

Game announcers: John Strong and Stuart Holden, Ian Darke and Landon Donovan, JP Dellacamera and Cobi Jones, Jacqui Oatley and Warren Barton, Derek Rae and Aly Wagner

Studio analysts: Eni Aluko, Clint Dempsey, Maurice Edu, Chad Johnson (yes, the former NFL player), Alexi Lalas, Carli Lloyd, Kelly Smith

Studio hosts: Kate Abdo, Rob Stone (lead host)

Reporters: Rodolfo Landeros, Tom Rinaldi, Geoff Shreeves, Jenny Taft (lead reporter)

Rules analysts: Mark Clattenburg, Joe Machnik