An odd day, and not just because it was Leap Year Day. The UAE swamped Lebanon in a World Cup qualifier, and 10,000 Lebanese fans went home more or less unhappy, even though the UAE defeating Lebanon should be a “dog bites man” event — which is to say, vaguely interesting, depending on the size […]

[Read more →]

When you cover an event, as a journalist, your point of reference is the team you are following. Even in defeat. Well, of course. The default intellectual setting for fans as well as writers is not “their team won, and why” … it is “our team lost, and how come?” When the UAE lost 3-1 […]

[Read more →]

David Trezeguet. You may have heard of him. Played for France’s World Cup champions in 1998. Spent a decade at Juventus and scored 138 goals. Also got the golden goal (remember the short history of that arrangement?) in the 2000 European championships, winning it 2-1 for France over Italy. Well, Trezeguet is 34 now, and […]

[Read more →]

The concept of “home” is getting a little hazy, considering I’ve been in the United States for only three weeks over the past 28 months … But you know what I mean. We haven’t done a list for a while, and we can do one on food and drink I consume here in the UAE […]

[Read more →]

I was reading a piece about quarterbacks and the NFL draft, and the name Art Schlichter came up. In, of course, a negative light. Schlichter was a quarterback who came out of Ohio State 30 years ago, and now is remembered pretty much only as a train wreck of a football player and person. And […]

[Read more →]

Ryan Braun has successfully appealed a positive drug test, and no 50-game ban will be forthcoming for the National League’s 2011 Most Valuable Player. And I feel vaguely nauseated.

[Read more →]

The National’s department has been honored by the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) with top-10 awards for daily, Sunday and special sections from 2011. This used to be known as a “triple crown” but apparently a website category has been created, and papers now seek a “grand slam.” (Maybe we will enter the website category, […]

[Read more →]

It must be strange to be a citizen — an Emirati — in the UAE. Foreigners outnumber you almost 7-to-1 in your own country. The latest population statistics indicate that only about 1 million of the 8 million people here are citizens. Thus, being able to gather with your own for important events must be […]

[Read more →]

In a small country, the “small stuff” in sports counts for a lot. If you have a small population or a poor one, odds are pretty good you aren’t going to have a lot of success in regional — never mind global — sports. And that explains why the Under 23 soccer game tomorrow between […]

[Read more →]

Fans (of a certain age) of the U.S. soccer team remember what this was like. The national team would play a game against a small nation from far away, and the crowd would be lousy … and perhaps a majority of the people there would be partisans of the visiting nation. I distinctly remember the […]

[Read more →]