A colleague let me know about this piece in The Guardian, the English newspaper: An oral history of USA at Italia ’90: the World Cup that changed US soccer. This felt very personal, from the first few paragraphs. I know/knew those guys. I was at Port of Spain, Trinidad, for the Shot Heard Round the […]

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I love this story. Belgium wants to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, June 18, 1815 — a French defeat which ended Napoleon Bonaparte‘s dream of a Europe dominated by France, and him. The French, 200 years later, are not happy about the looming celebration — as the Belgians found out when […]

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Turns out, the Queen Elizabeth 2 ocean liner has been docked in Dubai’s port since we arrived in the UAE, nearly six years ago. Turns out, I compiled more than a few news/travel briefs pertaining to the QE2 and its “final” voyage to Dubai while working at the International Herald Tribune’s Hong Kong bureau in […]

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When deciding which team to support with my negligible psychic energy, I tend to make a choice based on geography. The hometown team over the guys next door. The guys next door over the guys further away. The regional guys over the ones from the other side of the country. If we sort it out […]

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This is a very UAE story. A 155-foot super yacht with 10 bedrooms and a cruising range of 4,200 miles — and a 90 million dirham (about $24.5 million) price tag. (Its arrival, in The National, comes with the requisite slide show.) Nice yacht … sold to a “superwealthy” Gulf resident, we are told. So […]

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Apparently, I’m one of the few people who has a problem with U.S. Soccer — well, Jurgen Klinsmann, actually — recruiting German-Americans (with an emphasis on the German) to fill slots on the national team. Repudiating young American-born/raised players in the process. JK is at it, still. The curious, 4-3 victory over The Netherlands tonight […]

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Granted, we are not at the epicenter of Western movie-making chatter, here in Abu Dhabi. But shouldn’t I have heard more about a very funny movie entitled Spy and starring Melissa McCarthy? This is how I came to see it tonight: “Want to see a movie?” “Could. Is that Pacino thing still in town?” “Long […]

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In much of Eurasia, Italian soccer was the first external brand seen on local TV. This was in the 1990s, when Europe’s other big leagues were still pretty much off the air. Certainly overseas. Italy, then, filled a programming void, and soccer fans all over the Middle and Far East of Asia, for instance, regularly […]

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It was another day of creeping Fifa revelations. (This is how Watergate felt.) The most significant being the New York Times quoting a federal official who said the $10 million shifted from South Africa to Concacaf’s Jack Warner had gone through the hands of Jerome Valcke — president Sepp Blatter‘s No. 1 henchman. The investigation […]

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A gas station burned to the ground in Dubai the other day. Created quite the scene. Black smoke over the city, etc. A few days later, The National came back with a story that probably surprised almost no one who drives in the UAE. Refueling Your Car Is Treated Too Casually in the UAE. No […]

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