This is a hoot. Apparently Matt Cleary got some attention in the States a week ago, when he live-blogged the San Francisco 49ers game with the Minnesota Vikings for a newspaper in Australia. Why would Australia care? Because a famous former rugby player from Australia named Jarryd Hayne has made the 49ers roster as a […]

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If Satan played soccer, he would look and behave exactly like Diego Costa. He would cheat. He would taunt. He would be sneaky evil. He would be a player with some skills who still chose the dark side. He would scratch and push and kick when God wasn’t looking. He would subvert the rules of […]

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I need to scold the newspaper headline writer for this one. “Matar man of the moment …” is how it started. And anyone who follows UAE soccer would immediately think of someone other than the man to whom the headline writer was referring. That would be Ismail Matar, the Al Wahda forward universally considered one […]

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Corey Seager is the Next Big Thing for the Dodgers. Or could be. He has been talked about for a few years now … pretty much as soon as the Dodgers made him the 18th pick in the 2012 draft and gave him a $2.5 million signing bonus. The Dodgers would seem to suggest they […]

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The European Champions League is a very big deal in most of the world. Especially once we get down to the group stage, which boasts 32 of the best club teams in Europe — which generally means 32 of the best teams in the world. We at The National hold deadline an additional 90 minutes, […]

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A visitor driving the streets of any UAE city over the past week may puzzle over the large, rectangular photos of Emiratis along the sides of major roads. The signs invariably picture an Emirati man or woman in national dress, with a few lines Arabic script below the photo and a three-digit number. And, sometimes, […]

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It is tempting to say that little Mohammed Khaled is the first kid on his block to have a Bentley, but given the mania for cars in the UAE, that’s an assumption we can’t make. It is fair to suggest he will have the longest wait to get behind the wheel of the new Bentley […]

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Jorge Valdivia is known for being … a bit controversial. Arguments with soccer authorities, rumors about off-the-field issues … But he usually overcomes any of that with his football skills, which are advanced. Al Ain fans still get a bit rapturous when recalling his two-season stay with the team from 2008 to 10. Fans in […]

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The Arabian Gulf League, the UAE’s professional league, over the past year lost two of its more recognizable players — Asamoah Gyan, the Ghana captain and Al Ain forward, who decamped to Shanghai SIPG; and Grafite, the leading scorer for the 2009 Bundesliga champions Wolfsburg and later of Al Ahli, now back in Brazil. Of […]

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The game we know from April through August changes markedly the final month of the season, due to Major League Baseball’s roster expansion. Limited to 25 players for the first five months, they can add eight, nine, 10, 15 extra players beginning on September 1, which allows for more one-dimensional players and a lot more […]

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