One of the surest ways to move your soccer career forward is to do a little something with a successful team at the World Cup. Like the one that ended on Sunday. —Luis Suarez scored two goals against England, bit a guy, and got a huge deal to more from Liverpool to Barcelona. —Toni Kroos […]

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I pretty much hate sports movies, and football movies are a big part of the problem. (Just behind boxing movies, I’d say.) I have never seen a football film that correctly conveys game action, and that lack of verisimilitude kills football movies in the cradle. That, and casting teeny Al Pacino as an NFL coach […]

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Baseball is the best radio sport, is it not? Even if you grew up without Vin Scully. Things happen slowly enough that they can be explained in real time, and even if it gets hectic for a moment, it will settle down in a matter of seconds and then the announcer can tell you what […]

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Deadline! Journalists love it and hate it. We love the rush. We hate that it probably will shorten our lives. (Or, less dramatically, get us in trouble for missing it.) We will be dealing with deadline for the World Cup final tomorrow.

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Soccer is a young man’s game. Watching it, as well as playing it. Well, it is if your time zones are not quite lined up. Another week of Brazil 2014 could leave me with severe sleep deprivation, if not a sort of “never left the city” jet lag. The issues with Brazil, when based in […]

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The hardest bit of staying up all night is the hour before dawn. Well, maybe when it is the second time in two days you have reached that hour before dawn which, in Abu Dhabi this time of year, is a bit after 5 a.m. But that was required of anyone who wanted to watch […]

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I wouldn’t say I held out high hopes for the Seth MacFarlane movie A Million Ways to Die in the West. Written by Seth MacFarlane, produced by Seth MacFarlane, starring Seth MacFarlane and directed by Seth MacFarlane. Despite one guy holding too many roles, some viewers had hinted that it was Blazing Saddles for a […]

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This occurred to me while reading a long story in The National’s business section about Taco Bell and its apparently new “crispy waffle taco” breakfast item. (The assumption being, on the part of our business staff, that nearly everyone in the UAE knows what Taco Bell is.) So, how is the UAE doing, when it […]

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A few days back I posted an entry about how I doubt I will be able to cheer for the U.S. national team at the coming World Cup, because I have developed an animus towards Jurgen Klinsmann, the coach who dumped Landon Donovan. That provoked some reaction, some of it more than a bit tart. “We don’t […]

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I like to think I am good with geography. I have studied maps and globes since childhood. For fun. At this moment, I own three globes, here in Abu Dhabi, two of them about five inches wide, the third about 10. One of the little ones, which is quite nice despite its size, sits on […]

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