Final score: Al Ahli 8, Fujairah 1. And there is your season-opening game of the Arabian Gulf League season. One of the richest clubs in the league against one of the smallest, and 8-1 is a bit of a statistical outlier, but it’s not like anyone who knows UAE football says: “What? That’s not possible!” […]

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This is a new one for the UAE. An ambitious Chinese soccer club has barged in, made an enormous offer — about $22 million — for the forward who has been the Arabian  dominant scorer for four seasons … and is carrying him off. China soccer apparently is ready to spend some serious money, if […]

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Everton Ribeiro. I know the player Everton Ribeiro. Left-footed midfielder. During the 2014/15 season he played for the Dubai club Al Ahli. He arrived with a reputation for being one of Brazil’s best players; in recent years he twice had been designated the best player in Brazil’s domestic top flight. Turns out, he wasn’t the […]

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Whenever someone visits us in Abu Dhabi, I try to get them to a local soccer match. As I have noted before. For one, it’s free. Also, the crowd will be overwhelmingly Emirati, and the way that crowd reacts is a revelation, too, to visitors who typically spend their days in crowds of expatriates. Which […]

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The world is covered by soccer clubs. Nearly every country on the face of the planet has a league. Most of those leagues play from the late summer into mid-May. Why, then, did I have almost no live soccer to watch for two days in April?

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If you are planning to coach or play in the Arabian Gulf League, the top level of UAE soccer, you may want to get this written into your contact: The club will pay any fines assessed on you.

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A professional soccer team usually can accommodate no more than one big, strong, slow player in its lineup. And he nearly always is a striker known for being good in the air. He doesn’t have to win the ball. He doesn’t have to carry the ball. He doesn’t have to pass the ball. He doesn’t […]

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Omar Abdulrahman is the best soccer player in the UAE. He might be the best soccer player in the Middle East. He is good enough that whenever foreigners see him play, they inevitably ask: “When are you going to Europe?” Now and then, Omar has seemed vaguely interested in that concept. He trained for a […]

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Various themes of progression have come forward in our five years in the Gulf. More people, more towers, more traffic, more sophistication … And more elite soccer players. The Arabian Gulf League, or Pro League, as it was known for four seasons, has seen a steady climb in the number of good players choosing to […]

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An appealing aspect of the UAE is how compact it is. Both in terms of area and population. The country is the 116th biggest in the world, in size, just behind Austria; if it were a U.S. state it would rank 40th, behind Maine). And the population is maybe 9 million, putting it 91st in […]

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