At this moment, only one story commands the attention of European sports fans. And that would be the misguided attempt by a dozen of the continent’s best-known clubs to break away from the European Champions League and form their own elite competition — which they plan to call the Super League. Twelve clubs have announced […]

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For a month, maybe two, it looked like one of the most competitive Premier League battles in recent history. In the early going, to scan the upper half of the league table was to find several names few would have expected. West Ham, Everton, Tottenham and Leicester City all had their turn at the top […]

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It looked like it would be a Messi mess, but it turned to be much ado about nothing. And just when soccer fan were getting their heads around the idea of Lionel Messi playing for a club other than Barcelona. He did say that was his preference, getting out of Dodge, following another Champions League […]

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The biggest story in world football since the most recent Champions League final (May, 2019) … was Liverpool’s dominance of European soccer. Before their game at Watford last night, Liverpool not only was being called “the best club football team in the world”, and they had some staggering numbers to back up that assessment. Unbeaten […]

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It was madness. A moment of weakness. Impressed by Manchester City’s stampede through the Premier League. League, League Cup, FA Cup. So, on May 12, I had a shout-out, on this blog, for the club and its players, and the owner back in Abu Dhabi. Big mistake, in retrospect, especially with the publication of a […]

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In 2008, when Manchester City Football Club was sold to a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family, it hardly warranted intense foreign interest, let alone surprise. Man City was a middling-to-lower-middling club in the English Premier League, and foreigners already were buying up English soccer teams. Two of the biggest brands in English soccer, […]

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I have some history with Jonathan Wilson, going back to when I was in Abu Dhabi working for The National, the emirate’s English-language newspaper. Wilson was one of our European soccer correspondents, contributing a couple of pieces per week. He often took on topics focusing on what he perceived to be significant trends in the […]

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A sort of silly string of posts stretches through this blog, going back to 2009, in which I ponder the great question of our time: “Which English Premier League soccer team should I support?” This is a weighty and defining decision in large parts of the world, increasingly including (of late) the United States, which […]

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The world over, sports action tends to cluster around weekends. Friday-Saturday-Sunday are the heavy days because that is when more people have more time to spend paying close attention to whatever athletic endeavor matters most to them. Monday-through-Thursday … not nearly as fun or hectic. Usually. Then there is European soccer, which 12 weeks a […]

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Have I done this before? After 10-plus years I must have. But know what? I’m not going to check because the 10 teams I love to hate changes a bit, from year to year. This list would probably be unlike any other I might have done. For instance, most of my life I have wished […]

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