I am a fan, more or less, of the English Premier League club Arsenal and the American football team from UCLA. It occurred to me today why it is that I settled on each of them: My own appreciation of skill and style … ahead of the more significant essence of physical and mental toughness. […]

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After six years and two months in Abu Dhabi, we leave the UAE for the final time today, headed for Los Angeles on flight EY171, Etihad’s 16-hour-plus nonstop to LAX. It was a fast six years, filled with challenges unimagined during previous incarnations as California journalists. Each of us added a significant stretch to our […]

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Anyone who follows the English Premier League knows it has coughed up two big stories, so far this season. –The rise of Leicester City. –The fall of Chelsea. The former, last season, nearly was relegated (sent to the second division) before a sprint to the finish raised them to 14th place in a 20-team league. […]

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After six years on the eastern side of the Atlantic Ocean, I can safely identify two additions to Sports Competitions I Follow. The English Premier League … which is a subdivision of the ultra elite European Champions League. This is where the world’s most famous sports teams come to play because, really, we must concede […]

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Is this just me, or does anyone else find a rooting interest in every sporting contest ever invented? Seems a bit odd, now that I think about it, but that’s how it works. And not just with teams I know. Within five minutes of watching a match between teams I do not know … I […]

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As a sports editor, it is easy to wonder why various fields of endeavor cannot arrange their schedules so that they don’t overlap and dilute their audience — as well as the media recognition they might get that night or the next morning. Today, for instance, we had at least four events that could have […]

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Jose Mourinho. Probably hasn’t forced his way into the American consciousness yet, but he is probably the most famous/infamous coach in world soccer. He may well be brilliant. On arrival at Chelsea in 2004, he told English media that as a coach he was a “special one” — and the nickname has followed him around […]

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You hang around Englishmen long enough, you realize that they do not consider their homeland a cultural monolith. Accents can change every mile or two, lifestyles, too, and a certain level of “tribal-ness” can be found. A particularly unique area is what they call the “northeast”, the area around the Tyne River, and particularly Newcastle, […]

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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 am a sort of Arsenal fan. Not a live-and-die fan. I would never say that. Not when I was only vaguely aware the club existed for at least the first half of my life. Not until we spent four months in Hong Kong, 2008-09, did I consider the concept of having a preferred Premier […]

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