For as long as I have been a quasi-fan of Arsenal FC, which is about seven years now, the debate has raged, fomented by placard-waving fans or banners pulled along in the sky by small airplanes. Sometimes the argument is loud. Sometimes louder. Is it time for Arsene Wenger, the coach since 1996 of English […]

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The English Premier League. Has to be the longest competitive schedule in team sports. The 2016-17 season, which ended over the weekend with 10 matches … began on August 13 and concluded on May 21. Yes, that is a season that lasted nine months and one week. Or, if you prefer, 40 weeks and one […]

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The most authentic sports experience in the United Arab Emirates is anything pertaining to the domestic soccer league — the Arabian Gulf League. It is a league overseen by Emiratis, largely staffed by Emiratis, featuring clubs overwhelmingly made up of Emirati footballers, and the whole of the league is largely watched by Emiratis, whether on […]

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El Jefe Loco, as I liked to call him while writing my countdown-sa2010 blog, back when Diego Maradona was coaching Argentina ahead of the 2010 World Cup, is off the unemployment rolls. He has been hired to coach a club in the UAE. The biggest and best? Al Ain or Al Ahli? Well, no. One […]

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I spend a lot of time reading soccer stories. As one does, in Europe. It does not take long to become caught up in European clubs and European leagues, and especially with English football’s Premier League, the most competitive in the world by the accounting of its boosters. Reading about what happened (or what might […]

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This has driven me to distraction for decades, going back to when I was a know-almost-nothing parent coaching my kids’ soccer teams in Highland, California. I was hazy about numerous concepts of the game, but one I understood quite clearly … and in the decades since have seen screwed up all the time, from kiddie […]

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I settled on Al Jazira as my favorite soccer team, in my six-plus years in Abu Dhabi. In large part because the club was about 200 yards from where I lived and about 300 yards from where I worked. A club considered one of the biggest in the nation was awfully handy to me; I […]

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Maybe it’s just me, but I have trouble differentiating between Tom Brady and Matt Damon. No, really. (And the photo, above, in which Damon is wearing Brady’s uniform, makes things worse.) To me, they are pretty much the same guy. If asked, “Who starred in all those Bourne Identity movies, I might well pause and […]

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If I could ask Aaron Hernandez one question, it would be this: “Why?” But I will never have that chance, and no one else will, either, going forward … And I’m not sure he could answer that question. The “why?” Hernandez, the former New England Patriots tight end with a $40-million contract, hanged himself in […]

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The Oakland/Los Angeles/Oakland Raiders and Las Vegas. They deserve each other. This is the franchise that embraced a reputation as an outlaw NFL team … and a desert town that occasionally is still called Sin City. But then the Raiders missed out on the Great Los Angeles Migration (the Rams and Chargers beat them to […]

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