As an American living across the pond, having a secondary news source to, say, the New York Times, is pretty much essential. If for no other reason than to keep track of the English Premier League — which may be the one sports competition we covered in Abu Dhabi that I will remain interested in, […]

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Remember the big SoCal sports story of January 12? NFL owners voted 30-2 to allow the Rams to move back to Los Angeles, after 21 seasons in St. Louis. Over the next few days came stories about the reaction in Los Angeles, where the team might be headquartered, where it might train, what sort of […]

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This never was going to be easy but until the Asian Football Confederation draw for the final round of qualifying earlier this week … it didn’t seem quite so daunting. Two groups of six with the top two in each group — following a 10-match home-and-away, round-robin competition — securing a place at Russia 2018. […]

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Well, that was an NBA regular season that ended with a bang. The Golden State Warriors recorded an unprecedented 73rd victory, but somehow it seemed less astonishing than Kobe Bryant ending his 20-year Lakers career by scoring 60. 60! Kobe spent much of the season struggling to be something more than a subpar player who […]

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Some stories I have read in the past few days, stories you also might like. Let’s start with this one: In late 2001, Major League Soccer was essentially dead for several hours, after only six seasons and lots of red ink. Who saved it? The story suggests Lamar Hunt, owner of the Kansas City Chiefs […]

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Well, it’s good news in my view of the world, anyway. We don’t have to be negative all the time, do we? Let’s do a list to celebrate some of the uplifting or inspirational or remarkable. For one day, anyway.

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One of those “things I came across while looking for something else” moments. The Guardian, my preferred site for news and soccer from a British publication, has posted a long story about diving — and when it became “football’s worst crime”. And along in there the 1990 World Cup came up, a tournament played in […]

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The two national soccer teams I follow had successful results today. The UAE got a brilliant goal from Omar Abdulrahman, the best player in the Mideast, as the Emiratis secured a place in the final round of Asia qualifying for the 2018 Russia World Cup with a 1-1 draw versus Saudi Arabia. Abdulrahman not only […]

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Of great interest to me, anyway. And this may be one of the more bizarre pairings among global soccer fans. Two of the three world countries with “United” in its name, and neither is the United Kingdom. –The United Arab Emirates, home to Saudi Arabia. –The United States, home to Guatemala. Both are tomorrow. The […]

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The United States plays in the soccer world’s cupcake federation. Concacaf, the North and Central American and Caribbean federation, is guaranteed three berths in the World Cup, and the Americans should earn one of those three berths Every Single Time. After Mexico, the only Concacaf side that can be anticipated to be reasonably competitive is […]

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