In yesterday’s post, I noted how difficult it is, in the Western world, to have good newspapers in the final week of the year. Parliaments are not in session, stock exchanges take days off, sources are out of town, fewer games are scheduled. At newspapers, one of the bits of enterprise often used to fill […]

[Read more →]

It seems clear that Manchester is at least two cities in one: The gritty area downtown and the rebuilt/gentrified area around the old docks in Salford. I spent some time in and around Piccadilly Gardens today, and it was more than a little edgy. The green area was crowded, because the sun was out, but […]

[Read more →]

I’ve seen a lot of soccer, over the past 25 years. From AYSO to the World Cup. Hundreds of matches. Maybe a thousand. But I still do not know this game in the way that someone who grew up playing and watching it does. I don’t know soccer like I do baseball, basketball, (American) football, […]

[Read more →]

The level of soccer in the UAE is often denigrated by the sport’s local cognoscenti.Both foreign and domestic. They seem to believe it should compare to top European leagues, which is unrealistic given that each team is limited to four expatriates, and the rest of the squad comes from an Emirati male population of about […]

[Read more →]

As a Baby Boomer whose life was heavily influenced by the Cold War, I wanted to go to Moscow before the Soviets went out of business. But events conspired to keep it from happening. I was to have gone to the 1980 Moscow Olympics, but then came the U.S.-led boycott over Afghanistan (them, again), and […]

[Read more →]

When you’re on the high side of the big five-oh, you get a little more stingy with the “I’ll never forget that!” declarations. At this age, you have a pretty good notion you’ve long since forgotten an awful lot of “unforgettable” stuff. But this setting, this game, this result … was so exotic, so unexpected […]

[Read more →]

To work in a British-English newsroom, like The National, is to regularly hear expressions unknown in the United States. One of the handier is “minus-one,” used when referring to media activities on the eve of a match. That is, it’s about the match, but “minus-one” day on the calendar. It is when coaches come out […]

[Read more →]

An odd day, and not just because it was Leap Year Day. The UAE swamped Lebanon in a World Cup qualifier, and 10,000 Lebanese fans went home more or less unhappy, even though the UAE defeating Lebanon should be a “dog bites man” event — which is to say, vaguely interesting, depending on the size […]

[Read more →]

It must be strange to be a citizen — an Emirati — in the UAE. Foreigners outnumber you almost 7-to-1 in your own country. The latest population statistics indicate that only about 1 million of the 8 million people here are citizens. Thus, being able to gather with your own for important events must be […]

[Read more →]

In a small country, the “small stuff” in sports counts for a lot. If you have a small population or a poor one, odds are pretty good you aren’t going to have a lot of success in regional — never mind global — sports. And that explains why the Under 23 soccer game tomorrow between […]

[Read more →]