The world of professional football (international variety) seems enormous.
Countries you couldn’t find on a map have professional leagues. Countries you’ve never heard of have leagues. Countries like England and Germany have about 28 tiers of leagues.
I’ve been writing from the UAE for more than two years and, admit it, most of you have no clear […]

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If ever you feel despair about the future of American national soccer, wondering if any of us will live to see the Yanks win the World Cup … or get to the final … or semifinal … well, things could be far worse. You could be in China, wondering when your nation of 1.3 billion […]

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Each fall, an organization known as Futbol de Primera polls journalists to determine the best U.S. national team player of that calendar year. (For years, they gave away a Honda automobile to the winner; that no longer appears to be the case.)
The Futbol de Primera (formerly Honda) award is better than the U.S. Soccer Federation […]

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I was aware of this, a bit. I clearly remember, X number of years ago (during that short period when the proudly clueless Dutchman Ruud Gullit was coaching the Galaxy), having this pointed out to me.
Gullit was talking to a few of us after a practice session, and he just launched into a Jeremiad about […]

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Sports movies are nearly all horrible. They are. Horrible. Not just bad. Awful.
I was reminded of this while watching the ridiculous sports movie named Wimbledon, starring Paul Bettany and Kirsten Dunst and apparently made by a bunch of people who have zero idea how a tennis tournament … or a tennis match … or Wimbledon […]

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The guy who laid me off 3.5 years ago had his own moment with the sharp end of the “consolidation” side of print journalism last week. That is to say, he’s out of newspapers and apparently is unemployed.
Here is the typically code-riddled e-mail to the people who worked for him:

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When you are the visiting team in Beirut, you know your night did not go well when some of the local citizens let off a few rounds of celebratory gunfire after the score goes final. It probably also was not a good night when your coach is fired about 90 minutes after the game.
Which is […]

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One of the standards in the doldrums of summer print journalism has long been “the series.” Find a couple of people on the staff who aren’t on vacation, and have them spend a bunch of time reporting, and get the graphics people involved, and the photo editor …
And let’s put on a show!
Let’s fill several […]

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We are living in the age of the Fading Yank Athlete.
Suddenly, none of the world’s top golfers are Yanks. Men or women. No American got past the quarterfinals of Wimbledon or the French Open. Our women’s soccer team is a little shaky, remarkable when you think of how many American girls and women are out […]

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I’ve known Andy Baggarly since he was a kid from Upland who was going to school at Northwestern. He was good right out of the box, like so many Northwestern J School people are. Maybe we gave him some room to grow, back in the L.A. market, but it wasn’t like we had to mold […]

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