We hired someone from the San Francisco area to work here in the sports department of The National. Yes. Even though a certain someone in the newsroom is a Southern California guy. We haven’t come to blows yet, but it could happen. The NorCal kid turned around this morning and announced: “Who would have guessed […]

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I love this sort of thing: When reporters interview crabby old reporters, Crabby old reporters are like crabby old people everywhere. Things were so much better in the old days; we were able to deal with athletes on a human level; things have gone to hell. This Crabby Old Reporter Story is a little unusual […]

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A week ago, I did a post about the unlikely pairing of the Chilean international playmaker Jorge Valdivia with the little Arabian Gulf League club Fujairah FC. Which was a sensation, in the small world of UAE soccer. At that moment in history, we were led to believe the deal was done. When it was […]

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Not even Brazil lost this badly. Manchester United 7, LA Galaxy 0 — as reported in The National by our correspondent in Pasadena, Gregg Patton. Wow. The Galaxy probably is the marquee franchise of Major League Soccer, with the four MLS Cup championships, and all … but all that was left of them after their […]

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One of the surest ways to move your soccer career forward is to do a little something with a successful team at the World Cup. Like the one that ended on Sunday. —Luis Suarez scored two goals against England, bit a guy, and got a huge deal to more from Liverpool to Barcelona. —Toni Kroos […]

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A lot of sports editors around the world today weren’t exactly surprised that, with the end of the World Cup, not a whole lot is going on … but it still represents an unpleasant reality. A limited number of scheduled events in the near future. It is the case in the UAE, and it is […]

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My three wishes for the World Cup championship match: 1. Someone scores in the first 90 minutes. 2. Argentina scores the goal. 3. Lionel Messi scores the goal, for Argentina. A big 0-for-three. Two topics, out of “Germany 1, Argentina 0” — in 120 minutes:

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Deadline! Journalists love it and hate it. We love the rush. We hate that it probably will shorten our lives. (Or, less dramatically, get us in trouble for missing it.) We will be dealing with deadline for the World Cup final tomorrow.

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For the first three weeks of this thing, pundits, long-time fans, small children, terrorists … everyone was jostling to be the first to declare this “the greatest World Cup”. Seems like a couple of prominent columnists have already written that twice. Unbeaten Costa Rica! Unbeaten Colombia! Unbeaten Mexico tying Brazil! The U.S. and the final […]

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The United Arab Emirates didn’t come within a country mile of qualifying for Brazil 2014. For practical purposes, the UAE’s qualifying run in the Asian Football Confederation ended in late 2011, back when I was covering the team for The National. A home loss to Kuwait and then a road loss to Lebanon, which is […]

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