We have had a bit of a debate in the pages of The National over the past few days about the future of expatriates in the developing world. Those of us who are, in fact, expats have paid close attention to the discussion, and I will refer to it in today’s post, as well as […]

[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 →]

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 →]

So, while I had my head turned, Al Jazira fired its coach for being too harsh or too lenient or perhaps too Belgian, Baniyas owned up to the fact that it owed significant chunks of money to a couple of players, and David O’Leary, the Irishman who coached in Dubai last season, is going to […]

[Read more →]

The women’s and men’s tennis tours come through Dubai in consecutive weeks this time of year, tournaments that each go under the name of “Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships,” though they run consecutively and not concurrently … and it’s a pretty big deal. Odd thing about the events this year? Two months ago, the women’s […]

[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 →]

When you cover an event, as a journalist, your point of reference is the team you are following. Even in defeat. Well, of course. The default intellectual setting for fans as well as writers is not “their team won, and why” … it is “our team lost, and how come?” When the UAE lost 3-1 […]

[Read more →]

David Trezeguet. You may have heard of him. Played for France’s World Cup champions in 1998. Spent a decade at Juventus and scored 138 goals. Also got the golden goal (remember the short history of that arrangement?) in the 2000 European championships, winning it 2-1 for France over Italy. Well, Trezeguet is 34 now, and […]

[Read more →]

The National’s department has been honored by the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) with top-10 awards for daily, Sunday and special sections from 2011. This used to be known as a “triple crown” but apparently a website category has been created, and papers now seek a “grand slam.” (Maybe we will enter the website category, […]

[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 →]