Fabio Cannavaro isn’t leaving us just yet. As we decided a week ago, when the Dubai club Al Ahli filled its foreigner allotment, Cannavaro won’t be playing for Ahli. But rather than pay him off to go away, the club prefers to have him stick around for three years as a coach/adviser. It makes sense, […]

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When you go out on assignment, in sports, in the UAE, a concept you don’t really consider, at first, is this: About 90 percent of the Gulf Arabs you will encounter … will all be wearing kandouras. OK, sure. So what’s the problem?

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It perhaps come as no surprise that the Fourth of July is not a big holiday outside the United States. And especially not on in the UAE, where Yanks are thin on the ground. Not that we didn’t try to do a little something to commemorate the day. But the Fourth here was … Monday, […]

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The heavyweight title fight between Wladimir Klitschko and David Haye was a big deal, on this side of the Atlantic. I’m sure it was not nearly as big an event on the American side of the ocean — which is a major problem for global boxing. After years of wrangling to set up the fight, […]

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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 […]

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It was my turn to do our “big” column in the sports section, and I decided that the most topical concept was the U.S.-Mexico soccer match. Normally, I wouldn’t spend much time on this in the UAE. This is a British-oriented sports section with a strong Indian/Pakistani (read: cricket) undertow, and a soccer game in […]

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My subconscious must have wanted to see this game. It began at 5 a.m. UAE time, and normally I’m in a coma about then, about four hours from stirring … but I bolted up at about 5:45, turned on our squirrely TV, saw the Yanks walking off for halftime … and I followed it to […]

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Such a strange story. Blowing up the domestic football league in order to save it. As we got into Day 3, things began to settle down. By now, Football Association sources (and the FA is now in charge of the league) seemed to spend much of their time telling us about all the things that […]

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Nearly everyone here speaks some English. From the Emiratis to the Indians and the Pakistanis and the Filipinos and the Indonesians, Sri Lankans, Nepalese, Bangladeshis … The trick is … understanding what they say. Every day we find ourselves mentally straining to understand what we are saying to each other. And I’m talking about inside […]

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Not something that happens every day in world football. The government has a meeting and a minister decides to dissolve the domestic professional league. Bang. Gone. It is one of those “what did you say?” moments. When you hear something so completely unexpected, your brain doesn’t grasp it right off. Or refuses to. That moment […]

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