The story moved at about 2 p.m. UAE time today. A major media breakthrough in the history of a benighted nation. North Korea would televise its national team’s World Cup match vs. Portugal later that day, Pyongyang confirmed. It would be the first time the latter-day Hermit Kingdom had televised any match live from the […]

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This might be my favorite World Cup story so far … because it’s so ridiculous. France’s national soccer team is on strike. This strikes me as tres French. And 21st century Euro. A sort of instinctive opposition to authority, a willingness to take collective action against The Man even when it actually hurts the collective. […]

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I work in a room with perhaps 150 Britons. Some are Welsh. Some are Scottish. Some are Irish. But most seem to be English … and they are in pain. While American soccer fans are understandably nervous (two draws?) and upset (the disallowed goal) … their anxiety is as nothing compared to that of fans […]

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British sports journalists use the word “brave” a lot, cheapening it, in the process. If you are an underdog and don’t get blown out? “Brave.” If you fall behind early but hang around? “Brave.” “Brave,” however, almost always refers to a loser. “Thanks for not going belly up” is the conceptual undertow.  Which isn’t brave […]

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Great day … I am back in sports journalism. I have transferred from the news desk at The National, here in Abu Dhabi, to the sports department. And so far it’s been rather like going home again. Even if “home” now includes quite a lot of cricket and rugby for what is, at heart, a […]

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Wow. Was that fun! Show up with a vastly inferior team, smaller, slower, less-creative and less-skilled, withstand all but one of about 50 scoring chances, get a fluke goal that slips through the keeper’s Mickey Mouse mitts and trickles across the line at about 1 mph … and escape with a point in the World […]

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I am writing this from the terraced bar area of the quirky Bristol Hotel in the little Amalfi Coast town of Vietri. We left Sicily two days early and powered halfway up the Italian boot yesterday. Now, we’re back to overlooking the sea … near the end of our Italian vacation. In a few minutes, […]

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I have no major issues with Bob Bradley’s choices for the 23-man final U.S. roster for the 2010 World Cup, announced today. Are there some guys on the squad who don’t exactly shout out “global elite” when you hear their names? Absolutely. All but maybe a half-dozen guys, actually. Are there a batch of players […]

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Landon Donovan is clever enough to have done this on purpose. He might not be devious enough, though. Anyway, whatever went through his head … pretty much count on it getting into England’s. Landon today was quoted by yahoo.com as saying that 1) England superstar forward Wayne Rooney seems tired and that 2) all the […]

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This is the day when World Cup coaches had to submit to FIFA their preliminary World Cup rosters. That included, of course, U.S. coach Bob Bradley, and he sent along a list of 30 names, 23 of whom will actually go to South Africa next month. The list has generated real interest among U.S. soccer […]

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