It has been an interesting story, Bob Bradley’s two years in Egypt. The former U.S. national team coach, dismissed in the summer of 2011, found a place coaching Egypt, but during a time of historic upheaval there. For most of the subsequent two years, Bradley did well to keep Egypt competitive after revolution and the […]

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The UAE seems to see a major hotel open every week. And that is only a slight exaggeration. Every luxury brand is here, sometimes several times over. I believe we have at least three Fairmonts in Dubai or Abu Dhabi. I might be missing one. A couple of Ritzes, a Kempinski … name a brand […]

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Most of us, in Southern California, grew up in a horizontal environment. Maybe a second floor. Maybe. But, generally, we lived in the ‘burbs, in one-story homes, and to fling ourselves from the highest point of the building involved somehow climbing on the roof, and a leap was more an act of daring or stupid […]

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… out of mind? Presumably scores, even hundreds of print and electronic journalists turned up for the Lakers’ media day, today, many of them interested in Kobe Bryant, above all else. But it would appear as if no one asked him about his long trip to the UAE and back. I would just like to […]

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I hope Kobe Bryant got paid for this. And I am certain he did. He arrived in Dubai on Wednesday and was three hours late for a press conference (plane delayed, apparently, and most every press conference in the UAE starts at least an hour late) at which he talked about healthy living, and staying […]

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Jorge Fossati has been around. He began coaching soccer teams in 1993, and been employed pretty much nonstop, in a very volatile field, including time in his native Uruguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Brazil. When he was hired by Al Ain, that made five countries he had coached in, three here in the Gulf. And […]

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The Los Angeles Lakers open camp for the 2013-14 season on Saturday, with a media day. If Kobe Bryant is there at all … he will be the bleary-eyed guy suffering from jet lag. Why? Because the night before, Kobe will have coached a celebrity team. In Dubai. On the other side of the world, […]

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Abu Dhabi? Or Dubai? This is an ongoing debate in the UAE. Which city is preferable/better, and on what levels? To most people who live in Dubai, this is no contest. Theirs is the bustling metropolis with conspicuous consumption and enormous towers. A movable feast. Or a movable party, anyway. However, for many of us […]

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It’s one of those stories that prompts an immediate reaction. “Are you sure you heard that right?” Abu Dhabi, capital of the UAE, is the No. 4 city in the world, behind only New York, London and Paris, according to a survey of more than 18,000 people from 24 countries around the world, including the […]

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This is a sort of coals to Newcastle story. It seems perverse that someone left Dubai, on the edge of one of the world’s hottest deserts, and flew nearly halfway around the world to Death Valley to run in an ultramarathon. You want sand and blinding heat? In the UAE, step outside and you are […]

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