Ah, Quique Sanchez Flores. Here we are on Day 2 of My Favorite Soccer Coaches Roundup, which includes a certain Spanish player and coach who grew up wanting to be a sports writer. But more about that in a bit. I have been a fan of Quique Sanchez Flores from the moment he was named […]

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During six years following the sports scene in the United Arab Emirates, I often returned to one question: Why does Dubai not have a big stadium? Dubai has hundreds of big buildings, including the world’s tallest. Dubai loves big buildings. Much of its reputation is based on big buildings, and that skyline of skyscrapers. But […]

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Just the other day I was thinking about how remarkable it is that nation states that don’t like each other often manage to go on playing soccer matches. I was thinking in particular of the Asian Champions League, which this year has three groups that include clubs from both Saudi Arabia and Iran — which […]

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Heretofore, “Emirates” was a name American sports fans saw just about only on the jerseys of prominent European soccer teams. Real Madrid. Arsenal. PSG. AC Milan. This season, the logo of the aggressive, Dubai-based airline, will be seen in a baseball stadium for the first time — behind home plate and at the foul poles […]

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I must first have noticed the city of Sete on the map, where the Languedoc region of southern France creeps down to the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. Sete is near the southern end of a confused stretch of French coastline, where land gives way to water and back again from west of Marseille almost […]

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Drones? Turn the birds of prey loose on them! This became a local story, in Dubai, when someone’s drone, hovering over Jumeirah Park, was brought down by a falcon, as explained in this story in The National. A Polish expat, who witnessed the falcon attack, got a photo of the falcon perched atop its victim, […]

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Is this just me, or does anyone else find a rooting interest in every sporting contest ever invented? Seems a bit odd, now that I think about it, but that’s how it works. And not just with teams I know. Within five minutes of watching a match between teams I do not know … I […]

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“Flugtag” came to Dubai this weekend. It’s a Red Bull promotional notion, in which people/daredevils are invited to build a flying machine, push it off a 30-foot-high ramp and see how long they can remain airborne. Generally, less than five seconds. It’s a silly competition, but something you have to watch, like train wrecks — […]

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I am going to make a sweeping statement. Nobody loves Guinness world records as does the UAE … and, specifically, the people of Dubai. Dubai has some legit, significant world records. Absolutely. Led by the world’s tallest building — a record regular folks have paid attention to, probably going back to the Tower of Babel. […]

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This is a very UAE thing. You do well in a major competition, especially a major soccer competition, and you can expect a little something to show the appreciation of the rulers. In this case, it was announced today that every player on the Al Ahli side, which reached the final of the Asian Champions […]

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