Zinedine Zidane is remembered almost as much for headbutting Marco Materazzi of Italy in the World Cup final in 2006 as he is for his years as a great player. But how notorious would he be … if he had headbutted the referee, instead? A midfielder for the Al Ahli team in Dubai did just […]

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This is hardly noticed in the particularly British (or Indian) parts of the world, but basketball probably is the second-most popular game on the planet. I know that several sports have made that claim (from volleyball to team handball to ping-pong, etc), but hoops probably is the real No. 2. Plus, a survey conducted last […]

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The United Arab Emirates is a distant doppelganger to Southern California, when it comes to cars. They love their wheels here. Love them. Mass transit here is buses. Not a rail line in the country, that I know of, though the government apparently is considering a high-speed rail link between the country’s major coastal cities. […]

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The big story in the offices of The National here in Abu Dhabi today … or most talked about, anyway … was the bar tab at a Dubai nightclub for 387,988 dirhams — or $105,638. Dubai is the biggest city in the UAE, and the best-known — which kills people in Abu Dhabi, the actual […]

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I addressed the question, in the headline above, in a comment piece for The National. Diego Maradona is the coach at Al Wasl, one of the top clubs in the UAE. As noted earlier on this blog, the FIFA co-player of the century (with Pele) is extraordinarily popular here. Loved to death. But can the […]

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The world of professional football (international variety) seems enormous. Countries you couldn’t find on a map have professional leagues. Countries you’ve never heard of have leagues. Countries like England and Germany have about 28 tiers of leagues. I’ve been writing from the UAE for more than two years and, admit it, most of you have […]

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Eight months of the year, the idea that regular guys and kids might go outside for a kick-about, as the Brits call it, would seem exotic. It’s too hot, and by the time it’s not quite so hot it’s midnight, and even in a country that tends to be nocturnal in the summer, that’s too […]

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One of the touted summer signings in UAE soccer was of Jakson Coelho, familiarily known as “Jaja” … a Brazilian attacking midfielder who had been playing in Turkey with Trabzonspor. Al Ahli, one of the Dubai sides, signed him to a three-year, 4.5 million euro ($5.9 million) deal. That’s real money. The idea was to pair […]

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Hard to overstate how big the arrival of Diego Maradona on these shores has been. The former Argentina superstar and national team coach, whose life almost was extinguished by drug abuse a decade-plus ago … has been received with open arms in the UAE and, especially, Dubai … and he seems to be returning the […]

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Interesting story this weekend up the road in Dubai. Lexi Thompson, 16-year-old American from Florida, rolled into the big city up the coast from Abu Dhabi and won the Dubai Ladies Masters by four shots. Pretty much blew away the field of, mostly, Ladies European Tour pros. Thompson now is the youngest woman to win, […]

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