England’s latest international soccer tournament ended in such a disaster — going out in the Euro 2016 round-of-16 against Iceland — that things concerning the Football Association got weirder than usual. Following the 2-1 disaster versus tiny Iceland, England coach Roy Hodgson resigned, as he had to, for professional reasons but also because he seemed […]

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This is according to Gael Clichy, a veteran midfielder from France who plays for English Premier League side Manchester City. Clichy says City’s new coach, Pep Guardiola, formerly of Bayern Munich and Barcelona, is barring pizza from the diet of City’s players. And the club can produce as many experts as it likes,  but telling […]

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The web has scads of pages pertaining to bad sports tattoos. There are so, so many, after all. Just search “bad sports tattoos” and you can spend an afternoon paging through them. It has been suggested that an athlete probably should have a better idea for a tattoo than his own name, which often is […]

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It would have been so tidy. Jurgen Klinsmann, the coach who is leading the U.S. national soccer team into irrelevance, was interested in the England job. England was interested in him. At points over the past two weeks, bookies in England (they will bet on anything in Britain; anything) had the German as the favorite […]

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The Wales soccer team is more Welsh than I imagined it would be. I decided to have a look, after watching the rousing 3-1 victory over Belgium tonight that puts Wales in the semifinals of the European Championships being played here in France. Seems like a team good enough to beat Belgium’s all-star side might […]

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This is a result widely being described as “England’s second exit from Europe” in five days. Iceland 2, England 1, in the round of 16 at the Euro 2016 tournament in France. Yes, Iceland. Previously known for volcanoes, blond people and, yes, ice. Here in France we watched the match on BBC. And by the […]

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It was jarring from the moment it was cued up for television viewers: Alan Pardew … coach Alan Pardew … dancing on the sideline moments after his Crystal Palace team took a 1-0 lead in the FA Cup final, the world’s longest-running competition in team sports. The goal came late … ish … in the […]

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Yesterday, we linked to a podcast reexamining what happened to the U.S. national team at the 1998 World Cup … and if we boiled it down one of the primary factors for the U.S. face-plant at France ’98 was the bad behavior of John Harkes, the team’s captain. So, it was a bit of a […]

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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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Well, that wasn’t very sporting. Manchester United’s team was trying to get to the Boleyn Ground for West Ham United’s last match at Upton Park, in east London, after 112 seasons there. The throng outside the stadium was so dense, before the game, that the ManU team bus could hardly move as it got close […]

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