It was getting to a point where the old joke seemed appropriate. “If only Sunil Gulati were alive …” For years, the U.S. had seemed a fellow-traveler in the ranks of regional soccer — let alone having any weight in the global governance of the game. Trinidad’s profoundly corrupt Jack Warner controlled Concacaf, the regional […]

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Many of us naively thought that getting rid of Sepp Blatter would be a big first step toward cleaning up Fifa. But it is becoming increasingly likely that soccer’s governing body will be mired in the same old problems after the 209 member federations vote Friday to elect a replacement to Blatter. The favorite to […]

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It was a game that made UAE soccer supporters nervous, but the senior national team got out of Kuala Lumpur with an unimpressive, 2-1 victory, as reported in The National, over a Malaysia team the Emiratis beat 10-0 two months ago. It means the UAE “golden generation” — which makes up most of the current […]

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Thankfully, sometimes not-good things happen to not-very-good people. Saudi Arabia’s football federation threw around its weight to mess with a 2018 World Cup qualifying process that should not have yielded to their demands and machinations. They got their way everywhere but on the pitch, where they were held to a scoreless draw tonight by Palestine […]

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This was the mind-boggling score of the weekend. Actually, of the season, so far. Maybe the decade, to date. A team from a hamlet, really, of the northern UAE outback that is Fujairah, scoring four on Al Jazira, the big, proud club smack in the middle of the 1 million people on Abu Dhabi Island. […]

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Qualifying for the 2018 World Cup is really the only international sports story of any significance in the UAE over the next two years. Some runners, swimmers and shooters will go to the Rio Olympics, the government is crazy about jiu-jitsu, various global golf and tennis and cycling tours will pass through the country between […]

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The routs rolled across the world’s biggest continent. Iraq 5, Chinese Taipei 1. South Korea 8, Laos 0. Iran 6, Guam 0. UAE 10, Malaysia 0. Qatar 15, Bhutan 0. And that last one eclipsed a couple more blowouts that came slightly later: Kuwait 9, Myanmar 0, and Saudi Arabia 7, East Timor 0. At […]

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Great performance. Three goals by Carli Lloyd as the U.S. overwhelmed Japan in the final of the Fifa Women’s World Cup. Lloyd in this one reminded me a bit of Zinedine Zidane, also a midfielder and a No. 10, normally an organizer who turned scorer in the biggest of matches. (Zidane had two in the […]

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Everton Ribeiro. I know the player Everton Ribeiro. Left-footed midfielder. During the 2014/15 season he played for the Dubai club Al Ahli. He arrived with a reputation for being one of Brazil’s best players; in recent years he twice had been designated the best player in Brazil’s domestic top flight. Turns out, he wasn’t the […]

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Soccer in Asia tends to be predictable, when it comes to teams showing up at a World Cup. It will be Japan, South Korea and Australia, and the fourth will probably be Iran, though China someday may seize the last berth. Or maybe Uzbekistan. Or the UAE. But getting there, during qualifying, that’s where Asia […]

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