I had forgotten the date. A former colleague sent me an email about it, and yes, he was right. It was 25 years ago today that the U.S. national soccer team recorded the most important victory in the history of American soccer. We can say that without reservation, actually, because soccer was languishing in the […]

[Read more →]

The more I think about this … The most important soccer competition in the region is not really the World Cup. It is not the European Championship (which is followed closely in much of the world). Nor even the Asian Cup, the continental championship. The most important soccer competition in these parts … is the […]

[Read more →]

Beach soccer is a fairly big thing in the UAE. Makes sense. Lots of beaches here. All the major cities, save Al Ain, are on the water. So, a couple of times a year some major tournaments are held here, generally in Dubai. The beach soccer heavyweights are invited. Brazil, Russia, Portugal, Iran … but […]

[Read more →]

On the same night Landon Donovan bid adieu (check the video at the bottom of the link) to international soccer in an emotional evening in Hartford, we were Australia fans for a few hours in Abu Dhabi. The UAE was playing host to the Aussies (or Socceroos, as they sometimes are known, back in the […]

[Read more →]

Soccer is pervasive in England. You can hardly go over a hill in that part of the British Isles without bumping into another soccer team. FiveThirtyEight.com rose to prominence while appearing in the New York Times, tracking likely outcomes in elections for the past 10 years or so. It’s a generic website now, with a […]

[Read more →]

From the 1994 World Cup through the 2010 edition, the U.S. national soccer team became increasingly American. Played by men born and bred to the game in the U.S. By the time South Africa 2010 rolled around, every man who made the starting XI for any of the four games the Americans played — and […]

[Read more →]

I’m trying to figure out how this happened. How Al Ahli of Dubai went from being one of the better teams in the UAE soccer league to being the unrivaled best team in the country. And, like many takeovers, it was incremental. I saw Ahli play last night, against Al Jazira, just down the street […]

[Read more →]

Most everyone who has followed Landon Donovan‘s soccer career, even when he was playing in his first World Cup, in 2002, did the math and came to a quick conclusion: If everything goes well … he would be able to play for the United States through the 2014 World Cup. He would be 32 that […]

[Read more →]

Big stir here, over the new soccer stadium in Al Ain. A three-day festival, a lot of pomp and ceremony, lots of conversation about how spectacular the Hazza bin Zayed Stadium is. And it is. It’s quite nice. Fairly striking, from the outside (artist’s rendering, above), when it is lit up with Al Ain’s predominant […]

[Read more →]

I am amused yet oddly proprietary about the World Cup and this Group of Death meme. Has to be one. At every World Cup. A Group of Death. It’s the law. And it’s silly. Cliche, vaguely morbid, overstates the importance of soccer, but it’s what we do. (And according to the link, above, the first […]

[Read more →]