It was a preposterous bit of “news” in the offices of The National newspaper, based in the United Arab Emirates. Diego Maradona had signed a two-season contract to coach the Dubai club Al Wasl FC of the UAE Pro League. (Sure, and Pele was going to come with him as an assistant.) However, as that […]

[Read more →]

These words came out of my mouth tonight: “Mahmoud Khamis is with Nasr! That’s where he went!” Which is revealing, in this sense: I know way too much about the Arabian Gulf League, which began play in the 2014-15 season tonight. Good times!

[Read more →]

November is deep into Fall, in most of the northern hemisphere. Though it is a bit hard to tell, here in the UAE, where really only two seasons exist. Summer, and Not Summer. The first runs from May through October, though often it begins more in April and extends into November. Not Summer is the […]

[Read more →]

The tipoff should have been watching the Under 17 World Cup. Well, actually, I did watch it, for several days. I just didn’t make the obvious mental connection. Those kids were sweating bullets. Ergo …

[Read more →]

Jorge Fossati has been around. He began coaching soccer teams in 1993, and been employed pretty much nonstop, in a very volatile field, including time in his native Uruguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Brazil. When he was hired by Al Ain, that made five countries he had coached in, three here in the Gulf. And […]

[Read more →]

You could come to the UAE in January to have a look around. The temps would be in the 80s Fahrenheit, and if you hailed from the northern halves of Europe or North America you would be quite grateful for the sun and the warmth and perhaps even for the sheer number of fellow snowbirds […]

[Read more →]

A few days ago I wrote about Josef Hickersberger, one of my favorite soccer coaches in the UAE, and how he had been rushed back to Abu Dhabi from retirement in Austria in an attempt to salvage the season by leading a struggling team to a victory in the President’s Cup semifinals. And how did […]

[Read more →]

I tend to like coaches of team sports. Of any of the team sports. They push you towards the goals you would set for yourself if you were not a lazy corner-cutter. They foment teamwork. They have a plan. They have expertise. They have their own perhaps selfish motives, of course. Power, money, ego. But […]

[Read more →]

Summer appears to have come early in the UAE, but April can be hot. We know it. We can’t really complain about it. The average high temperature in April in Abu Dhabi is 91.2 degrees Fahrenheit. Warmer than most humans prefer. The summer which, for practical purposes we have entered, also is the time of […]

[Read more →]

I am not too obstinate — OK, sometimes I am — to concede when I got one wrong. Or at least partly wrong. In January, I was certain David Beckham had picked the wrong club to join for the “one last challenge” he spoke of when he left the L.A. Galaxy, in December. That club […]

[Read more →]