RCS
In soccer, fury has become part of the job. This sport celebrates coaches with short tempers — step forward Alex Ferguson. It idolizes angry players — think Roy Keane — and hails their on-field aggression and occasional brutality as demonstrations of "commitment" and "leadership." It tolerates the idea that fans have a right to be angry in defeat, although it sometimes draws the line when they rip out their seats and pelt players with coins.
In short, professional soccer hasn't been a mere "game" for decades, perhaps ever. It is awash with, thrives on, expects and openly encourages raw emotion and hot flushes of anger. In other industries, Ferguson's "hairdryer" outbursts of frustration or kicking a boot in rage at David Beckham might have landed the...
The moment Manchester City returned 912 tickets, priced at £62 a pop, for Sunday's trip to Arsenal, the nostalgics become futurologists. There were predictions of a growing fans' backlash. An overdue realignment in the... more »
The growing list of talent leaving MLS this offseason reads like the beginning of a Best XI honor roll. Plenty of star power is departing for an array of reasons, and that is not a positive as the league heads into its 18th... more »
Jurgen Klinsmann, the former German star who now coaches the U.S. men's national soccer team, has spent the past 18 months taking his sword to the game's sacred cows in the U.S., determined to point out the shortcomings of a... more »
Freddy Adu started as close to the top as a 13-year-old can get in American soccer. He wasn't just the Next Big Thing, like so many North American sports stars are, a new Michael Jordan or Wayne Gretzky or Joe Montana. He was... more »
I can't definitively say that there isn't wide-spread systematic doping in football, of the kind we've apparently witnessed in cycling. I simply can't, because I'm not omniscient. And, after seeing so many high-profile... more »
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