The Southgate Parallel is an attempt to quantify the subjective sense of belonging that accrues around a team over time, and that changes slowly, in response to a mystifying range of factors. It’s based on the assumption that there is an ineffable but shared perception of each well-known team’s “real level”: to take the Premier [...]

I could only find a place to stay for about half the nights, but I figured the chance to see Roman Abramovich break down in tears was worth a few naps on a park bench. Happy/sad face suddenly wrinkling up like a coin purse.

One of our projects for the off-season—partly as a response to Andy Bull’s terrific critique of contemporary sports media, partly as something we’ve been thinking about on our own—is to put together a Dictionary of Generic Narrative in Sports Journalism, which will catalog the master narratives that are repeated over and over again in modern [...]

So. One thing led to another, and now here we are. The Premier League season, which once seemed so endless, is over. People have been stabbed, and champions have been crowned. We’ve had arrests, protests, lawsuits, assaults, class conflicts, scandals, accusations, media brawls, affairs, divorces, funerals, break-ins, international diplomatic crises, and unplanned encounters between [...]

There is, however, at the center of the colossus, in the pelvis of the machine, a human being: a straight-faced, hard-working, pleasure-seeking person, who is often meticulously groomed. He likes various flavors and spices. He has experienced feelings of shyness. He may, at one time or another, have been moved to an obscure self-doubt by [...]

It was never supposed to be this way. Things like this aren’t supposed to happen in football. An exciting day—that’s what we thought we would see. A contest. A game! Now the sole remaining question—the final, terrifying, all-important question—is how can we go on? How can we placate the wrath of a God who may [...]

Hey, so I didn’t know what kind of links you wanted, so I just grabbed a bunch of different kinds. No, yeah, from that new place over on 8th Street. I know. There’s just no reason for anyone to go over there. I guess rents must get high once you start moving over toward 12th. [...]

Probably not. You know how these things go. But it can’t be warming the cockles of Brian Barwick’s Mr. Belvedere-sized heart to know that the England coach, already under investigation for tax evasion in Italy, is now being investigated for perjury in connection with yet another sensational legal case involving corruption in Italian football.

I am picturing the human brain as a map of lights in the dark, lights that flare up, in complex patterns, when we see something we recognize, when we make a decision, when we think of a word. In the apartment building across from mine, American Idol comes on, and a hundred tiny televisions start [...]

The papers today are ganging up on poor injury-riddled Harry Kewell, who is about to leave Liverpool having played in just 18 games over the last two seasons. Diligent economists at the Telegraph calculate that he cost the club £157,554 per game, while the Daily Mail, rounding up on principle, says £160,000.
Lay off Harry Kewell, [...]