This week’s roundup also features classic Championship play-off finals, an NBA nutmeg and a team talk for the ages from Germany1) Nicky Hayden, former MotoGP world champion, tragically died on Monday. Here is one of many tributes to the Kentucky Kid, and here he is on a champions’ lap of the Isle of Man TT back in 2011. Nicky’s father Earl Hayden spoke late last year about his son’s lifelong passion for motorcycles. Also from last year, Hayden gives an in-depth interview to CNET’s Tim Stevens, who has paid a personal, emotional tribute. Finally, take a look back at his finest hour – his 2006 world title, where he pipped Valentino Rossi after a season of high drama. Related: The...
Could homegrown imports like Minnesota United’s Christian Ramirez help MLS get over its reluctance to mine talent from the NASL and USL?Every season, Major League Soccer has a crop of breakout players who are new to the league – this year we have Atlanta’s Josef Martínez (the Venezuelan who scored five goals in his first three matches – after netting just seven in three years with Turin). The best of these players often come from Europe or South America and immediately become key starters.This year, there have been more examples of domestic players moving from the US lower divisions and succeeding in MLS than any year in recent memory. New York Red Bulls center back Aaron Long made his MLS...
The San Antonio coach has led the team to five NBA championships but taking a team depleted by injuries and a retirement to the Conference finals was something else The San Antonio Spurs’ season is over eight wins short of the franchise’s sixth championship, swept by the Golden State Warriors and outscored by 84 points over the final three and one half games of the Western Conference Finals. So concludes the finest coaching performance in Gregg Popovich’s 21 seasons leading the Spurs. San Antonio’s line-up for their Game 4 defeat showed how little Popovich had to work with at the end. Patty Mills, Danny Green, Jonathon Simmons, what’s left of LaMarcus Aldridge and then Manu Ginobili getting an honorary start...
The majority owner of Arsenal defined himself as an ‘investor’ after rejecting Alisher Usmanov’s offer. It exposes his motivation for an inert, absentee regimeThe statement made by the Arsenal majority owner, Stan Kroenke – after the club failed for the first time in 20 years to finish in the Premier League top four – was clinically short, utterly unemotional, yet for all that, distinctly revealing of his motivation for involvement in the club. Related: Stan Kroenke: ‘My Arsenal shares are not, and never have been, for sale’ Continue reading...
A massive cheque with plenty of noughts on end could lure Floyd Mayweather back to ring in what would surely be one of the most one-sided bouts of his careerSome scientists and Silicon Valley smarts increasingly believe that nothing we experience is real, and that life is just a giant computer game created by a far more sophisticated super‑intelligence. This theory even has a name: simulation hypothesis – although, disappointingly, it has nothing to say about whether Cristiano Ronaldo might stay on his feet more in a parallel universe.If these folk are right, then perhaps we should also start asking whether our silicon overlords have got bored with Earth: The Game and decided to tweak the programme radically. And maybe...