This week’s roundup also features footballers downing tools, a gnarly garden, and a Hot Wheels psychedelic nightmare1) It’s tough being a gaffer – stuck on the touchline, unable to let loose on opponents. Full marks, then, to the Club América coach Ricardo La Volpe, who makes his own rules and does his own tackling – dispossessing the Chivas right-back Jesús Sánchez in Mexico’s Clásico Nacional. He joins a big list of managers who can’t help but get involved, including: Alan Pardew, of course (with bonus coverage on Sky from Paul Merson: “Something’s gone on here, Jeff, something’s gone on”); the Ayachucho manager Rolando Chilavert beating Garcilaso’s Iván Santillán to a long ball; Fiorentina’s Delio Rossi weighing up then reacting to...
Rory McIlroy has faced predictable criticism for playing a round with the US president, but he can take the sting out of the controversy by telling us whether Trump cemented his reputation as a cheat on the courseOnce again, Rory McIlroy must be kicking himself that he became a top international golfer instead of a grubbing hack. If you’re a writer and you somehow wangled a round of golf with the US president, no one would blame you for going along for a gawk. In fact, they’d blame you if you didn’t. You’d be failing in your duties, and questions would have to be asked.What did you get into this game for, if it wasn’t to seize the chance of...
The Osnabrück coach has his side challenging for promotion to the German second-tier. But he knows Americans have to earn respect in European footballUnlikely relegation contenders have become a feature of recent Bundesliga campaigns. Jürgen Klopp’s Borussia Dortmund side flirting with the trapdoor during the 2014-15 season is one dramatic example while Werder Bremen and Hamburger SV, down in the trenches during the current campaign, are also in trouble. The former USA international Joe Enochs watches these pressure cooker scenarios from his perch near the top of Germany’s third division with relish.To be fair, Enoch’s own resume includes a few of them. VfL Osnabrück, the club he represented for the majority of his playing career, were a yo-yo club for...
Magic Johnson has always been one of the NBA’s most transformative figures, but he can become the league’s ultimate renaissance man if he fixes the LakersFrom the moment he came into the NBA as a point guard in a power forward’s body, Magic Johnson was a transformative figure. If he can build the Lakers into champions again, the way he did as a player, he will become the league’s ultimate Renaissance man.Few athletes have re-invented themselves in as many ways as Johnson, who has treated each life moment as another no-look pass on a fast-break dunk. In the four decades since he and Larry Bird forever changed college basketball with their 1979 NCAA championship game, he has led the Lakers...
The Kings’ gifting of their star center to the Pelicans has been hailed as the worst trade in NBA history, but might there be a method to their madness?The Sacramento Kings have completed a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad trade. A trade that, by large consensus, is being called one of the worst in NBA history. A trade so bad that the artificial intelligence in NBA 2K17 won’t allow it to go through. A trade so terrible that in his press conference discussing the deal, Kings general manager Vlade Divac took on the hopeless appearance of a man held against his will, saying he had a better offer two days ago. For all of Divac’s many failings, a list...