Whenever I find myself among soccer fans, the talk inevitably turns to Liverpool, a team that people speak about in tones that border on reverence. In a New York Times feature on personal heroes last year, Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver wrote about the team’s forward, Mohamed Salah.
So yesterday at 3 pm I stopped everything to watch Liverpool’s Champions League round of 16 match against Atlético Madrid. They lost 1-0. (Though they did control the ball two-thirds of the game.)
The Houston Astros players who engaged in sign stealing have been given immunity because of their cooperation in the investigation, an action that makes Major League Baseball a bit like the Mafia.
In the last few days, while two Australian Open champions and a Super Bowl champion were crowned, the impeachment trial continued without witnesses and the Iowa caucuses were held without results.
Around town yesterday I saw more Chiefs jerseys than 49ers jerseys, which made sense, since Kansas City is closer than San Francisco and San Francisco is the more sophisticated city, populated by large numbers of people with interests other than football. It was one of the reasons I didn't mind seeing the 49ers lose: their city is better equipped to handle defeat.
Half a dozen years ago, when I was the editor of Fort Lauderdale Magazine, we had a photographer who specialized in tennis. One day Art came in and showed me a photo of a small girl holding a baguette outside a boulangerie in Paris. This, Art explained, was an up-and-coming local kid who had recently played in the French Open Juniors. He had been following her for years, and had gotten to know the family. I thought she looked too short to ever make it on the professional tour, but that’s why I’m a writer and not a tennis scout. Her name was Sofia Kenin.
Rafael Nadal loses a tough, over four-hour-long quarterfinal match against Dominic Thiem and Roger Federer survives a tough, over four-hour-long quarterfinal match against Tennys Sandgren.