Want more soccer in your inbox? Sign up for Rory Smith’s weekly newsletter and we will send it to you every Friday. The start of soccer’s modern era can be dated precisely: Jan. 9, 2011. It can be located exactly, too: to the Twitter feed of Ryan Babel, the Dutch forward then playing for a […] More
One thing that most football fans know about Giants quarterback Eli Manning: He is good at winning Super Bowls against the Patriots. One thing that most fans do not know about him: He is just as good at pranks, big and small. A receiver removes his gloves to discover his hands are dyed blue. An […] More
With one more round of games before the playoffs begin, motivation varies wildly. There are teams fighting for better playoff positioning, others simply fighting for a playoff spot and some at the lower end that are probably playing for their coach’s job. With many teams resting their starters, Week 17 tends to have some surprising […] More
LEICESTER, England — Even now, Liverpool’s fans will not sing that song. Not after Jürgen Klopp’s team swept aside Leicester City, currently its closest rival in the Premier League title race. Not after a 4-0 win, and not after the most imperious performance it has produced this season, which is no light compliment given that […] More
The New York Times Sports department is revisiting the subjects of some compelling articles from the last year or so. Here is our November 2018 report on a college football player’s battle with depression. His smile was back, but now it had a 14-karat flash. As he sat across from me at a Los Angeles […] More
Hayden Fry, a hall of fame football coach who revived the University of Iowa’s flagging program, leading the team to three Big Ten championships and three Rose Bowls during his 20-year career there, died on Dec. 17. He was 90. His family announced his death in a statement but did not say where he died. […] More
In the days before the Super Bowl in 2015, Marshawn Lynch taunted the media — and the N.F.L., which requires all players to speak to reporters before the championship game — by proclaiming, “I’m just here so I don’t get fined.” It was peak Lynch: Defiant, funny, original. He got away with it, too, because […] More
MINNEAPOLIS — Mike Zimmer does know how to smile. Laugh, too. His players on the Minnesota Vikings have seen it and heard it, and they understand that his gruff countenance and pipe-wrench bluntness belie a warm regard for their welfare. Late Monday night, Zimmer stepped behind a lectern inside U.S. Bank Stadium looking as if […] More
