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Please keep in mind that the word Barça in Spain is only used as a familiar name for football club Barcelona. It is NOT used to refer to the city of Barcelona or sports competitions organized in that city, or anything else. Only the football club. Nobody in Spain calls the city Barça.

yes, but as I've said on my previous post, she's obviously trolling a bit (even though deep down she probably feels like that about football). During the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, American basketball player Charles Barkley said to the press: "I miss America. I miss the crime and murder. I...

A bit of both. Coulter does have that kind of general mindset, but it’s also true she has long become a professional manufacturer of outrageousness for its own sake. She realized a long time ago it is a good way to make a living and be noticed, so she sounds more and more like a parody of...

Here is a selection of the opinions that Ann Coulter expressed about soccer a couple of days ago. http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2014-06-25.html I've held off on writing about soccer for a decade -- or about the length of the average soccer game -- so as not to offend anyone. But...

A gambling firm in Sweden says it awarded a Norwegian man nearly $1,000 for betting that Uruguayan striker Luis Suarez would bite a player at the 2014 FIFA World Cup. In an email to the Associated Press, a spokesman for Bettson said the bettor won the prize on a 32 kroner bet (a little less...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM-3CdprY0s I really don't see any tripping at all. Clicking through it in a stop-and-go way, I see the Greek guy sticks the tip of his foot vertically on the ground (at the 6 second mark), and trips all by himself or throws himslelf down. The other guy doesn't...

Horrible call. The greek player was never touched by the other guy. He tripped by himself.

If an inflated score occurs when it is absolutely needed, it always arises suspicions. In 1978, Argentina needed to beat Perú by at least 4 goals to advance. They won 6-0 and there was a lot of talk that it had been fixed.

I don't think that's so unusual, nor does it show that national footbal is dying. It is quite normal for fans to feel more intensely about their local club than about their national team. Not only in England. But look at it this way. In England, as a whole, there must be a lot more people...

During one of his losses to Curren, Jimmy Connors was so frustrated by his inability to read Curren's serve, that he exclaimed something like: "He doesn't know where the ball is going!"

I can’t remember where I read this, but there was this article I saw recently where the author explained how the new presence of a superior player in a squad, especially a playmaker, lifts the performance of the entire team in a way that goes far beyond the new player's added value by itself...

That was a very entertaining match. Despite Bayern being far superior, the score could easily have been a tie if the goalie hadn’t had such a bad day. But the football was fun and lively, a far cry from the Celtic-Barcelona match, which I found deadly dull (aside from the passionate spirit of...

I think Ozil plays a major role in the way Arsenal is playing. He is both a first class conductor and solo violinist in that band. The guy is in a class of his own, and he showed it today, scoring that exquisite first goal and manufacturing the second. Signing him was a master move by Arsenal...

After his loss to Del Potro in Miami 2009, where he blew a double break lead in the final set, he said in the press conference: "It was amazing disaster"

Very interesting, these results present a puzzle that I can't figure out. When you calculated the early upset rates for all decades, the 90s and 00s showed a very visible anomaly with respect to all other decades (much higher rates) and this anomaly appeared no matter what group of seeds was...

Thank you, Fantasio. That database of yours is a treasure trove of information. Interesting to see that the frequency is the same as the early upset rate of the top 8 we had seen before. I think the apparently higher stability through the decades is probably due to not differentiating between...

Great list. A whole army of "dark horses" in retrospect. And we can guess it would be a lot longer if we were to search for finalists, semifinalists and quarterfinalists coming out of nowhere from the low ranks and knocking out one or more high ranked players during their run.

I’ve been thinking about this topic of winning streaks and walkover losses. There was a post by Moose Malloy where he asked the ATP this question. They replied that WO losses do indeed break winning streaks. Yet during Nadal’s clay winning streak, when he felt dizzy in Rome and it wasn’t certain...

Yes, he does have a couple of walkover losses. I am not sure what the general consensus is on whether they snap winning streaks or not.

Most impressive in my opinion with regard to quality of competition are Djokovic's and Federer's, then McEnroe's. Vilas used to be considered to have the longest streak with 46 in 1977. But in the wikipedia page listing open era tennis records, they now list Borg at 49 in 1978...

The other guy in the picture is Galo Blanco, Raonic's former coach.

It may well have been a fix, But even if King had beat the ghost of a 112-year old William Renshaw in 1973, there would be hot speculations of a fix, because there is no limit to the insecurity of the male of our species in these matters.

Yes, I 've heard that before. Players given 100% credit for tournaments they did not enter. It happens all the time. Pray, do not mock me: I am a very foolish fond old man, Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less; And, to deal plainly, I fear I am not in my perfect mind...

BobbyOne, didn’t you just say you were going to ignore Kiki “for a certain time”? What exactly do you want? You sound like a cantankerous curmudgeon, but rather childish. The people you are getting so upset with all agree that Laver and Rosewall are a uniquely great pair. Kiki has told you he...

Yes. I think if you look carefully there must be lots of examples of low-ranked players on a hot streak blazing their way to the final rounds and eliminating several high ranked players in their way, even if they don’t win the tournament. They can do a lot of damage. But the thing to keep in...

How could the top players in 1960 and 1962 "concentrate on the world tournament championships of 1958 and 1959"?? Would you say any of this if Hoad hadn't lost the US Pro finals of 58 and 59 to Gonzalez? Weren't Hoad and Gonzalez big enough names in 58 and 59?

Yes, that is a valid caveat, and how you interpret it depends entirely on the reasons for the disappearance of those players in the early rounds. They may simply have had a bad day, or they may actually have met someone in better form than they were in that particular tournament (after all...

Chelsea's Fernando Torres, Juan Mata and Cesar Azpilicueta on Barcelona shortlist http://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/432041/Chelsea-s-Fernando-Torres-Juan-Mata-and-Cesar-Azpilicueta-on-Barcelona-shortlist What is this? I could see them interested in Mata, maybe. But Torres???

Yes, and 60, 61 and 62 were the only years when someone other than Rosewall/Laver won any pro majors in the 8-year period from 1960 through 1967. But Rosewall still won 6 of the 9 majors available in those first three years. The other 3 were won by Olmedo, Gonzalez and Buchholz, one each. So it...

This looks reasonable to me. I see that in the 8-year period from 1960 through 1967 there were 24 pro majors, and that Rosewall/Laver won 21 of them (87.5%). The only similar span of outstanding dominance by 2 players that I am aware of is the 7-year period from 2004 through 2010 when...