Word: soccering
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...news late Monday that Manchester United, current champions of English and European league soccer, had bought the Bulgarian star Dimitar Berbatov might usually have rankled the long-suffering fans of Manchester City, United's fierce crosstown rivals. City supporters have spent years living in the shadow of their more illustrious and wealthier neighbors, and the acquisition of the prodigious talents of Berbatov would make United even harder to beat. Instead, City fans had plenty of reason to cheer even as United shelled out $56 million for the Bulgarian: Manchester City was bought by an Abu Dhabi holding company, which pumped...
...investment in City may have only just begun. Sulaiman al-Fahim, a residential- and commercial-property tycoon who led the takeover for ADUG, pledged to turn English soccer's ninth best team of last season into world dominators. "To reach that goal, there is no limit," the billionaire said. "We really have deep pockets." As if to underscore the point, al-Fahim said today that City would make an astounding $243 million bid to sign United's MVP, Cristiano Ronaldo, in January, as part of his plan to bring in the world's best players...
...money to compete at the top level is becoming harder. Of that revenue, clubs poured some $2 billion into wages alone. The result: less than half of the Premier League's teams scored a profit in 2006-'07 - which is why wealthy foreign backers are so welcome in English soccer...
...simple as it looks. In New Zealand, where rugby is the national passion, the rise in Polynesian participation appears to be at least one reason for the flight from the game of large numbers of comparatively slight boys, to the point where more New Zealanders now play soccer than the brutal 15-man game. Driving on Saturdays around Hawkes Bay, on New Zealand's North Island, the former New Zealand rugby league international Kevin Tamati notes that New Zealanders of European descent are all but absent from the rugby fields. "It saddens me," says Tamati, a Maori, of the exodus...
...enough to make even weather-obsessed Brits forget the dismal summer. They've stopped talking, too, about the housing crisis. Even the start of another soccer season has come and gone unnoticed. Instead, the plucky people of Britain, traditional home to fair play and the fourth-placed finish, have only one thing on their minds: Gold. Golds for cycling, golds for rowing, golds for sailing, and - quashing the myth that Brits can only win while sitting down - even golds for running. For Britain, beamed an editorial in The Independent on Wednesday, the Beijing games "have offered more than mere diversion...