1. It was dark by the time Aminata Diallo stepped through the concrete arch of the Hôtel de Police and onto the sidewalk outside. It had been about 36 hours since officers had banged on her apartment door, rousing her from sleep and taking her into custody.
Now released and scrolling through the hundreds of messages she had missed, Diallo, a midfielder for the French soccer team Paris St.-Germain, was stunned by what she saw. Little known only days earlier beyond the cloistered world of French women’s soccer, her name was suddenly headline news around the world.
Diallo, the news reports said, was the player who had been driving the car last month when one of her teammates was pulled from the passenger seat by a masked man and assaulted. Diallo, the reports said, was the one who had been unharmed as her friend and teammate Kheira Hamraoui was beaten with an iron bar. And Diallo was the player now being questioned not as a witness but as a possible suspect in what the police had suggested was an orchestrated attack.
The story, with its hints of sporting jealousy, its echoes of Tonya Harding and its links to Paris St.-Germain, the reigning French champion and one of the richest soccer clubs in the world, quickly spread far and wide.
2. The tickets for the Brooklyn Nets were bought two months ago as a birthday present but the excruciating wait was made worthwhile the moment Kevin Durant emerged from the tunnel, all six foot 10 of him. He loped into view with the kind of insouciant grace that reminded me of Maurice Fitzgerald in civilian clothes, ambling across UCC campus in the early 90s, an O’Neill’s ball in the palm of one hand, an extension of his being.
Wearing the number 7 Durant shirt that he got last Christmas, Finn was stunned into silence, awestruck by proximity to his hero unfurling swoosh after swoosh. Right there. Right in front of us. Eventually, we retreated to our own seats and watched the same man stick a casual 30 on the Minnesota Timberwolves in a narrow win, the match almost a let-down after so intimately witnessing him earlier fine-tuning his greatness.
3. You used to be very cynical in your youth — unemotional, hard even — but as you’ve gotten older that thick skin has become more permeable. You find yourself welling up at books, movies, poignant Christmas ads. You do a bit of yoga and meditation. You read the odd self-help book.
One of these is Daring Greatly by Brene Brown, which takes its title from the following speech by Theodore Roosevelt, the first and lesser of the Roosevelt presidents: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood … who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
This has become known as the ‘man in the arena’ speech, and not, strangely, the ‘hurler on the ditch’ speech. But it cheers you up, for some reason. Maybe it’s not self-defeating to pursue something where you’re constantly coming up short. Maybe it’s daring greatly.
4. Barcelona last night were an empty team, the perfect embodiment of their empty club. The word that is often used is “decay” but in this case, that is not right. More accurate is to say that FC Barcelona, on and off the pitch, have been utterly hollowed out.
Because if anyone from Barcelona can stomach watching the knockout stages of the Champions League this season, they will see plenty of what made them so great glittering on show elsewhere. The assets that have been stripped out of their club belong to others and the fact that it was Barcelona that made them barely matters anymore.
Just look at Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain. In one sense, City and PSG are still frustrated projects. For all the billions of pounds that they have spent, neither have won the Champions League. But the two clubs are getting closer every year and have lost the last two finals. Soon enough one of them will win it, and then the other. And all of this is driven by people and ideas taken from Barcelona.
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The mysterious attack on a Paris footballer and the rest of the week's best sportswriting
1. It was dark by the time Aminata Diallo stepped through the concrete arch of the Hôtel de Police and onto the sidewalk outside. It had been about 36 hours since officers had banged on her apartment door, rousing her from sleep and taking her into custody.
Now released and scrolling through the hundreds of messages she had missed, Diallo, a midfielder for the French soccer team Paris St.-Germain, was stunned by what she saw. Little known only days earlier beyond the cloistered world of French women’s soccer, her name was suddenly headline news around the world.
Diallo, the news reports said, was the player who had been driving the car last month when one of her teammates was pulled from the passenger seat by a masked man and assaulted. Diallo, the reports said, was the one who had been unharmed as her friend and teammate Kheira Hamraoui was beaten with an iron bar. And Diallo was the player now being questioned not as a witness but as a possible suspect in what the police had suggested was an orchestrated attack.
The story, with its hints of sporting jealousy, its echoes of Tonya Harding and its links to Paris St.-Germain, the reigning French champion and one of the richest soccer clubs in the world, quickly spread far and wide.
Tariq Panja of the New York Times explores the intrigue-laden story of the assault of PSG’s Kheira Hamraoui. (€)
2. The tickets for the Brooklyn Nets were bought two months ago as a birthday present but the excruciating wait was made worthwhile the moment Kevin Durant emerged from the tunnel, all six foot 10 of him. He loped into view with the kind of insouciant grace that reminded me of Maurice Fitzgerald in civilian clothes, ambling across UCC campus in the early 90s, an O’Neill’s ball in the palm of one hand, an extension of his being.
Wearing the number 7 Durant shirt that he got last Christmas, Finn was stunned into silence, awestruck by proximity to his hero unfurling swoosh after swoosh. Right there. Right in front of us. Eventually, we retreated to our own seats and watched the same man stick a casual 30 on the Minnesota Timberwolves in a narrow win, the match almost a let-down after so intimately witnessing him earlier fine-tuning his greatness.
Dave Hannigan of the Irish Times takes his son to an NBA game, and writes brilliantly about it. (€)
3. You used to be very cynical in your youth — unemotional, hard even — but as you’ve gotten older that thick skin has become more permeable. You find yourself welling up at books, movies, poignant Christmas ads. You do a bit of yoga and meditation. You read the odd self-help book.
One of these is Daring Greatly by Brene Brown, which takes its title from the following speech by Theodore Roosevelt, the first and lesser of the Roosevelt presidents: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood … who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
This has become known as the ‘man in the arena’ speech, and not, strangely, the ‘hurler on the ditch’ speech. But it cheers you up, for some reason. Maybe it’s not self-defeating to pursue something where you’re constantly coming up short. Maybe it’s daring greatly.
Eimear Ryan of the Irish Examiner, writing of Camogie’s eternal pull.
4. Barcelona last night were an empty team, the perfect embodiment of their empty club. The word that is often used is “decay” but in this case, that is not right. More accurate is to say that FC Barcelona, on and off the pitch, have been utterly hollowed out.
Because if anyone from Barcelona can stomach watching the knockout stages of the Champions League this season, they will see plenty of what made them so great glittering on show elsewhere. The assets that have been stripped out of their club belong to others and the fact that it was Barcelona that made them barely matters anymore.
Just look at Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain. In one sense, City and PSG are still frustrated projects. For all the billions of pounds that they have spent, neither have won the Champions League. But the two clubs are getting closer every year and have lost the last two finals. Soon enough one of them will win it, and then the other. And all of this is driven by people and ideas taken from Barcelona.
Jack Pitt-Brooke of the Athletic explains the decline of Barcelona, now a Europa League team. (€)
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