Topic: Football

On holiday traditions, Garfield's Christmas Spectacular, and Neil Lomax, the ultimate gift for anyone interested in things Neil Lomax-related.

Call it soccer diplomacy if you like, but American coaches have slowly won over the hearts and minds—and won quite a few games, in the case of new Egyptian National Team head coach Bob Bradley—of soccer teams from the Netherlands to Iran.

Arsenal isn't just a soccer team, it's an expression of a philosophy about the sport. But Per Mertesacker, the quiet, constant and deceptively remarkable defender who is the team's best player, embodies a different and more practical philosophy simply by playing the way he does.

Something strange happened to the English League Cup last week. You could even say it was spooked. No, this isn't just a bad attempt to make an otherwise matter-of-fact teaser appear more intriguing by making altogether too much of the chance simultaneity of the recently-played fourth round of the competition and Halloween. How dare you. No, there were odd things going on, alright: goals. Lots and lots of goals.