You wonder about the role of fate. Well, I do. My pondering of the matter doesn't go too deep, and it never lasts too long. Because I'm not at all sure that I believe in fate anyway.

At last, we have some honest down-to-earth talk about diving. From England -- which is important because it is the English who have created the Great Diving Menace, who have managed to stifle any attempt at a serious discussion by clothing the subject in an aura of religious rectitude. We are supposed to understand that we are dealing here with a moral issue, that the players who dive are cheats and are therefore to be punished. And despised.

It seems likely to me that Portland Timbers goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts is the bulkiest, heaviest -- simply the largest -- player in MLS.

The lack of transparency in the MLS disciplinary procedures continues to irritate me. I would have thought that it would also be a matter of some concern to MLS as well. But apparently not