After the four-month, 16-game slog of the 2010 NFL regular season, the Green Bay Packers finished in a six-way tie for the eighth-best record in the 32-team league.
They squeaked into the play-offs as a No 6 seed at 10-6 with a mathematical tiebreaker against two other teams and a touchdown in the last quarter of the last game against one.
After the four-month, 30-game slog of the 2010/11 men's college basketball regular season, the University of Connecticut Huskies finished ninth among the 18-team Big East Conference, which does not even factor in the hundreds of other schools playing that sport around that country.
At 9-9 in conference play entering conference and national tournaments, they lay stashed in their own league beneath Pittsburgh, Notre Dame, Syracuse, Louisville, St John's, Cincinnati, West Virginia and Georgetown.
After the six-month, 162-game slog of the 2011 Major League Baseball season, the St Louis Cardinals finished in a two-way tie for the eighth-best record in the 30-team sport.
They trailed by 10.5 games in late August and by three after 157 games, then wriggled into the play-offs in the 162nd game as a wild card at 90-72.
And after the four-month, 16-game slog of the 2011/12 NFL regular season, the New York Giants finished in a two-way tie for the 10th-best record in the 32-team league.
While they did win a division unlike any of the above, they not only crept into the play-offs at 9-7 as a No 4 seed only on the final night of the season, but across 16 games, their opponents outscored them 400-394.
What have all these regular-season stragglers in common?
Each wound up winning the championship in those very same seasons.
By contrast, the Dallas Mavericks spent the five-month, 82-game slog of the 2010/11 NBA season as despotically dominant.
They joined a two-way tie for the fourth-best record in the 30-team league before winning their title last June.
Does it make utmost sense to decide things with play-offs?
Play-offs do make enthralling theatre, as the Super Bowl just demonstrated on Sunday night.
They specialise in alluring storylines and breathtaking escapes (baseball Cardinals, football Giants).
But do they identify the best team, as do the play-off-less slogs of Spain's Primera Liga or the English Premier League?
And one more question: what's the point of all that regular-season duress, anyway? The misspent fossil fuel of it all!
In the evenly-balanced American sports, if you tore up the late-season and play-off box scores and played everything again four more times, you probably would get five different champions.
Titles trade increasingly on whimsy, on breaks, on tinier and tinier pivots.
In the chatter after the Super Bowl, chatterers focused on the New England receiver Wes Welker's twisting drop of an imperfect throw from Tom Brady in the fourth quarter.
Some properly extolled Mario Manningham's Herculean catch of Eli Manning's seeing-eye pass along the left sideline on the winning drive.
Some bemoaned Brady's first-quarter blunder that gave New York a safety.
Certainly many championship games through the decades have turned on minute details.
Nowadays, though, the minute details are strewn all over the months.
As the marvellous Mike Vaccaro of the New York Post wrote last week, Dallas held a 34-29 lead over the Giants with two minutes 25 seconds remaining in the 13th game of the season on the night of December 11, and had possession with a third-and-five.
Tony Romo, the quarterback, backed up to pass, and receiver Miles Austin streamed into the open.
Had the duo managed the completion they narrowly missed when Romo's pass sailed barely long, New York would have slid to 6-7 and probably missed the playoffs. Dallas would have reached 9-5 by one week later, given Tampa Bay as their ensuing assignment.
Instead, with parity wreaking a roulette, the Giants beat the Cowboys that night and again three weeks on, the Cowboys missed the play-offs and the Giants, with the second-worst record among division winners, wound up grinning through the post-Super Bowl confetti storm.
Certainly the Giants withstood hard play-off tasks in Green Bay and San Francisco, where one marginal player's fumbles on two punt returns became the by-a-whisker errors that loosed a champion.
And certainly the play-offs filled with New York grit told us something of which we never tire: a great story.
It just might be folly to crow that they told us too much else.
cculpepper@thenational.ae
@ For more on NFL 2011-12, visit thenational.ae/topics
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
Ammar 808:
Maghreb United
Sofyann Ben Youssef
Glitterbeat
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COMPANY%20PROFILE
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
MATCH INFO
Austria 2
Hinteregger (53'), Schopf (69')
Germany 1
Ozil (11')
SPECS
Engine: Two-litre four-cylinder turbo
Power: 235hp
Torque: 350Nm
Transmission: Nine-speed automatic
Price: From Dh167,500 ($45,000)
On sale: Now
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
The specs
Engine: 2-litre 4-cylinder and 3.6-litre 6-cylinder
Power: 220 and 280 horsepower
Torque: 350 and 360Nm
Transmission: eight-speed automatic
Price: from Dh136,521 VAT and Dh166,464 VAT
On sale: now
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Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Jordan cabinet changes
In
- Raed Mozafar Abu Al Saoud, Minister of Water and Irrigation
- Dr Bassam Samir Al Talhouni, Minister of Justice
- Majd Mohamed Shoueikeh, State Minister of Development of Foundation Performance
- Azmi Mahmud Mohafaza, Minister of Education and Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research
- Falah Abdalla Al Ammoush, Minister of Public Works and Housing
- Basma Moussa Ishakat, Minister of Social Development
- Dr Ghazi Monawar Al Zein, Minister of Health
- Ibrahim Sobhi Alshahahede, Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Environment
- Dr Mohamed Suleiman Aburamman, Minister of Culture and Minister of Youth
Out
- Dr Adel Issa Al Tawissi, Minister of High Education and Scientific Research
- Hala Noaman “Basiso Lattouf”, Minister of Social Development
- Dr Mahmud Yassin Al Sheyab, Minister of Health
- Yahya Moussa Kasbi, Minister of Public Works and Housing
- Nayef Hamidi Al Fayez, Minister of Environment
- Majd Mohamed Shoueika, Minister of Public Sector Development
- Khalid Moussa Al Huneifat, Minister of Agriculture
- Dr Awad Abu Jarad Al Mushakiba, Minister of Justice
- Mounir Moussa Ouwais, Minister of Water and Agriculture
- Dr Azmi Mahmud Mohafaza, Minister of Education
- Mokarram Mustafa Al Kaysi, Minister of Youth
- Basma Mohamed Al Nousour, Minister of Culture
Vidaamuyarchi
Director: Magizh Thirumeni
Stars: Ajith Kumar, Arjun Sarja, Trisha Krishnan, Regina Cassandra
Rating: 4/5
The specs: 2019 BMW X4
Price, base / as tested: Dh276,675 / Dh346,800
Engine: 3.0-litre turbocharged in-line six-cylinder
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Power: 354hp @ 5,500rpm
Torque: 500Nm @ 1,550rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 9.0L / 100km
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, Leon.
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Kibsons%20Cares
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More from our neighbourhood series:
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
THE BIO
Favourite book: ‘Purpose Driven Life’ by Rick Warren
Favourite travel destination: Switzerland
Hobbies: Travelling and following motivational speeches and speakers
Favourite place in UAE: Dubai Museum
