When the goalscoring prodigy Erling Haaland and his team, Manchester City, win, the U.A.E. does, too.

Bend It Like M.B.S.

As the Gulf states jockey for control of the Arabian Peninsula, they’re waging battle through an unlikely proxy: European football

By Jonathan Margolis

On Saturday night in Istanbul, the English soccer club Manchester City beat Italy’s Inter Milan for the most coveted trophy in club soccer, the U.E.F.A. Champions League Cup.

In the past two weeks, back in England, they have also won the world’s toughest league, the English Premiership, for the fifth time in the past six seasons, and the esteemed F.A. Cup, for the third time this century—that victory being all the sweeter for their having trounced their great cross-city rivals, Manchester United.