Sports is the rare topic in which the president has succeeded in shifting the conversation to his preferred terms

Lately, it seems Donald Trump’s scope of interests has narrowed to a few things: remaking downtown Washington DC in his gaudy image; wars he thinks he can win quickly and easily, even though he can’t.

Also, golf. Always golf. Ever golf.

Leander Schaerlaeckens is the author of The Long Game: U.S. Men’s Soccer and Its Savage, Four-Decade Journey to the Top, or Thereabouts, which is out now. He teaches at Marist University.

One wonders when, if ever, a US broadcast can win the same plaudits presenting the English league with a more American voice

There they were again, signaling with their unchanging faces and voices and their unchanging studio backdrop that another Premier League season had begun. On Friday afternoon, and again on Saturday and Sunday morning, Rebecca Lowe welcomed American viewers to what is somehow already the 14th season of the world’s most popular sporting circuit to air on NBC.

She was flanked, as ever, by her merry band of pundits, her gang of fellow British expats. The Robbies and the other ones. Also, Tim Howard as the token American, albeit one who spent 13 seasons of his goalkeeping career in the Premier League, deemed sufficiently English by osmosis to join the crew.

Leander Schaerlaeckens is the author of The Long Game: U.S. Men’s Soccer and Its Savage, Four-Decade Journey to the Top, or Thereabouts, which is out now. He teaches at Marist University.