Not their game

LONDON -- In blaring news Friday, Tottenham Hotspur sacked manager Martin Jol after a dour Premier League soccer start, marking the second sacking at a major London club in a season that began only in August.

(In parenthetical news, the New York Giants and Miami Dolphins landed Friday at ungodly morning hours at Heathrow and Gatwick, respectively, in advance of the first NFL regular-season game outside North America. “Like other leagues, we all realize that the world is growing smaller and we need to be more global,” said Wayne Huizenga, owner of the Miami Dolphins. “It’s more important than it’s ever been.”)

The sacking of Jol, a Dutchman, came only five weeks after the loud sacking of the gifted Chelsea boss, fashion icon and woman magnet Jose Mourinho, from Portugal. As with Mourinho, Jol’s sacking wrought thick headlines and ended months of speculation, yet mercifully saved the city from even more months of speculation.

(The arrival of the contending Giants and the winless Dolphins prompted unprecedented talk of jet lag and flight conditions. Miami guard Rex Hadnot divulged that he had slept for seven of the flight’s nine hours, and Miami running back Jesse Chatman revealed that he’d “lucked out and got an upstairs seat. They’re basically first-class seats. I could lean all the way back.” Tackle Vernon Carey shared he had a wall in front of him, and quarterback Cleo Lemon exposed he’d sat “between maybe 10 300-315-pound guys.”

In a powwow with South Florida reporters, Huizenga revealed for the first known time that his chosen method is retreating to coach, “putting all the arm rests up” and sleeping across three seats.)

As the NFL aspires to expand beyond its national borders, it joins legions of British sports in one sense: It’s trying to carve a wee niche in the vast shadow of soccer.

Speaking of which, Jol had guided Tottenham to two consecutive impressive fifth-place finishes in the 20-club Premier League, including a near-qualification for the magical top four in 2005-06. That season, at the brink of a top-four place that would’ve secured a spot in the European Champions League, some of Jol’s players got food poisoning from a Sunday morning team buffet at a Marriott and wound up losing to West Ham, prompting conspiracy theories and enabling Arsenal to pip West Ham for the fourth spot, also enabling writers to use the much-underutilized verb “pip.”

But this season, Tottenham had culled one win and seven points from 10 matches, somber enough to sit 18th after a hopeful summer full of lavish player expenditures, showing that the perils of lavish player expenditures are indeed global.

(Back in the buried London news, two cultures melded when a British reporter noted what was around the neck of Miami guard Hadnot. The Tyrannosaurus Rex-loving lineman’s remarkable chain inspired such comments as, “You’re wearing spectacular jewelry,” “Our sportsmen don’t normally wear such bling,” and “Is this the kind of glitz and glamour the NFL can bring?”

Answered Hadnot, “More than Beckham?” Then he checked with Chatman to ensure “Beckham” was the right name. “Yeah, Beckham,” said Chatman. Said Hadnot: “I don’t think we could get any bigger than David Beckham.”)

Jol’s sacking followed upon the less-followed sacking of Sammy Lee at Bolton, Lee having taken over the job only last April. A veritable powerhouse last year, Bolton started this season even less promisingly than Tottenham, sitting 20th and very much threatening its fans (just north of Manchester) with the prospect of relegation.

(Back in parentheses, the real Jason Taylor appeared in human form after spending the week hovering around London as a 26-foot animatronic statue, believed to be the largest animatronic statue in world history, a feat even given limited competition. Taylor the 6-foot-6 person wore an England national soccer team jersey. After towering in giant form at Trafalgar Square, Canary Wharf and Victoria Station on his Paul Bunyan way to Wembley Stadium for the Sunday afternoon game, the Miami defensive end pronounced himself honored “to be looked at as a person to be made a statue, or whatever you call it.” He also said the artist who designed his face “did a pretty good job,” even though “the eyebrows are a bit big for my liking, but everything came out good.”)

In major news, Liverpool’s startling 2-1 loss at Besiktas in Istanbul lent severe threat to the former’s European Champions League hopes only five months after Liverpool appeared in the final of the same event and only three years after it won the whole thing.

Manager Rafael Benitez, however, received a vote of confidence from Tom Hicks, the Liverpool co-owner famous in America for signing Alex Rodriguez to the $252-million contract. Hicks said Benitez’s Champions League strategies had proved too successful in the past to insult nowadays. Hicks did not say whether he had any idea as to the identity of the strategies.

(The Giants practiced at Chelsea’s training facility outside London. The Dolphins practiced at the ground of a London rugby club, the Wasps. In that special meeting with reporters in the Dolphins’ Central London hotel, Huizenga acknowledged that the Dolphins remain winless and said, “It’s depressing.” He took responsibility. He also said, “You have no idea what we did to get [Nick] Saban,” who abandoned them for Alabama. He did not say that as an opponent for the 0-7 Dolphins, it’s probably good they didn’t also invite the 0-7 Rams.)