1. “After a few softballs (‘Are the Eagles going to win the Super Bowl next year?’), one student, taller than Vick and about twice as wide, gets right to the point: ‘Are you mad about what happened to you?’

“Fifteen feet away, halfheartedly taking notes alongside a cluster of reporters, I snap to attention. What a strange question. Certainly to many, framing the past four years of Michael Vick’s life in terms of something that happened to him suggests a gross misunderstanding of how he wound up behind bars. But this is not the way the Camelot students see it at all.”

Writing for GQ, Will Leitch profiles Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick, who, since serving time for his involvement in a dog-fighting ring, has begun the slow rehabilitation of his public image. Projecting a redemptive idea of himself as a symbol and agent of change, the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year’s new persona appears as much a marketing construct as a sincere outlook on life.

2. “When not playing against Barcelona, Real Madrid racks up around 60 percent ball possession in the La Liga and Champions League games. But when his players face Barca, Mourinho goes on the counter-attack and accepts his team’s temporary inferiority. However, before and after the games he alleges that Barcelona, their advertising partners UNICEF and Uefa, the game’s governing body in Europe, are all biased against his team.“

In a week that witnessed not one, but two, Clásicos, Der Spiegel’s Cordt Schnibben throws sentiment to the wind in his search for the scientific key to the Madrid-Barca rivalry.

3. “Watch a golf tournament on television, and you’ll hear the announcers explain why Tiger Woods or Justin Rose or Ernie Els is in the lead. ‘He’s tops in the field this week in fairways hit,’ they might say. Or perhaps they’ll point to his stellar driving distance, or his amazingly low number of putts per round, or his excellent birdie conversion rate. But none of those statistics—the ones we’re told separate the champions from the also-rans—truly reflects why golfers win and lose.”

Ever wanted to know what it was that separates the PGA Tour professional from the average, even above average professional golfer? Well, Slate’s Michael Agger is the man with the answers. A combination of hard statistical analysis, anecdotes and handy slideshows, his Moneygolf series– presented here in all its shot-saving glory– aims to change the way the humble fan sees the game.

4. “‘I didn’t get to meet Dave Kingman that day, they got me out of the dugout before I could,’ he said. ‘But I loved Dave Kingman. He used to have a boat. And every time I would drive down Lakeshore Avenue in Chicago with my dad, we’d look at the lake and I would ask my dad, “Is that Dave Kingman’s boat?” I eventually got his autograph at the All-Star Game in Colorado [in 1998]. It was cool. But he didn’t know that he was my guy.’”

The Minnesota Twins’ Jim Thorne became the eighth man to break baseball’s 600 home-run barrier this week. Unlike a great number of his peers, his 21-year career stands as a monument to clean living and dedication. ESPN’s Jim Kurkjian explains what it is that makes Thorne one of baseball’s good guys.

5. “Sometimes in the parks of Marin in northern California, I see some cricket being played. But virtually no one in North America knows the Test score.

I heard the very first ‘Test Match Special’, home from school, in 1957, technically ‘ill’, but hooked on this freakish new phenomenon that offered commentary on every moment of a five-day match. It was as if a single radio drama had been allowed to run for 30 hours. And cricket turned up a classic for the occasion.”

Intelligent Life’s David Thomson sets his childhood memories of Test cricket against the subsequent development of the sport, both in Britain and the United States. The essayists love of TMS and “Blowers” is eloquently expressed and (probably) worthy of the great man hismelf.

6. “Genius makes its own rules, so perhaps Warren Gatland will consider it worth ignoring the maxim, when he comes to make up his mind about whether to take Gavin Henson to New Zealand, that you do not take an injured player to a major tournament. In 30 minutes on the pitch in Cardiff on Saturday, Henson did enough to show that, of all the centres at work in the British Isles, only Brian O’Driscoll is his equal.”

You may think the words “genius” and “Gavin Henson” unnatural bedfellows, but the Guardian’s Richard Williams is convinced the injury-prone abuser of fake tan must travel to the World Cup if Wales are to stand a chance of progressing. You’d nearly think he was paid to be controversial…

The sports week in pictures>

Player strikes bring La Liga season to a halt>

Who’s going where? Find out in the Departure’s Lounge>