Raphael Stevens

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    The Case for a 32-Team Euros

    Given the depth of quality in Europe, a small expansion (and a simpler format) could make for a much better tournament.LONDON — Thomas Vermaelen’s header hit the ground first and then rose before colliding with the post near the corner where it meets the crossbar. As the ball spun out, sideways toward the middle of the goal, Lukas Hradecky, the Finland goalkeeper, was still turning around. It was all happening in the blink of an eye. Instinctively, Hradecky reached out a hand to try to swat the ball away. In that instant, on his fingertips, a substantial portion of Euro 2020 hung.Had Hradecky been able to claw the ball away from his goal, away from danger, Finland might have been able to hang on, to keep a vaguely interested Belgium at bay, to qualify for the knockout stages of the first major tournament it has ever reached. Denmark, playing simultaneously in Copenhagen, might have been sent home.That he could not, though, affected far more than the games in Finland’s group. That all Hradecky could do, in fact, was push the ball back over the line and into his goal had ramifications that extended far beyond Group B. That single goal effectively set the course of almost half the teams in the tournament.It meant, first of all, that Denmark would qualify for the knockouts — despite losing its first two games, despite enduring the trauma of seeing Christian Eriksen collapse on the field — as long as it held on (as it did) to beat Russia. It could reach the knockout phase only if Finland lost. Vermaelen’s goal broke its rival’s resistance.Finland’s Lukas Hradecky after the own goal that affected half the Euro 2020 field.Pool photo by Anton VaganovBut the goal was also good news for Switzerland. It had finished off its initial slate of games the previous night, and was waiting to discover if it had done enough to remain in the tournament. Belgium’s winning — or, more accurately, Finland’s losing — meant it could relax.In Group D, a Finnish defeat meant that both England and the Czech Republic had made it to the round of 16, too. Their game, the next day, would be an administrative exercise, establishing which of the two had the dubious pleasure, given the draw for the knockouts, of finishing first in the group. Croatia and Scotland knew, too, that whichever team won their game would be guaranteed to join them in the last 16.It did not stop there. All of a sudden, despite having a game left to play, Sweden and France were through, too. Portugal and, most likely, Spain would join them with only a draw in their final match. Ukraine’s hopes, meanwhile, were left hanging by a thread, reliant on someone else’s capitulating to remain in the tournament (Slovakia would later oblige). All of their fates had been decided by a single goal.Monday night’s conclusion to Group B was a masterpiece of slow-burn drama. The names involved — Finland, Denmark, Russia — might have been less glamorous, but it was no less enthralling than the hour and a half of chaos staged by France, Germany, Portugal and Hungary in Group F a couple of days later.Ukraine’s team, and its fans, had to watch other games to learn their fate.Sergei Supinsky/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBetween them, the games were a better advertisement for the tournament’s 24-team structure than UEFA, which runs the event, could have possibly hoped. It is, the competition’s organizer admits, a somewhat arcane format: one in which 36 games are played to eliminate only eight teams, and in which not only do the group winners and runners-up qualify, but also four teams that have finished third.It can, at times, play out spectacularly. Of the final 12 games in the group phase this month, only one — the Netherlands’ win against North Macedonia — had nothing riding on it. Only England’s meeting with the Czechs did not carry at least some threat of failure. That was down, in short, to the existence of the back door: Almost every team went into the third round of games with some chance of qualifying, some risk of not qualifying, with something at stake.As tempting as it is to idealize the more traditional formats — read: the ones we are currently used to, and therefore think are “normal” — both the 16-team blueprint previously employed for the Euros and the (conceptually identical) 32-team structure familiar from the World Cup can be pedestrian. Neither is immune to the dead rubber. Neither has a flawless record of producing enthralling group stages.But both have one substantial advantage on the system that has played out over the last two weeks. It is not just that, because 16 of 24 teams qualify for the latter stages, there is too much reward and too little risk (though that is not nearly so pronounced as it is in this year’s Copa América, in which the entire group phase is just a front for eliminating Bolivia and Venezuela).Georginio Wijnaldum and the Netherlands had nothing to play for in their third game.Pool photo by Kenzo TribouillardIt is that one game, as Finland-Belgium on Monday night rather neatly proved, can wield an influence on almost every group. By beating Finland, Belgium accidentally settled half a dozen issues before they had chance to play out. The format brings with it a necessary shortage of jeopardy; this time around, Group B burned almost all the supply.Then there is the issue of a divergence between accomplishment and meaning. Switzerland had won its final game on Sunday evening, comfortably beating Turkey in Baku. But whether that would be enough to reach the knockouts may not have been clear until Wednesday evening, when the final round of group games was played.As it happened, the Swiss had to wait only 24 hours — thanks to Vermaelen’s header — but Ukraine had to wait far longer. It only discovered that it had a place in the round of 16 after all on Wednesday night, after Slovakia’s heavy defeat against Spain. Two days earlier, it had lost to Austria. For 48 hours, it was neither in the tournament nor out of it.UEFA accepts that is a shortcoming of the structure as it stands. Logistically, it is less than ideal: Several teams only discovered the final identity of their last 16 opponents, and the locations of their games, when Group F concluded on Wednesday. That made preparing for games, and planning travel, far more complex than they would like.But the bigger problem is less pragmatic. Sports are drama; a game is a self-contained narrative arc. The covenant between performers and viewers is that the former will provide the latter with a resolution. A win means three points, or qualification for the next round. A defeat means no points, or elimination.A win that might mean progress or might not is unsatisfactory. A resolution that is played out behind a curtain is a breaking of the covenant. Drama cannot just be lost to the atmosphere.Xherdan Shaqiri and Switzerland won, but then had to wait to advance.Pool photo by Ozan KoseIt is this that provides the most compelling argument to accept the direction of travel and declare that it is time for the European Championship to grow still further, to expand the finals to include 32 teams.There is sufficient quality within UEFA’s ranks to invite more teams without diluting the standards of the tournament: Serbia, Norway, Romania, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Greece, Iceland and Bosnia (the eight best sides not present this year, according to FIFA’s deeply flawed ranking system) would add, rather than subtract, to the competition.To do so responsibly, however, UEFA would have to commit to a major reshaping of the way international soccer works. Elite players are already being asked to play far too many games, both by their clubs and their countries. FIFPro, the global players’ union, has repeatedly warned that burnout will lead to a surge in injuries, a belief shared by a number of leading coaches and, increasingly, by players themselves.For the Euros to expand, then, something would have to give: namely, the laborious and predictable process of qualifying. Rather than forcing the major nations to jump through hoops for two years before reaching the finals anyway, it would make more sense to guarantee each of them a place.For the sake of appearances, perhaps that could be dressed up as a spot for all those nations that have won a major tournament: Italy, Germany, France, England, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Greece and Denmark. Russia and the Czech Republic could be included, too, despite technically winning the Euros in another life, and under another name.They would be joined by the five highest-ranked teams not to have won an honor: currently Belgium, Switzerland, Croatia, Wales and Sweden. Those 16 teams would be exempt from qualification, but rather than stand idle for two years, they would be drafted into a version of UEFA’s successful Nations League concept: four divisions of four teams, with the winners of each playing in a biennial, weeklong tournament, as they do now.It’s hard to argue the Euros were improved by leaving out Erling Haaland and Norway.Jon Nazca/ReutersThe remaining 39 teams in UEFA’s ranks, meanwhile, would be arranged into seven qualifying groups of five teams, plus one group of four. The top two in each would earn a place at the Euros. They, too, would benefit from one of the lessons (that should have been) learned from the Nations League: that games between closely matched countries are better than an endless succession of blowouts.There is, though, one twist to this plan. Over the last couple of months, soccer has made it abundantly clear that it does not have much truck with entrenched status quos; it is integral to the sport’s identity that nothing should ever be closed. That should apply to the Euros, too: Those 16 “automatic” qualifiers should not be granted that status in perpetuity.So, instead, all of those precious spaces would be open, refreshed every four years: The 16 teams that made the knockouts of the Euros would be the 16 teams that are assured entry to the next tournament. If the Italians fall at the group stage, ousted by Serbia one year? Fine, no problem. They have to qualify next time.There would, of course, be drawbacks to a 32-team Euros. A repeat of Monday — in which six teams qualified because a goalkeeper could not react in time — would be impossible. Each group would be a self-contained unit, as in the World Cup, with only the top two advancing.But they are outweighed by the benefits: fewer meaningless games for the traditional powerhouses; more balanced games for the countries for whom international qualifying is currently a futile torture; more cause to celebrate for more teams; more recognition that attainment is relative. Monday night was exquisite. But it would be better, for everyone, if more teams could decide their own fate, rather than having it set for them by the bounce of the ball.The ideas in this piece were workshopped with Tariq Panja, but he should get, at most, 30 percent of the credit for them. He can be the man who helped the man who saved the Euros.Scotland Could Do Better. But Only a Bit.Callum McGregor, left, in that brief window when all was right in Scotland’s world.Pool photo by Petr David JosekFor a brief moment, Scotland hoped. Just before halftime, Callum McGregor drew his team level with Croatia at Hampden Park, and the specter of the country’s Holy Grail — a place in the knockout rounds of literally any major tournament — glimmered into view. It was, as ever, an illusion: Croatia, it turned out, is actually far better at soccer than Scotland, and it spent much of the second half emphatically proving it.No country in Europe outperforms its expectations quite so much as Croatia. In the last 23 years, it has reached one World Cup final, one World Cup semifinal and the knockout rounds of three European Championships. It has a population of just over four million people, and yet it consistently churns out generations of players talented enough to take on the overweening, industrialized superpowers of Western Europe.Scotland, on the other hand, does not. In the same period, with its larger population, it has reached the finals of two major tournaments — this was its first brush with the biggest stage since 1998 — in the men’s game, and only one in the women’s. And yet, it is far closer to average for a nation of its size than its conqueror earlier this week.The recent records of nations like Hungary, Norway and Serbia — all similar in population, if divergent in wealth — are far more similar to Scotland’s than they are to Croatia’s. Hungary has been to two major championships, as well, performing slightly better when it got there. Norway has not reached one since 2000. Serbia has played in four, but only once did it get out of the groups.Ivan Perisic with his teammates, after Croatia had restored order.Pool photo by Robert PerryThat is not to say Scotland could not do better. It could. Its youth development programs have long lagged behind those of other nations. The endemic short-termism that has dogged the Old Firm clubs has held the country back. So, too, has the disappearance of an increasingly international (in soccer, not in anything else) England as the most willing market for its talent.But expectations for how the Scots should do seem unreasonably high. In part, that is because of the country’s historic significance to the game. In part, it is because history, in terms of soccer, is often written by the English, and the English find Scottish failure funny. And in part, it is because we tend to look at nations like Croatia and assume they are the rule, rather than glorious, improbable exceptions.Sweet 16Jack Grealish and Harry Kane, who each carry a portion of England’s hopes.Pool photo by Justin TallisThis week in things that are so blindingly obvious that nobody should have to read them: The best two games of the round of 16 are on Sunday and Tuesday, as Belgium faces Portugal in Seville and England takes on Germany at Wembley. Did you know that England and Germany are “old rivals?” Did you know they once played each other in a major final at Wembley? If you didn’t, expect to hear a lot about it over the next few days.The prize on offer this time, though, is rather grander than some sort of vague and meaningless revenge for what happened in 1990, 1996 and 2010 (in England’s case) or 1966 and 2000 (in Germany’s). When the dust settles on Tuesday night, the winner will look at the path ahead to the final of this tournament and decide that the greatest obstacle has already been overcome.In the quarterfinals, either nation would expect to beat Sweden or Ukraine. In the semifinals, the greatest threat would come from a Netherlands team that has no little talent but a distinct shortage of balance. France, Spain, Italy, Belgium and Portugal are all arrayed on the other side of the bracket; they are, for now, out of sight and out of mind. Things have worked out nicely for England and Germany. Well, no, that’s not quite right. Things have worked out nicely for one of them. For the other, they have not worked out at all.CorrespondenceA question from Peter Griffith, although I should note he is not the first to ask it in recent weeks. “You have two countries playing, and a referee from a third country,” he wrote. “When the players remonstrate with the referee, what language do they speak?”I would not claim to have a definitive answer to this question. I am tempted to say “soccer” and leave it at that: The hand gesture for “I got the ball” is the same the world over. That’s only semi-sarcastic — my guess is that there’s a sort of basic Esperanto made up of things like “no foul” and “corner.” Other than that, I’d have said it’s English most of the time, or whichever alternative is most obvious: If, say, the referee is Italian and there are players who ply their trade in Serie A, then they will revert to that.Romelu Lukaku’s hidden talent: He can plead his case in at least eight languages.Pool photo by Lars BaronIan Roberts has a friend — in Maryland — who is following the curious story of Jamie Vardy investing in the minor-league Rochester Rhinos. “Good on him to try and revive the team,” his friend wrote (to Ian, who passed it along). “Isn’t it ironic that British footballers come to the U.S. and try to build the game up, while American businessmen, with no knowledge of the game, are trying to ruin it over in the U.K.?”My response was different, I have to admit: I wonder whether Vardy will find that navigating a new soccer culture is more challenging than he’s expecting. We’ll find out either way: I believe the story has already been earmarked for the documentary treatment. If they don’t call it “Vardy in the U.S.A.,” I am refusing to watch it.Tim Wyatt, meanwhile, expects the “gulf between club and international football to widen in the coming decades, mostly because of the lack of coaching in international football. All future development in club football will probably continue to be driven by data and tactics and coaching (and oceans of cash), leaving international football with its three or four weekends a year unable to keep up.” This is true, Tim, and it is why we’re best accepting that it’s the flaws that make international soccer special. If you want quality, wait for the Champions League. More

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    The Two Ciro Immobiles

    The spearhead of Italy’s attack is either its secret weapon or its fatal flaw. At age 31, it is still not clear which.The raw facts are, on the surface, overwhelming. In the last five seasons, Ciro Immobile has scored 26 goals, then 41 goals, followed by 19, 39 and 25. Over the course of that run, he has won the Golden Boot — the prize given annually to Europe’s most prolific goal-scorer — once, and tied the record for the most goals scored in a single season in Italy’s top league, Serie A.The context of those facts only serves to embellish them. Immobile does not play for an all-conquering superpower, the sort of team that carves out a dozen chances a game and regularly dispatches overmatched opponents by four- and five-goal margins. He plays, instead, for Lazio, a side constructed — by superclub standards — on a shoestring.And he operates in Serie A, a league which no less an authority than Cristiano Ronaldo regards as the most difficult in the world in which to score goals. A league in which Ashley Cole, among the greatest defenders of his era, was regarded as being surprisingly naïve, tactically.The conclusion, then, should be obvious. Immobile, 31, belongs in the front rank of contemporary forwards, perhaps not quite an equal to the only four players in Europe’s major leagues to have scored more than him in the last five years — Lionel Messi, Ronaldo, Robert Lewandowski and Harry Kane — but not out of his depth in their company.Immobile has scored twice at Euro 2020 for Italy, which cruised in the group stage and faces Austria on Saturday in the round of 16.Pool photo by Andreas SolaroThat, certainly, is how he looks up close. Simone Inzaghi, Immobile’s coach at Lazio for the last five years, regards him as “one of the three or five best attackers” in Italy in the last two decades. On his goal totals alone, he should have been in contention for a Ballon D’Or.From a distance, though, everything changes. Immobile’s name is rarely mentioned when lists of the finest attackers of his era are compiled. On the eve of Euro 2020, the most pressing question asked of Italy’s coach was whether his team could hope to fare well in the tournament when it was lacking a top-class forward. And no, Immobile, the striker who had scored 123 goals in 177 games, did not count.A few weeks ago, as the Italian season drew to a close, Immobile had a brief and vaguely unbecoming spat with Urbano Cairo, the president of Torino. Cairo had, at one time, regarded the forward as “a protégé.” It was a prolific season in Turin, in fact, that had first made Immobile one of Italy’s hottest properties.But Cairo was annoyed to see Immobile, in his view, diving to win a penalty in a game between Torino and Lazio, so he waited for him by the locker room to make his feelings known. That night, Immobile posted a message to his Instagram account denying Cairo’s accusation. “Everybody knows who Ciro Immobile is,” he wrote.He was almost right. Everybody thinks they know who Ciro Immobile is. It is just that not everybody thinks the same thing.The Real CiroThe conversation, as Monchi remembers it, was “very open, very honest, very mature.” Five months earlier, in July 2015, he had brokered the deal to bring Immobile to Sevilla from Borussia Dortmund. As Sevilla’s sporting director, Monchi had been looking for a third striker, one “with a different profile” from the two the club currently employed: the rangy Fernando Llorente and the explosive, hard-running Kevin Gameiro.Immobile — who describes his own gifts as “strength, tenacity and cunning” — fit the bill. Monchi, renowned as among the shrewdest pilots of the transfer market, spotted the potential for a deal. Immobile’s service were no longer needed at Dortmund; Sevilla could obtain him on an initial loan, and later, and permanently, at a bargain price if he met certain performance clauses.Instead, the striker would go down as one of Monchi’s rare missteps. He did not score his first goal for the club until November. He made only a handful of appearances. And then, early in January, he requested a meeting with Monchi and Unai Emery, the club’s coach at the time, to discuss his future.Immobile explained that he felt he needed a change of scenery; he admitted that he was not performing as he should. “He was worried about the European Championship,” Monchi said of the 2016 tournament then looming just over the horizon. “He wanted to be in the Italy squad, and he knew that to do that he had to be playing. And he was not playing enough here.” Sevilla acquiesced, and allowed him to join Torino on loan.“There are two reason transfers go wrong,” Monchi said. “One is that the player does not find the confidence they need at their new club, or in a new league. That is especially important for strikers. And the second is that the style of play of the team does not suit them. I think both applied to Ciro.” To him, it was just one of those things. He knows that, sometimes, deals just do not work out. He and Sevilla moved on.Immobile has been a prolific scorer at Lazio, but his ventures outside Italy did not go as well.Pool photo by Friedemann VogelFor Immobile, the consequences lasted a bit longer. He had spent 18 months abroad, and they had been an unmitigated failure. At Dortmund, he would later say, he felt “unsupported” by the club. In eight months, he told Gazzetta dello Sport’s SportWeek magazine, not one of his teammates had invited him out for dinner.Dortmund was “cold,” there was “nothing to do,” and while the coach who signed him, Jürgen Klopp, had insisted on providing him with a German translator, his replacement, Thomas Tuchel, removed that privilege, insisting on holding even one-on-one meetings in German, a language that Immobile found “impossible” to learn.More pertinent, he found himself unable to cope with the weight of expectations. He had been pinpointed as a replacement for the Bayern Munich-bound Lewandowski and he sensed his predecessor’s gold-fringed shadow at every turn. “The error I made at Dortmund was that Lewandowski left and I felt the responsibility,” he said.Immobile looks back on his time in Germany with regret. He and Klopp encountered each other at “the wrong time in their careers,” he has said. Had the timing been different, been right, then he feels that Klopp’s percussive style would have suited him perfectly. As it was, Klopp never had chance — in Immobile’s words — to work with “the real Ciro.”And yet, for many, that was precisely what Klopp, and later Monchi, had seen. Those unhappy 18 months came to define Immobile’s career, to set his reputation. No matter what he did afterward, no matter how many goals he scored in Italy, no matter what the context, the fact that he had failed in Dortmund and in Seville meant his fate was sealed. Everybody thought they knew who Ciro Immobile was.Italy’s coach, Roberto Mancini, at times seemed to be searching for any striker who was not Immobile.Mike Hewitt/Getty ImagesRevengeUntil almost the last moment, the one part of Italy’s team that remained a mystery — to Roberto Mancini, its coach, as much as anyone — was the attack.Over the course of his three years in charge of the national side, Mancini has experimented with various systems, and various options: the young Moise Kean and the experienced Fabio Quagliarella, the traditional Andrea Belotti and the unorthodox Federico Bernadeschi. From the outside, Mancini has looked, at times, like a man searching for a way not to play Immobile upfront.That is not because Mancini doubts whether Immobile is right for international soccer — he has no doubts as to his ability — but if international soccer is right for him. “If we played 38 games over the season, Ciro would score 25 goals,” Mancini said a few weeks before naming his squad for Euro 2020. “It is tougher when you only join up two or three times a year.”That is as close to a consensus as there is on Immobile: He can be devastating, but he needs everything to feel just right, on the field and off it. At Lazio, he has found it. Inzaghi designed the team to suit Immobile’s strengths, deploying Luis Alberto and Joaquin Correa as foils for his darting runs, his elusive movement, his hunter’s instinct.Just as important, his family is settled in Rome. He feels valued by the club — Lazio’s president, Claudio Lotito, organized a private audience with the Pope a few months ago — and he has a grander animating force.Italy may advance only as far as Immobile can carry it.Pool photo by Andreas SolaroIn 2020, when Immobile won the Golden Boot, the first player not based in Spain to win the prize since 2014, he admitted that it was “a kind of revenge.” Quite who he was taking it on was not clear — it was “not against anyone personally,” he said — but it seemed fair to read it as a riposte to all who doubted him, who took the disappointments of Dortmund and Seville as shorthand for his career, who did not see the player that Immobile saw in himself.That award, perhaps, started to shift the debate in his favor just a little. Five goals in five games in the Champions League last season will have helped, too; that is the stage, after all, on which soccer now ordains greatness, and it has been to Immobile’s detriment that he has graced it only rarely.Euro 2020, then, offers him a precious chance to prove his point, to demonstrate that Italy does have a forward fit for a place among the elite, that all of those goals cannot just be written off as circumstantial evidence. He may, yet, be allowed a little autumnal afterglow to bathe his career.The group stage brought two goals in two starts on home soil. The knockout rounds, starting with Austria on Saturday, are an opportunity to build his case. All he needs to do is what he has been doing, with a relentless consistency, for the last five years: scoring goals, making the raw facts of the matter overwhelming. More

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    At Euro 2020, a Riot of Color After a Protest Is Barred

    The colors of the rainbow spread, leaping from building to building and city to city, first across Germany and then out into the rest of Europe. On Wednesday evening, what might have been a lone statement — a single message of love and defiance — turned into a bright and silent chorus.That night, Germany was scheduled to host Hungary in Munich for a crucial game in this summer’s European soccer championship. City officials had asked UEFA, the competition’s organizer, for permission to light the stadium — the Fussball-Arena Munich, more commonly known as Allianz Arena, in the rainbow colors of the Pride flag.On Tuesday, the request was denied.Allianz Arena, MunichMatthias Hangst/Getty ImagesLukas Barth-Tuttas/EPA, via ShutterstockUEFA decreed that the gesture breached the organization’s rules on introducing a “political context” to soccer. Illuminating the stadium in anything other than the organization’s official turquoise and green, it ruled, was a “message aiming at a decision taken by the Hungarian national parliament” — namely, a law passed this month designed to restrict content that includes depictions of gay and transgender characters.Rather than dull the protest, though, UEFA’s rejection served to illuminate it.Alexander Hassenstein/ReutersGermany’s goalkeeper and captain, Manuel Neuer, took to the field in a rainbow armband, and fans arrived for the game carrying rainbow flags and wearing rainbow wigs. One even ran onto the field during the playing of Hungary’s national anthem, triumphantly displaying a Pride flag directly in front of the Hungarian players. Matthias Hangst/ReutersThe protest, though, was not limited to Munich. Teams and cities across Germany, and beyond, took it upon themselves to show their solidarity not only with Munich, but with the cause.RheinEnergie Stadium, Cologne Sascha Schuermann/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMerkur Spiel-Arena, Düsseldorf Marcel Kusch/DPA, via Associated PressThe colors of the rainbow bathed stadiums in Frankfurt and Düsseldorf, in the pretty Bavarian city of Augsburg and, farther north, in the company town of Wolfsburg.In the capital, Berlin, the vast bowl of the Olympic Stadium was wreathed in colored light.WWK Arena, AugsburgLennart Preiss/DPA, via Associated PressThe Grand Place, BrusselsAris Oikonomou/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn Hamburg, the city’s opera house followed suit. So, too, did the elegant Gothic town hall that dominates the Grand Place in Brussels. Fans gathered to watch the game decked out not only in Germany jerseys and national flags, but the Pride colors, too. Clubs across Europe showed their support digitally, the rainbow touching the social media avatars of Barcelona and Juventus.The Hungarian lawmakers who had warned of the dangers of “mixing politics and sport” got their wish. The Fussball-Arena Munich glowed in the garish official turquoise and green of UEFA. Everywhere else, the rainbow lit up the night, bright and proud, an unspoken, unyielding indictment of what had happened in Munich, where sports and politics had been allowed to mix.Waldstadion, FrankfurtThomas Lohnes/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesRheinEnergie Stadium, CologneSascha Schuermann/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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    Review: ‘Sisters on Track,’ ‘LFG’ and the Price of Star Power

    Two documentaries explore the flaws of the financial reward systems in elite sports and their effects on the athletes involved.Two documentaries, “Sisters on Track” and “LFG,” explore the achievements of world-class athletes and, more intriguingly, the way money is allocated within sports.“Sisters on Track” follows Tai, Rainn and Brooke Sheppard, three preteen sisters who qualified as junior Olympians in track. The film begins in their first moments of national recognition, as they are invited on to shows like “The View” to discuss their family’s achievements. At the time, their mother was single, working minimum-wage jobs that were insufficient to cover their rent in Brooklyn. The Sheppard family was living in a homeless shelter, and their athletic success is presented as a story of resilience.The documentarians Corinne van der Borch and Tone Grottjord-Glenne show how this flash of national attention granted them immediate opportunity, including an offer by the entertainer Tyler Perry to pay for the family’s housing for two years. Their film follows the Sheppard sisters in vérité style through this period, as their mother, Tonia, and their coach, Jean, guide them through middle school, puberty, nerves and indecision. The shared dream is for all three girls to earn college scholarships.“Sisters on Track” shows a family working within the imperfect system that controls the financial rewards available to them. By contrast, the subjects of “LFG,” (it stands for a soccer rallying cry), are looking to upend the entire pay structure of their sport. The documentary follows the U.S. women’s soccer team as the players pursue a lawsuit against their employer, the United States Soccer Federation, for institutionalized sex discrimination.Soccer stars like Megan Rapinoe, Christen Press and Jessica McDonald explain how the women’s team has to win more games, secure more viewers and generate more revenue to make a wage that is comparable to that of the men’s team. In talking-head interviews with the documentary’s directors, Andrea Nix Fine and Sean Fine, the teammates express their hopes that future generations of girls will be able to earn a living as athletes without having to maintain an unparalleled record within their sport.Jessica McDonald in the soccer documentary “LFG”.HBO MaxBoth films are conventional in cinematic style, and they constitute the kind of feel-good entertainment that is easy to recommend. But what is timely and interesting — even thorny — about these films is their focus on the economic opportunities generated by athletic achievement. For the Sheppard family, continued track success pushes closed doors open, granting the sisters access to shelter, scholarships and private school admissions that might have otherwise been beyond their means. But as they plan ahead for college — its opportunities and its expenses — they know they have to maintain their national records if they want to translate early success into lifelong stability.Unlike the Sheppards, who are at the start of their athletic careers, the women of the national soccer team have already proven themselves as world champions. But their astronomical achievements have not translated into astronomical earnings, suggesting that a glass ceiling looms over all women in sports. Both documentaries question how much success women must achieve to attain financial stability, and both films find that it’s not enough to be very good. To translate physical ability into financial gain, you have to be the best in the country, if not the best in the world.Though both movies are peppered with promises that everything will work out in the long run, they also function as documents of the exploitation that elite athletes experience. Here, superhuman strength runs straight into all-too-recognizable barriers — poor working conditions, low wages, discrimination, corporate greed. The subjects of “Sisters on Track” and “LFG” confront challenges with the mentality of champions, but that doesn’t make the opposition any less daunting.LFGNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. Watch on HBO Max.Sisters on TrackRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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    Euro 2020 Final Will Stay in London

    An agreement to resolve a dispute about foreign visitors includes the news that a crowd of about 60,000 will be allowed for the final at Wembley Stadium next month.The deciding games of this summer’s European soccer championship are staying in London after tournament organizers and the British government reached an agreement, ending speculation that England’s pandemic travel restrictions would prompt the relocation of the semifinals and finals from Wembley Stadium.The decision, announced on Tuesday, hours before England’s final group-stage game against the Czech Republic at Wembley, came after days of intense talks between European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, which runs the tournament, and local authorities about exemptions to Britain’s pandemic travel rules. UEFA had sought changes that would allow thousands of overseas supporters — and as many as 2,500 V.I.P.s — to attend the semifinals and final in London.A statement to announce the agreement did not outline what exemptions had been granted. It did, however, state the capacity for the three games had been increased to 75 percent of Wembley’s capacity, a figure of more than 60,000. That means the Euro 2020 final will represent the biggest attendance at a sporting event in Britain since the start of the pandemic.🏟️ The UK government has announced that more than 60,000 fans will be permitted at the #EURO2020 semi-finals and final at Wembley Stadium, increasing attendance to 75% of capacity for each game.Full story: ⬇️— UEFA (@UEFA) June 22, 2021
    “The last 18 months have taught us — both on and off the pitch — how integral fans are to the fabric of the game,” UEFA’s president, Aleksander Ceferin, said in the statement. He was planning to hold more talks with British government officials later on Tuesday, when he attended England’s game at Wembley.Officials briefed on the statement said there was broad agreement to meet UEFA’s requirement for 2,500 invited guests — including commercial and broadcast partners and soccer dignitaries — to attend the games at Wembley. However, a demand to allow thousands of fans to travel to London for the game from the nations represented in the final games is unlikely to be met.According to those involved in the negotiations, a dispensation could be made for at most 2,000 supporters from the participating nations, a largely symbolic number that could limit the potential criticism for lifting restrictions for a similar number of V.I.P.s.The crisis over the Wembley matches arose amid a surge in infection rates in Britain that has forced the government to back away from plans to lift the final restriction on social distancing that had been planned for this week. The spike, linked to a new and aggressive variant of the virus, had already dashed hopes that the final could be played in front of a capacity crowd of 90,000 at Wembley.The stadium — one of 11 being used across Europe — is currently allowing only 22,500 fans for the three group-stage games. That number will increase to 40,000 for the second of two rounds of 16 matches, but capacity for Italy’s match with Austria on Saturday will remain capped at 22,500.“As we continue to make progress on our road map out of lockdown, keeping the public safe remains our top priority,” said Oliver Dowden, the British lawmaker responsible for sports.The ongoing concerns about the spread of the virus were highlighted by the news that several members of the Scotland and England teams who played a game at Wembley last week were now in isolation. Scotland’s national team announced on Monday that its young midfielder Billy Gilmour would self isolate after a positive coronavirus test, and England said on Tuesday that two of its players, Ben Chilwell and Mason Mount, who had contact with Gilmour would enter isolation as well.The decision ruled both England players out of the match against the Czechs, which England won, 1-0.Scotland, without Gilmour in its midfield, was eliminated after a 3-1 defeat against Croatia in Glasgow. More

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    Carli Lloyd and Julie Ertz Named to U.S. Olympic Soccer Team

    Lloyd and the injured Julie Ertz and Tobin Heath had been among the few question marks for the scaled-down roster for the Tokyo Games. All three made the team.Carli Lloyd will play in her fourth Olympic Games at age 39 after she was one of 18 players named Wednesday to the United States women’s soccer team for the Tokyo Games.Lloyd, who will turn 39 a week before the Games open, is one of 11 players who return from the team that represented the United States at the 2016 Rio Games. She is also one of two — joining Tobin Heath — who will play in her fourth Olympics.The team announced by the U.S. coach, Vlatko Andonovski, included few surprises. Mainstays like Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan, Crystal Dunn, Rose Lavelle and Sam Mewis also made the team. So did Julie Ertz, the midfielder who is recovering from a knee injury but was seen as a lock to make the team if she was fit.Ertz’s inclusion — especially on a smaller roster where each place is vital in a condensed tournament — suggests that she is healthy enough to contribute, despite not having played in months.Heath, too, had been an injury concern. She has not played for the United States in 2021, but Andonovski had said recently that she was being reintroduced to training, a sign that her recovery, too, would make her available for the Games.Lloyd’s inclusion was, perhaps, not much of a question after all. She has been a fixture on the roster for more than a decade and her leadership, her drive to start and her ability to bring world-class talent off the bench, made her an obvious choice in the end.“I don’t judge the players by their age,” Andonovski said. “They are either good, perform well and can help us win, or they can’t. In terms of Carli, she’s done everything that she needs to do to earn herself a spot on the team. Now, the fact that she is 39, I think it’s remarkable, it’s incredible and just speaks a lot about Carli and her determination and her mentality. And that’s something that is always welcome on this team.”The full U.S. roster:Goalkeepers: Adrianna Franch, Alyssa NaeherDefenders: Abby Dahlkemper, Tierna Davidson, Crystal Dunn, Kelley O’Hara, Becky Sauerbrunn, Emily SonnettMidfielders: Julie Ertz, Lindsey Horan, Rose Lavelle, Kristie Mewis, Samantha MewisForwards: Tobin Heath, Carli Lloyd, Alex Morgan, Christen Press, Megan RapinoeSeventeen members of the 18-player Olympic roster also were on the team that won the World Cup in France in 2019. Sonnett, Davidson and Kristie Mewis — all first-time Olympians — were most likely the last names on the list, but their versatility and ability to play multiple positions could make them valuable additions.Olympic roster rules allow for changes before and during the tournament, so Andonovski also named four alternates who will train with the team before it departs and then accompany it to Japan: goalkeeper Jane Campbell, defender Casey Krueger, midfielder Catarina Macario and forward Lynn Williams. Those are the only four players being considered as replacements, Andonovski said.The U.S. team will play two send-off matches against Mexico on July 1 and 5 in East Hartford, Conn.The United States will open the Olympic tournament against Sweden on July 21 — two days before the opening ceremony — and then finish the group stage against New Zealand (July 24) and Australia (July 27). More

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    For France and Other Euro 2020 Favorites, Draws and a Fresh Start

    The favorites have survived the group stage at Euro 2020. Now the tournament gets interesting.With a couple of minutes to play in Budapest, the French midfielder Adrien Rabiot looked squarely at Sergio Oliveira, his Portuguese opponent, and advised him to back away. Like everyone else in the stadium, Rabiot had heard the news. The group stage of Euro 2020 was effectively over. Both France and Portugal were through to the knockout rounds. There was no need to run or to chase or to press. Now was the time for watching the clock.It had not, for either team, been a straightforward evening. The game had oscillated — Portugal led, then France, then Portugal struck back — and so had their fates, dependent to some extent on the outcome of the group’s other game, between Germany and Hungary in Munich. At one point or another, each of the four teams had believed they were going through.Only once Leon Goretzka had secured Germany a point against Hungary was it all settled. Hungary would be the fall guy; the three favorites all had safe passage to a round of 16 that offers a suite of intriguing encounters and two particularly mouthwatering ones: Portugal’s encounter with Belgium in Seville on Sunday, and England’s welcoming Germany to London on Tuesday.The jostling for position is, now, at an end. The real business starts here.When Adam Szalai scored early, Hungary briefly thought it was through to the knockouts.Pool photo by Matthias HangstDon’t Be Fooled: France Is the FavoriteThe reigning world champion, France, may not have sailed through its group with quite the ease of some of its challengers — Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy all posted perfect records — but that does not quite tell the whole story.The caliber of its opponent, first and foremost, was notably higher: France dropped points to Portugal, the defending European champion, and a Hungary team — one good enough to come within a whisker of beating Germany — roared on by a fiercely partisan home crowd.Karim Benzema scored twice for France, which tied two of its group-stage games but still won its group.Pool photo by Darko BandicJust as significant, particularly in its final game, France managed to give the impression that it has more to offer as and when necessary. Whenever Rabiot, Paul Pogba and the rest needed to lift the rhythm, they did so seamlessly. It is probably worth noting, too, that Kylian Mbappé has not scored yet, a ceasefire that will not hold forever.Nor, as yet, has an obvious contender emerged to France’s air of superiority. Germany, Portugal, Belgium, England and Spain — the group of teams that would expect to profit from any slight hesitation on the part of France — have yet to hit their stride. The teams that have impressed, Italy and the Netherlands, seem a little too young or a little too fragile to last the course. This is still France’s tournament to lose.Timing Is EverythingRoberto Mancini has his wish. On the eve of Euro 2020, Mancini, Italy’s coach, declared that he wanted his team to win over a public scarred by a decade of disappointment by “having fun.” His players have duly delivered.Italy has won all three group games. It has played thrilling, inventive soccer, backed by a raucous and partisan crowd in Rome. It is — despite relatively stiff competition from the Netherlands — the most compelling team in the tournament, the one that it is most rewarding to watch. It is also yet to concede a goal, because deep down, it is still Italy.Manuel Locatelli, right, led the celebrations against Switzerland.Pool photo by Riccardo AntimianiThat early promise is no guarantee of later success, of course. Every European Championships has a side that wins hearts and minds early on — the Czech Republic in 2004, the Netherlands in 2008 and Italy in 2016 — only to fall as soon as the level of difficulty ratchets up.Mancini’s team should have enough to breeze past Austria in the first knockout round, but Belgium, its most probable opponent in the quarterfinal, would provide a sterner test. Those two sides are an intriguing contrast: more than any team, Italy benefited from the postponement of this tournament. The yearlong delay because of the pandemic granted Mancini’s young side invaluable experience. It may have proved too callow had the competition been held, as scheduled, in 2020.The converse is true of Belgium. Roberto Martínez’s team also has won all its games, but it has done so with none of the verve or panache that has marked Italy’s progress. Belgium slumbered past Russia. It played in fits and starts to see off a spirited Denmark, and then roused itself late to swat aside Finland. Belgium is the world’s top-ranked team, but it also has the oldest squad in the tournament. It has the air of a team whose moment has just passed. Italy’s, you sense, is yet to come.Some Roads Are Easier Than OthersNobody is under any illusions that the current format for the European Championship is perfect. It is cumbersome and it is unwieldy and it is, at times, unsatisfactorily inconclusive. Switzerland won on Sunday night, but only knew the meaning of its victory on Monday. Ukraine lost on Monday, but had to wait until Wednesday to discover its fate.But that is not to say that the tension does not have its benefits. Only one of the final round of games — the Netherlands’ win against North Macedonia — was devoid of it; the Dutch had already won their group, and their guest in Amsterdam had already been eliminated. The 11 remaining matches all had something riding on them, whether that was settling the matter of who won the group or identifying which teams would qualify for the knockouts.Croatia finished second in its group but wound up with a better matchup than the winner.Pool photo by Paul EllisThat balance between benefit and drawback continues in the round of 16. On Saturday, Wales faces Denmark in Amsterdam. Both finished as the runner-up in their groups. But so did Austria, and it must play Italy.The need to squeeze in two games in the round of 16 between second-placed teams, to make the whole format work, has the effect of unbalancing the draw. That has been mitigated a little this time by the fact that Spain could not top its group, thanks to Sweden’s late winner against Poland, and will face Croatia in Copenhagen. But the consequence is clear: Some teams have a much more challenging route to the final than others.On one side of the draw, for example, Belgium must first face Portugal, then endure a potential quarterfinal with France, before meeting Spain — perhaps — in a semifinal. On the other, both England and Germany have cause to curse a difficult first knockout round matchup, but the prize for winning is a rich one: a quarterfinal against Sweden or Croatia, and then most likely the Netherlands in the semifinals.An uneven draw is not necessarily a bad thing. It means there is a route to the latter stages for nations that would, in other formats, expect to be dispatched far earlier. That is to be welcomed. A little randomness, after all, never hurt anyone.But it also rather exposes the logic that it does not matter when you face the major powers: To win the tournament, after all, you have to play them at some point. The problem is that, sometimes, you have to face more of them than others.Switzerland Punches Above Its Weight AgainLook who’s back in the knockout stages.Pool photo by Ozan KoseAnd so, there they are again, like clockwork. Just as was the case in Brazil in 2014, France in 2016 and Russia in 2018, Switzerland has made the last 16 of a major tournament. Quietly — how else would the Swiss do it? — the country is enjoying a golden era.It is not, in truth, an especially enthralling one. It is easy to deride the Swiss, as well as that other great recidivist qualifier for the knockout rounds, Sweden, as little more than cannon fodder for the traditional powerhouses in the round of 16. Neither team plays an especially adventurous style — though the Swiss victory against Turkey had no little style about it — and neither particularly captivates the imagination.But that should not detract from what an achievement it is for two countries — admittedly extremely wealthy ones — with a combined population of less than 20 million people to stand so tall, so consistently among the superpowers of Western Europe, the countries that have effectively turned developing young soccer players into an industrial process.And nor should it disguise the fact that the inability of two of Europe’s most populous nations — Turkey and Russia — to do the same is a quite extraordinary failure. Turkey has not even been to a World Cup since its third-place finish in 2002. It made the semifinals of Euro 2008, and has not played a knockout game since.Turkey will sit out the knockouts again.Pool photo by Naomi BakerRussia was a semifinalist in 2008, too, and it enjoyed a stirring run to the quarterfinals in its home World Cup three years ago. But those finals-free runs represent a paltry effort for two countries with such a vast reservoir of talent.The causes of those respective failures are not uniform — Russia does not export players, Turkey does not develop nearly enough of them — but there is one binding thread: Both Russia and Turkey are isolationist soccer cultures, resistant to the cutting-edge thinking and best practices that emanate from the leagues to their west. More than anything, both need to import ideas. They could do worse than to start their learning journey by looking at the Swiss, and the Swedes. More

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    Cheers for Carl Nassib Show a Changing Football Culture

    Nassib’s coming-out announcement has been met with largely positive responses, a reception other football players who publicly identified as gay, like Dave Kopay, did not experience.A day is coming when this will not make headlines.Dave Kopay, now 78, was the first major team athlete in North America to publicly come out as gay. He did it in 1975, shortly after retiring from the N.F.L., through a newspaper article. Then he bore the brunt for years.“Blackballed from football,” he told me this week. “College and pro. I was an outcast.”Michael Sam, a star lineman at Missouri, came out as gay through interviews with ESPN and The New York Times. It was 2014. He received more support than Kopay did decades earlier but a similar backlash. Despite being one of the best defensive players in college football, he never played in an N.F.L. game.Jake Bain came out while still in high school in 2017. Since he was a star running back, news stories focused on his sexuality, and with them came a mix of care and venom. Bain struggled with depression and quit the game after a year as one of the few openly gay players in college football.On Monday, Las Vegas Raiders defensive lineman Carl Nassib became the first active N.F.L. player to come out. He did it on Instagram, another athlete telling his story in his own way. And he did so with a joy and ease that made me realize just how much the world is changing.“I just want to take a quick moment to say that I am gay,” he said, looking directly into his cellphone’s camera from his home in West Chester, Pa.He would continue for less than a minute, saying he is happy and has supportive family and friends, and pledging $100,000 to the Trevor Project, which offers suicide prevention for L.G.B.T.Q. youth. However brief, it felt like we were watching a man become unburdened, an athlete knowing he was sending his truth to an audience more willing to embrace his message than ever before.The Raiders defensive lineman came out in a video posted on social media and said he would donate $100,000 to the Trevor Project, a nonprofit dedicated to suicide prevention efforts for L.G.B.T.Q. youth.John Bazemore/Associated PressConsider the tone of the responses that have so far followed Nassib’s announcement. The lack of public recrimination and the type of bullying disgust that gay athletes have endured for years.His message has been widely hailed. Kudos came quickly: from the N.F.L. commissioner, from stars across the league, from the Raiders’ owner and from Coach Jon Gruden.With a mix of delight and awe, Kopay watched it all unfold from his apartment in Palm Springs, Calif.“Looking at all of this, seeing the reaction to Carl’s announcement, it gives me a surge of contentment,” he said. “But I have to say, I thought this would happen 40 years ago.”He noted the clutch of retired N.F.L. players who have recently made their sexual identity publicly known, and the large numbers in women’s sports like basketball and tennis. But an active player coming out in the N.F.L., a league still basking in a soup of toxic masculinity and macho posturing? For Kopay, a seeker of true change in sports, that has always been the holy grail.“I thought that when I came out it would not be long before players in the league followed me,” he said. “But I had to wait. Oh, did I have to wait.”Kopay, who was a running back, recalled the 1960s and ’70s, when he lined up for a series of teams in an N.F.L. career that stretched nearly a decade. He didn’t hide his sexuality. Most of his teammates and coaches knew. He remembers that Vince Lombardi, who coached Kopay in Washington, was particularly supportive.But going public? Not a chance.Years later, Sam tried to break that mold. When he told his truth after his final season at Missouri, a profound societal shift was underway. A little over a year later, the Supreme Court would finally make gay marriage legal in the United States.Still, the football world was not ready. On draft night, TV cameras zoomed in as Sam kissed his boyfriend on national television. Cue the bleating anger from some fans, the weak-kneed squeamishness from some retrograde corners of the league.The St. Louis Rams cut Sam in training camp and, despite having been one of the best defenders in college, he was out of football a year after being drafted.Jake Bain knew all about Michael Sam’s story. “What I took from watching that unfold was wariness,” he said.Back then, Bain was entering high school in St. Louis, and already a football sensation in youth leagues. Watching the trouble endured by Sam made Bain, who now identifies as pansexual, feel he should keep quiet about his own sexuality.Still, as time passed and he began confiding in counselors, his confidence and self-understanding grew. He came out during a speech at a school assembly. Soon the story of the gay state champion football star was in the local newspapers, on TV, posted on the internet. Along with support came derision. Opponents peppered him with extra hits and verbal barbs. Protesters from a hate group that calls itself a church showed up at his school, shouting that he was headed for hell.In 2018, the college football prospect Jake Bain came out as gay and went on to play at Indiana State. “I wish I’d had a Carl Nassib to look up to as an example,” he said.A J Mast for The New York TimesBain ended up at Indiana State. He became one of the few openly L.G.B.T.Q. players in Division I football. The team and coaches there were supportive, he said, but as the headlines kept coming about his sexuality so did the pressure and the venomous hatred, especially online.Bain spiraled into depression. He said that after friends found out he was cutting himself, he entered a mental hospital for three days. The experience made him realize that he had to walk away from football. The pressure that sprang from his decision to come out proved too much.“I wish I’d had a Carl Nassib to look up to as an example,” said Bain, now a student at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. “But I just missed out. Now we have a player from the N.F.L.” He added, “Just knowing that this is happening is a powerful truth for me and all the young kids out there who dream of playing in the league.”Dave Kopay could not agree more.“To see someone out there like Carl, to know what he will represent to so many, I just can’t get over the emotions,” he said. “His example shows what I have been saying for years to young people: ‘Relax. Just be happy with who you are and don’t be afraid to tell the world. There will be critics, but there will also be love and support. Just make it happen, with no shame, because we are on the right path.’”Indeed, we are.Resistance to change — to full inclusion and equal treatment, no matter one’s sexual or gender identity — is still with us. It still must be fought by anyone who cares deeply for justice.But we’re on the right path.I hope someday soon I won’t be writing about this because it won’t even be news. More