Raphael Stevens

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    The Gaps Get Smaller as the World Cup Gets Larger

    Expanding the Women’s World Cup was a good idea. Just not for the reasons FIFA thinks.Given where the journey had started and where it had led, it was no wonder that watching the Philippines win a game at the Women’s World Cup felt as if it defied rational explanation, even to those involved.Not quite two years ago, the Philippines had toiled to beat Nepal in a qualifying game just to earn a place in a low-profile regional tournament. Now that same team had beaten New Zealand — on home soil, no less — and with the whole world watching.For those who were part of that journey, the distance traveled and the ground traversed seemed too great to be feasible. It was impossible to imagine that a team that had been there could ever be here, and vice versa.“Overwhelming, crazy,” said Sarina Bolden, the live-wire forward who had scored her country’s first goal at a World Cup. Her coach, Alen Stajcic, found it hard to pitch his hyperbole. He started out at “staggering” and went from there, cycling through “miraculous and unbelievable” before landing on “mind-blowing.”The emotion, the euphoric instinct to attribute the wondrous to the divine, was understandable. The Philippines had entered the World Cup as a rank outsider. “No one expected us to win,” Bolden said. “We’re used to that.” Its team had never won a game at the tournament before. That was not desperately surprising: It had previously played only one, and that was last week. Just a few months ago, it was ranked outside the world’s top 50.The Philippines went out of the World Cup, but not before leaving its mark on it.Marty Melville/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe thing about miracles, though, is that their mechanics can be a little more mundane than they may first appear. The Philippines might have left the tournament precisely as anticipated — after the group phase, eliminated thanks to an unceremonious 6-0 defeat to Norway — but not before it left an indelible mark.Its victory against New Zealand was the greatest surprise of a World Cup brimming with them. It is just that, beneath the surface, it was perhaps not that much of a surprise at all.To watch the first 10 days of this tournament has been to experience the sensation that the world is simultaneously expanding and contracting. The Philippines beat one of the World Cup’s co-hosts, and Nigeria overcame Australia, the other.Morocco, the first North African team to reach the finals, beat South Korea. Colombia scored in the 97th minute to beat Germany, Europe’s great powerhouse. Jamaica held firm to take a point against France, a result the country’s coach, Lorne Donaldson, described as “No. 1” in its history, “for men or women.”Most of those nations will, of course, follow the same arc as the Philippines. Nigeria and Colombia apart, it is unlikely any will make it as far as the knockout rounds. The phosphene imprint of their brief, dazzling moments in the spotlight, though, will last.And so, too, will the fact that even in defeat, most of those teams making their debuts on this stage have emerged with credit. True, there have been a couple of shellackings: Germany against Morocco, both Spain and Japan against Zambia, Norway against the Philippines.Top women’s players no longer see a gap between themselves and stars from bigger nations because they know one another from club play.David Gray/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThose, though, have been isolated cases. Haiti lost only narrowly to England. Ireland has run both Australia and Canada close. The United States scored only three against Vietnam. Nobody has conceded 13 in a single game. Nobody has been humiliated. The horizons of women’s soccer are both broader and closer than ever before.“We’ve been saying this all along,” said Vlatko Andonovski, the coach of the United States. “Whether it’s Nigeria or Jamaica, South Africa and the Philippines: These are the teams that actually show how much women’s soccer has grown.”Regrettably, at some point, FIFA will seek to take credit for that. Effect will be mistaken for cause. Four years ago, with what appeared to be suspiciously little warning, global soccer’s governing body decreed that the Women’s World Cup — previously contested by 24 teams — would expand to 32, the same size as the men’s tournament (for now).At the time, the idea was met with considerable skepticism. The move was announced only a few weeks after Thailand had conceded more than a dozen goals in a game against the United States. Many suspected the expansion would turn an exception into a rule. “A lot of people were worried with the expansion that we weren’t ready for it on the women’s side,” said Randy Waldrum, the Nigeria coach.FIFA’s president, the never less than bombastic Gianni Infantino, was unmoved. “The astounding success of this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup in France made it very clear that this is the time to keep the momentum going and take concrete steps to foster the growth of women’s football,” he said. He said he believed more countries would invest in their women’s teams if they had a “realistic chance of qualifying.”From his vantage point — on the Cook Islands, the sun-kissed paradise where for reasons that are not entirely clear he has spent a considerable part of the early stages of the tournament — Infantino would doubtless claim he has been vindicated.Morocco, like the Philippines, posted its first World Cup win in its first trip to the tournament.Brenton Edwards/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWould the Philippines have moved to appoint the experienced Stajcic, the former coach of the Australian women’s team, if it had not seen the World Cup as a realistic target? Without his presence, would his players have garnered the “tournament experience” — in a parade of competitions in both Southeast Asia and Asia as a whole — and “maturity” that Stajcic felt allowed them to hold off New Zealand last week in Wellington?“The commitment level in terms of who they brought in as a coach and the things they’re putting into the program are paying dividends for them,” Waldrum said of the Philippines. “I think that’s why we are seeing the growth.”More than anyone, though, Waldrum is well aware of the holes in Infantino’s logic. His team, after all, is still locked in a pay dispute with its national federation, which has so far withheld the players’ win bonuses; Waldrum himself has previously complained that he has been “very frustrated by the federation and the lack of support.”Donaldson, in charge of a Jamaica side that might yet qualify for the tournament’s knockout phase, could make a similar case. At least some of the expenses associated with bringing Jamaica to the World Cup were paid for by a fund-raising campaign arranged by the mother of one of its players.The expansion of the World Cup has, instead, worked despite the national associations — still, in many cases, chronically lacking in both money and commitment — rather than because of them. And it has done so because of a host of factors that have little, if anything, to do with the tournament itself.The increased professionalization of the game, particularly in Europe, has led to vast and rapid improvements in everything from conditioning to diet to tactical sophistication. The coaches, on the whole, are more experienced, more adroit, more suitable to the talent of their players.“Our preparation is a little bit better this time around,” Donaldson said. “Just the ability to have proper coaching, proper diet and the understanding of what’s going on in world soccer” had helped his team to compete despite a colossal resource gap to the game’s bigger, richer nations, he said.Haiti has left an impression on bigger nations despite not posting a win.Dan Peled/ReutersAt the same time, the whirlwind growth of the game has led to the players themselves being granted more opportunities to play competitive, elite soccer, as the clubs of the surging European leagues — as well as the National Women’s Soccer League in the United States — cast their nets ever wider in the hunt for talent.Waldrum’s squad with Nigeria, for example, contains a host of players employed in France and Spain, including Asisat Oshoala, the Barcelona forward. Ireland’s team is drawn, in large part, from the teams of England’s Women’s Super League.As many as 14 of Haiti’s squad currently play in France — not all for clubs like Lyon, as the teenage midfielder Melchie Dumornay now does, but professional, committed clubs nonetheless. Even the Philippines, the ultimate underdog, has called up only three players from its domestic league. The majority of its team plays, instead, in Sweden, Norway and Australia.“Some of these players are getting a chance now to go and play in some of the top leagues, and they’re taking it,” Donaldson said. “You can see it, the Jamaican players, the Haitian players. They’re developing.”And as they do so, the players they have encountered — the ones who might once have seemed so distant — become just a little more familiar. They know they belong on the same field, because they have done it before. The horizon, the one that seems so broad, is far closer than it might appear. What looks, at first glance, like a miracle, a bolt from a clear blue sky, is really nothing more than the landfall of a gathering storm. More

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    Megan Rapinoe Is Not Going Quietly

    Sitting on the bench as her United States team played at the Women’s World Cup last week, Megan Rapinoe was sure that she was in the wrong spot. She was just as sure that her coach, Vlatko Andonovski, should see that, and fix it.“I’m always shocked when I don’t play,” Rapinoe said with a laugh, joking with reporters on Sunday about her uneasy new role: reserve. “Every player who starts thinks they should play,” she added. “And everyone on the bench thinks they should be on the field.”What else was Rapinoe supposed to think, having come to this World Cup as a marquee player who had been a game changer in its last three editions? For the first time in 12 years, Rapinoe, the outspoken and accomplished leader of the U.S. team for the past decade, is watching the World Cup instead of starring in it. In the first U.S. game at this tournament, a 3-0 victory over Vietnam that was her 200th appearance for the United States, Rapinoe came into the game as a substitute for the final half-hour. In the second game, she did not play at all, even as her team struggled to create space and scoring chances in a 1-1 tie with the Netherlands.Rapinoe, 38, expected this World Cup to be a sort of changing of the guard, of course. She is the oldest player on the team, and on the eve of her team’s departure for New Zealand she announced that this would be her final World Cup and her final professional season.She will never be happy about sitting out, she said. But she also knows she has a role to play.Rapinoe speaking with reporters on Sunday.Abbie Parr/Associated Press“Ultimately, we’re at the World Cup — this is where everybody wants to be, whether you’re playing 90 minutes or whether you’re a game-changer or whatever,” she said. “I think it’s a lot similar to what I thought it would be, bringing all the experience that I can, all the experience that I have, and ultimately being ready whenever my number is called up.”She is, she said, embracing her new role. Maybe the United States needs a player — a player like her, was the clear implication — who gives “20 minutes in two games that wins the team the tournament, or wins a team a game that gets it to the next round.”The United expects to have a long road yet at this World Cup, and no one — including Rapinoe — wants it to be a weekslong eulogy to her career. But Rapinoe’s teammates are already mourning her departure, no matter how many minutes she plays here. When Kelley O’Hara, the defender who has played with Rapinoe at the past three World Cups, was asked days before the tournament started to consider what it will be like when Rapinoe is gone, she broke into tears.“She’s done such incredible things for this team and for the world, so to be able to see the up close and personal Pinoe, and be close to that has been really special,” O’Hara said. “I hope that we all send her out on a high.”“This is where everybody wants to be, whether you’re playing 90 minutes or whether you’re a game-changer or whatever,” Rapinoe said.Catherine Ivill/Getty ImagesAlex Morgan called Rapinoe a special player, one the team can still count on. “She makes things happen out of nothing,” Morgan said. “We’ve seen that time and time again.”It is unclear if Rapinoe will have many more chances to make something out of nothing at the World Cup. Andonovski has committed to his new lineup, so much so that he declined to make changes even as it struggled to find a goal against the Netherlands. But Rapinoe made it clear that, from her seat, the United States missed out on controlling its fate against the Netherlands.The team could have set itself up to claim first place in its group if it had beaten the Dutch, most likely locking in an easier path in the knockout rounds. It still controls its destiny — a win, especially a big one, over Portugal on Tuesday would achieve the same result. But Rapinoe knows as well as anyone that World Cups are won or lost by the finest of margins. On the biggest stages, she said, the smallest details can matter, and so she will keep working, keep pushing to play.Rapinoe and the rest of the U.S. reserves who didn’t play against the Netherlands had time to consider their fate as they gathered at training the day after the match. The starters were back at the hotel, resting, as is usual after a game. For Rapinoe, the substitute, there was training. It was a hard lesson, she acknowledged, but also an opportunity.“You cry in your shower or you cry with your friends in the sauna,” she said. But after that, you have no choice but to make the best of it.Marlena Sloss for The New York TimesRapinoe reminded everyone on Sunday that she is not any less of a competitor than she was in her first World Cup, in 2011, the tournament in which, she said, she “announced herself.” In the quarterfinals that year against Brazil, it was Rapinoe who delivered a last-second ball from midfield to Abby Wambach, who scored the header that saved the Americans from a humbling early elimination. The U.S. went on to reach the final.Pressure-filled moments like that remind Rapinoe of where the United States stands in this World Cup. And while she might not be the go-to player anymore, she still has a lot to offer, she said. Watching from the sideline on Thursday, she said, she spotted “some really simple fixes” that she was more than happy to share with her teammates and her coaches.On Sunday, Rapinoe was quick to emphasize that just because she is OK with her role as a sage and helpful veteran, that doesn’t mean she is going any easier on the younger players during practices.Every day in training, she said, her job is to try to take one of theirs. “And that makes them better,” she said. “That makes me better. That makes the whole team better.” More

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    Germany is sidestepping the messiness present in other groups.

    Germany is comfortably winning Group H after trouncing Morocco, 6-0, in its opening match. Having reached the quarterfinals every previous tournament, this year looks to be no different thanks to a favorable draw.Colombia is capping off a strong year of international competition after a runner-up finish in last summer’s Copa América, where it lost the final to Brazil. The Colombians also opened their World Cup with a win over South Korea, 2-0. While it is unlikely they will be a match for the Germans, the Colombians are still in position to advance to the knockout rounds.Colombia in its final game faces Morocco, which beat South Korea on Sunday, 1-0. More

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    Savannah DeMelo’s World Cup Trial by Fire

    DeMelo had never played for the United States women’s team when she was named to the World Cup roster. Thrust into a starting role, she’s doing her best to fit in.Savannah DeMelo said the reality that she was playing for the United States in the Women’s World Cup finally hit her as the fans in the stadium counted down the final 10 seconds before her first match. She only started to get truly comfortable, though, once people starting kicking her.The hair pulls and the shoves and the elbows? Those were just a bit of welcome familiarity for DeMelo, one of the most fouled players in the National Women’s Soccer League. “I’m used to getting kicked,” DeMelo said.It is all the rest that is still new: the global stage; the sky-high expectations inside and outside the U.S. team; the constant pressure to not let down a squad that has won the last two World Cups. DeMelo, after all, had never played a game for the United States before she was named to the World Cup roster last month.Her inclusion, as the least experienced of the 14 World Cup rookies on the U.S. roster, was one of the biggest surprises of the Americans’ run-up to the tournament. But it has been her presence in Coach Vlatko Andonovski’s starting lineup, and the role she has been asked to play as a midfield orchestrator and instigator, that could prove pivotal as the United States tries to navigate its way through the knockout rounds of the tournament.Buda Mendes/Getty ImagesDeMelo’s first start, against Vietnam, was only her second game for the U.S. team.Buda Mendes/Getty ImagesJackie Groenen and the Netherlands offered a sterner, more physical test.Marty Melville/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNamed as a starter in the United States’ first two World Cup games, DeMelo, 25, has been a reliable fit for the position normally filled by Rose Lavelle, who arrived at the World Cup still working her way back to full fitness after an injury-marred spring.While Andonovski manages Lavelle’s minutes — he has said he prefers to have her finish games than start them, for now — DeMelo took her place in the U.S. games against Vietnam and the Netherlands.“Rose brings a creativity to the team, a fluidity,” said Andi Sullivan, who has started alongside both Lavelle and DeMelo for the national team. “And for me, having played with her for a long time, I know where she’s gonna be.”But Sullivan added that DeMelo has been a seamless replacement, “and I think it’s been awesome have both Rose and Savannah play in that position, because they both bring such awesome qualities on the ball, on the dribble, interchanging positions.”DeMelo has started in the position normally occupied by Rose Lavelle, whose match fitness has rendered her a substitute in the first two games.Andrew Cornaga/Associated PressAndonovski saw a place for DeMelo in his team months ago.He first called her into camp last year, both to reward DeMelo’s performances for Racing Louisville, where she had been one of the league’s top players as a rookie, but also, perhaps, to see how she fit within the group of World Cup winners and eager rookies he was assembling to take to New Zealand and Australia.Coach and player kept up a regular exchange of text messages and critiques through the winter, the first sign for DeMelo that she might have a shot to win a place on the World Cup team despite her relative inexperience. The problem, she knew, was that she might not have a lot of chances to show the national team coaching staff what she could do.In January, she said last week, she realized there would only be one camp before the World Cup, and she remembered that Andonovski had told the team he would be closely watching their performances in club games. So she resolved to follow some advice her father, a soccer coach, had always repeated about “controlling the controllables.” She vowed to focus on her play for Louisville, and “make it almost like they couldn’t not take me.”The goals followed, five in 12 games this season. But when DeMelo and the rest of the team got an email setting the day when Andonovski would call them individually to tell them if they had made the World Cup team, all her stresses came back. The news, though, was exactly what she wanted to hear.Keeping her place in the lineup, though, is not a given. The U.S. has struggled to finish its chances in its first two games, and Andonovski spoke last week about “how can we help the players that are in a position to finish, giving them a little bit of service, whether it’s finding them on the right step or the proper foot, the final touch — the service before the finish.”That creativity is what Lavelle has offered in her two relief appearances. She brought an urgency to the Americans’ attack in the opener against Vietnam, when she entered after the first hour. She did the same against the Netherlands, when she replaced DeMelo at halftime, restored some bite to a midfield that was being bullied and outplayed, and delivered the assist on Lindsey Horan’s tying goal.Andonovski has been purposely vague about when Lavelle might be fit enough to go 90 minutes. Instead, he has preached the value of getting game-time minutes for his inexperienced starting lineup, a preference so strong that he only made one of his five available substitutions as his team pressed for a winning goal in its draw against the Netherlands on Saturday.Lavelle had replaced DeMelo by then, and she may offer do the same on Tuesday against Portugal, perhaps even earlier. The team will find out the lineup on Monday night. But DeMelo said she won’t be looking over her shoulder.“The reason I’m here is just to be myself,” DeMelo said, “so that’s what I kind of want to bring to the team.” More

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    Australian TV Deal Has World Cup Viewers Asking: Where Are the Games?

    When FIFA sold Australia’s World Cup broadcast rights to a streaming service, it made it harder for casual fans to find the matches.The Women’s World Cup is by most estimates the biggest sporting event to be staged in Australia since the Sydney Olympics. FIFA, the tournament’s organizer, has trumpeted record ticket sales, and it has hailed the event both as a celebration of the popularity of women’s soccer and as a way to carry it to new fans and new markets.But while viewers in Australia could watch all 64 games of the recent men’s World Cup played in Qatar on a free-to-air network, FIFA struck a deal for the broadcast rights to the Women’s World Cup — as it did when the tournament was played in France four years ago — with the cellphone operator Optus, which has placed the bulk of the matches on its pay television network.For viewers in Australia, that has meant the majority of games can only be watched via subscription, making it harder for viewers living in one of the tournament’s host countries to watch the tournament than it has been for fans in places like Europe and the United States.“It’s very disappointing to not have the coverage the women deserve,” said Beth Monkley, who was in Brisbane with her daughter this week to follow Australia’s team. “It’s a fantastic sport for everyone, so inclusive. And for some reason Australia has decided not to show all the games free to air.”Legislation in Australia means the entire event cannot be placed behind a paywall, since games involving the men’s and national women’s soccer teams are considered of such significant importance that they are on a list of protected events that must be broadcast for free nationwide. The World Cup final also has a place on that protected list.This year, 15 tournament games will be available on Channel Seven, a free-to-air network authorized by FIFA and Optus to sub-license some rights. (Optus separately said it would offer to stream 10 games for free to users who sign up for its platform.)But the uncertainty about which games will be on the air, and when, has led to significant frustration among soccer fans, but also casual fans in sports-mad Australia, where soccer lags behind the country’s most popular sports, rugby, cricket and Australian rules football.On Thursday morning, Andrew Moore and his wife joined the throng of visitors to a FIFA fan park set up on the banks of the Brisbane River to watch the most eagerly awaited game of the group stage, a clash between the United States and the Netherlands. The Moores stood out.While most of the crowd were outfitted in the yellow and green of the Australian team that would play later in the day against Nigeria, the Moores were wearing matching maroon and golden jerseys of their favorite rugby team, the Brisbane Broncos, which was scheduled to play at the same time as the Matildas’ kickoff against Nigeria.While Australia’s matches are easy to find on television, the same is not true of all teams.Dan Peled/ReutersMoore said all the pretournament advertising and promotion had led him believe that all the games would be broadcast on Channel Seven, a network familiar to Australian sports fans. So a day after he watched Australia and New Zealand play their openers on free television, he settled in to watch the next round of games.But when he grabbed his remote control and flicked to Channel Seven, and then to its subsidiary channels, he could not find a game. “I thought there was something wrong with the television,” he said.Moore said for casual soccer viewers like his family, which already has several pay television subscriptions, signing up to Optus to watch the Women’s World Cup did not make sense, particularly since the sports he favors are on other networks. In Australia’s fragmented television market, most domestic sports rights are split across a number of pay and free-to-air networks. Fans seeking telecasts of major soccer leagues and tournaments from outside the country often must turn to more networks and more subscriptions.That has left FIFA trying to defend disparate priorities: its desire to attract new fans to women’s soccer, and a new commercial approach that seeks to maximize revenue for a tournament that it hopes will eventually grow closer to the popularity of the men’s event, which is the most-watched tournament in global sports.FIFA declined to comment on the rationale for its broadcast agreements in Australia beyond issuing a statement saying that both Optus and Channel Seven “have committed significant resources to covering and promoting the tournament” and claiming that their “combined efforts have led to record viewership figures for the FIFA Women’s World Cup in the region.”That record, experts said, was always likely to be met, given Australian and New Zealand’s host nation status and a favorable time zone for the games. David Rowe, a professor at the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University, described the lack of the type of blanket coverage that the men’s tournament typically enjoys as a “missed opportunity.”Optus, reacting to the outcry from viewers, has pointed out that broadcasters’ rights fees “are key to ensuring the continued growth and equality of women’s sport, and contribute to everything from grass roots momentum to salaries for our national players.”Soccer’s place within Australia’s sporting landscape has always been a precarious one, said Rowe, an expert on sports and media in Australia. He said the sport was for decades viewed with suspicion by a population grappling with a wave of migration after World War II.“Football got a reputation as foreign at time when there was a lot of suspicion toward people who were not British in the early days of multiculturalism,” he said.He credited the relative success of Australia’s women’s team in establishing itself as one of the best in the world as helping boost the sport’s appeal at home, much as victories and championships by the United States women’s team had popularized the sport in America.That popularity has been visible in the tournament, with record attendances and packed stadiums for Australia’s first two games.FIFA’s sale of the broadcast rights in Australia comes as it tries to promote the women’s game more broadly. Darrian Traynor/Getty ImagesStill, for FIFA, the Women’s World Cup is not close to being the cash cow that the men’s event has become. The estimated $300 million it will earn from selling broadcast rights to the women’s tournament is only about a tenth of what the organization brought in for the rights to the Qatar World Cup in 2022. FIFA and its president, Gianni Infantino, have accused broadcasters in Europe of undervaluing the tournament, and at one point even threatened to not sell rights in key territories — essentially imposing a blackout — if the offers were not increased. As the tournament neared, FIFA eventually backed down on that threat.With FIFA’s coffers swelling with reserves of $4 billion and forecasts of more to come with the next men’s World Cup estimated to generate $11 billion, there was little urgency to sell domestic Women’s World Cup rights to the highest bidder, Rowe said.“It’s chump change for FIFA,” he said. “I do think it’s a lost opportunity.”In Brisbane, as Matildas fever gripped the Queensland capital ahead of the Nigeria game, the sense of a missed opportunity appeared to be near universal.By the time Monkley got to Brisbane with her daughter this week to follow the Australian women’s team, she had been forced to fashion an unusual routine to watch other games in the tournament, by connecting a cable between her phone and her hotel television to stream the games.In Melbourne, where Australia now faces a must-win game against Canada, Alyssa Birley and her husband, Cameron, had traveled across the state so their children could watch the match. The family even booked the same hotel as the Australian team so that their children could get even closer to their heroes. But they said that they have not shelled out for an Optus subscription.The result, Alyssa Birley said, was that her children could not follow other top nations.“It’s inspirational, especially for young girls, to see these top tier athletes and it should be accessible to them,” Cameron Birley said. “Where else can they get that?” More

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    Our Sports of the Times columnist makes a case for Haiti.

    With the Women’s World Cup now in full flight, most attention has gone to the venerable teams like France, Brazil and Germany. And, of course, to the two-time defending champion United States.Hats off to all those teams, each talent-blessed and well-funded by their national soccer federations and by business conglomerates.My heart is with and my eyes are on the scrappiest, most resilient underdog in this tournament. That would be Haiti. Les Grenadiers, as the team is affectionately known. The Soldiers.Les Grenadiers represent a nation that has long struggled to heal the deep wounds left by colonialism and slavery. In large part because of the burdensome debt levied by France in exchange for its freedom, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Over the last 13 years, its citizens have endured deadly, devastating earthquakes and floods. Since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021, vigilantes have taken up arms against gangs, and democracy has crumbled. In March, the United Nations called for an international peacekeeping force to help restore order.Such instability forced Les Grenadiers to live and play outside Haiti during World Cup qualifying rounds. No matter. The team wove around every thorny roadblock and in February beat Chile, 2-1, to make it to the tournament in Australia and New Zealand.There is no corporate support for this team. Yet hardship has a way of creating steely, tenacious spirit. More

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    How Lindsey Horan Got Mad, and How That Got the U.S. Even

    Lindsey Horan’s tying goal against the Netherlands saved her team at the World Cup. But it came from a dark place she knows well.Lindsey Horan was still curled up on the field when she decided, enough already.Enough of getting kicked by players from the Netherlands. Enough of letting the Dutch dictate the game. Enough of the United States women’s team, the two-time reigning world champion, not playing its best at this Women’s World Cup.Horan and her team were an hour into a physical match against the Netherlands filled with sharp elbows and powerful shoves, and they were losing it by a goal. Now Horan, a United States co-captain, had just been hip-checked hard by a Netherlands counterpart, Danielle van de Donk. So after several minutes of being examined by medical staff, and another moment of being lectured by the referee for shoving van de Donk, Horan did exactly what her teammate Julie Ertz had just begged her to do.“Just score this goal,” Ertz had whispered as they lined up to await a corner kick from Rose Lavelle, “to shut everyone up.”And that’s just what she did. As Rose Lavelle’s corner screamed into the penalty area, Horan sprinted for the precise spot where it would arrive. “An absolute dime,” she called the pass from Lavelle. She jumped to meet it, snapped her head and sent the ball straight into the net.“I don’t think you ever want to get me mad because I don’t react in a good way,” Horan said. “Usually, I just go and I want something more. I want to win more. I want to score more. I want to do more for my team.”Horan’s goal lifted the United States to a 1-1 tie with the Netherlands, with one more group match game to play for each team. At the moment, the teams are tied with four points from a win and a draw, but the United States holds a slight edge on goal difference because it beat Vietnam by three goals and the Netherlands beat Portugal by only one.The winner of the group will be decided after the third and final matches in the group, which will be played simultaneously on Tuesday. The U.S. will face Portugal, and the Netherlands will play Vietnam.The United States will enter that game with a new spring in its step, and Horan is the main reason for that. All it took, it turned out, was a bit of rage.“That’s when you get the best football from Lindsey,” Horan said of herself.She is not the first U.S. women’s player, of course, to take it upon herself to personally change the team’s trajectory at a World Cup, to will it to victory on soccer’s biggest stage. Think Megan Rapinoe in 2019, or Carli Lloyd in the 2015 final, to take two recent examples. In each case, and in Horan’s on Thursday, a key player suddenly came to personify the team’s history and legacy — four World Cup titles, four decades atop world soccer — and turn the momentum her team’s way.Horan and Danielle van de Donk of the Netherlands, whose foul led to shoves, shouts and the only U.S. goal.Buda Mendes/Getty ImagesOn Thursday, even Horan’s teammates sensed something was about to change. Forward Alex Morgan said when she saw the referee pull Horan and van de Donk aside after the two exchanged shoves and heated words following the foul, and just before the corner kick that ensued, she “felt like something was going to happen.”United States Coach Vlatko Andonovski said the response was typical of Horan.“She gets fouled, kicked, hurt and obviously it’s a very difficult moment,” Andonovski said. “And instead of crying about it, she just goes and makes a statement and basically that shows everyone in the world the direction that the game is going to take.”Andonovski said he was especially proud that Horan and other veterans had continued to press for a winning goal after Horan tied the score, showing the younger players on the U.S. team how to take control of a game. Horan and players like Ertz and Lavelle, he said, “carried the younger ones, or in a way showed the younger ones what this game is all about.”One of those players, the 21-year-old Trinity Rodman, said she had been impressed by Horan’s ability to “flip a switch” and go “from trash talking to putting a ball in the back of the net.”It may have been why Andonovski chose to make only one substitution in Thursday’s game, sending on Lavelle for Savannah DeMelo at halftime to try to inject some energy into the U.S. midfield. He refrained from making more changes, he said, “because I thought we had control of the game, I thought we were knocking on the door of scoring a goal.Horan, center, celebrating her goal.Buda Mendes/Getty Images“We were around the goal the whole time,” he added, “and I just didn’t want to disrupt the rhythm.”It was only after Horan’s goal, though, and after being outplayed in the first half, that the United States began to look crisper and more determined.Andonovski suggested the final 30 minutes, not the first 60, were representative of what he and fans could expect as the team moves deeper into the tournament, and as the connections between players young and old start to get more familiar.“What you saw in the second half is what you’re going to see going forward, as a baseline,” he said. “I think that we’re just going to get better from game to game, and we’re going to be a lot more efficient as well.” More

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    It’s Hard to Root Against Haiti in the Women’s World Cup

    The 2023 Women’s World Cup has the largest field of competitors in tournament history. Les Grenadiers, as the Haitian team is known, may be the scrappiest of them all.If you’ve read this column regularly over the last few years, my rooting interests should be clear by now. I pull for the outsiders and outliers. The strugglers and stragglers. The players and teams who toil hard for the simple chance, however slim, of winning.With the Women’s World Cup now in full flight, most attention has gone to the venerable teams like France, Brazil and Germany. And, of course, to the two-time defending champion United States: Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe and all those newcomers, a group with sizzling star power and a bold modus operandi that has pushed the boundaries not just for female soccer players, but for all of women’s sports.Hats off to all those teams, each talent-blessed and well-funded by their national soccer federations and by business conglomerates. One of them will leave this tournament with the silver and gold trophy held high.But through the early goings of this year’s group stage, with eight sides making their World Cup debuts, long shots have been having their moments. Monday evening, it was Philippines pulling off a 1-0 stunner over the co-host New Zealand. Last week, Nigeria played to a 0-0 draw with the favored Canadians.My heart is with and my eyes are on the scrappiest, most resilient underdog in this tournament. That would be Haiti. Les Grenadiers, as the team is affectionately known. The Soldiers.Les Grenadiers represent a nation that has long struggled to heal the deep wounds left by colonialism and slavery. In large part because of the burdensome debt levied by France in exchange for its freedom, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Over the last 13 years, its citizens have endured deadly, devastating earthquakes and floods. Since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021, vigilantes have taken up arms against gangs, and democracy has crumbled. In March, the United Nations called for an international peacekeeping force to help restore order.Such instability forced Les Grenadiers to live and play outside Haiti during World Cup qualifying rounds. No matter. The team wove around every thorny roadblock and in February beat Chile, 2-1, to make it to the tournament in Australia and New Zealand.There is no corporate support for this team. Backing from the national soccer federation? Well, the head of Haiti’s federation, Yves Jean-Bart, isn’t traveling with the team. He stands accused of sexually harassing and abusing female players.Haiti qualified for the Women’s World Cup by defeating Chile, 2-1, in February.Hannah Peters — FIFA/FIFA, via Getty ImagesThe Haitian team — No. 53 in the FIFA rankings — is stocked with athletes who were children in 2010 when a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck the island nation, killing roughly 300,000 people and leveling much of the capital, Port-au-Prince.“It’s something that no Haitian has ever forgotten,” said Melchie Dumornay, the 5-foot-3 midfield buzz saw who, at 19, plays for the French club powerhouse Olympique Lyonnais Féminin and is Les Grenadiers’ best player.She added: “So many of our loved ones died. There’s been a lot of sadness, despair, and pain, both emotional and physical. It taught us to be more careful, to take a more serious approach to what we do in life, and to always be determined, because we can tell ourselves that we’ve still got a life to live.”Hardship has a way of creating steely, tenacious spirit. You could see it on Saturday, when Haiti went against England in its group stage opener. England, ranked fourth in the world, its roster stuffed with players who have competed in previous World Cups and in the biggest international tournaments. England, which marched through the European Championship in 2022 and took the crown by beating Germany, 2-1, in front of nearly 90,000 rabid fans at Wembley Stadium.Given the wide disparity in experience and expectations, many of the tournament debutantes suffered walloping losses in their opening matches. Morocco gave up six goals to Germany and scored none. Zambia lost, 5-0, to the past champion Japan. Vietnam was routed, 3-0, by the United States.Melchie Dumornay, right, often looked like the best player on the field during Haiti’s match against England.Katie Tucker/Associated PressLes Grenadiers would not have any part of those kinds of drubbings. The zigzagging Dumornay at times looked like the best player on the field. Goalkeeper Kerly Théus turned away shot after shot. With Haiti down, 1-0, in the 80th minute, striker Roseline Éloissaint sprinted half the length of the field, scooped up a pass, tore past three English defenders and launched a right-footed laser that would have found the back net if not for a diving stop from England’s goalkeeper, Mary Earps.It was an action-packed night of soccer in Brisbane, Australia, and nip-and-tuck close to an upset for the ages. Not bad for first-timers from a nation that could use a jolt of optimism. Afterward, England Coach Sarina Wiegman sounded the alarm for both of Haiti’s next foes, assuring that Denmark and China “are going to really struggle” with Les Grenadiers.“But of course,” she added, with a look of relief, “that’s not our problem.”Still, the odds of Haiti advancing to the knockout rounds seem slim. On Friday, Haiti plays China, the champions of Asia, quarterfinalists six times entering the ninth-ever Women’s World Cup. Then the opponent will be 13th-ranked Denmark, one of the best compensated women’s teams in the world.This highest-of-stakes, monthlong tournament is both slog and spectacle. No matter how Haiti fares, this much is sure: With all they have been through, Les Grenadiers will not give up the fight. More