Raphael Stevens

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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

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    A Continental Competition, All in One Neighborhood

    At the eight-minute mark of the final of the CAN 18 soccer tournament, the players on the Mauritania team score three times in rapid succession.The balls hitting the goalkeeper’s small net sound like the blasts of a cannon. Boom. Boom. Boom. The last two happen so quickly that many in the crowd miss them.“Did they score?” the Ivory Coast fan squished next to me asks, looking stunned. “Yes, twice,” a Mauritanian fan on my other side responds gleefully.It doesn’t take long to understand that the annual soccer tournament of Paris’s 18th arrondissement is different: The stadium is a small, caged turf court in the middle of the Goutte d’Or — the dense, working-class landing spot for each new wave of immigrants to the city, a place where African wax stores and tailors for boubous compete with boulangeries and bistros among the crowded streets.The tournament was one of many around Paris inspired by the 2019 edition of the Africa Cup of Nations, or Coupe d’Afrique des nations in French, the continental competition typically held every two years. The events have become so popular that the finals of one in Créteil, a southeastern suburb of Paris, were broadcast on Amazon Prime last summer.Mamoudou Camara floated the idea for the tournament on Snapchat in the summer of 2019. This year’s edition had 16 teams.In the Goutte d’Or, Mamoudou Camara’s principal aim wasn’t to shine a positive light on immigration and community spirit in his neighborhood, which is tucked behind the Gare du Nord — Europe’s busiest train station — and is among the city’s most impoverished, gritty and diverse areas. He was just thinking a tournament might help his friends survive the hot nights during Ramadan. He raised the idea on Snapchat, and by the end of that evening in summer 2019, six teams had registered. A day later, there were six more.Instead of holding the event in a far-off stadium, Camara and his friends decided to host it in their childhood nest, the mini court in the center of the urban park where they spent their summer nights and weekends, battling over a ball and rounds of Coca-Cola or Fanta. (The loser paid.)It offers a very different atmosphere than the marble statues and the manicured flower beds of the Tuileries and Luxembourg gardens. On game nights, the park, Square Léon, is buzzing with older men crowded around checker tables, little kids clambering up playground equipment and older women in West African dresses selling bags of homemade doughnuts and slushy ginger drinks that both tickle and soothe the throat.Just before the final match starts, a tambour player beats out rhythms.“In our neighborhood, we have all nationalities,” said Camara, 26. “We are proud to say we are multicultural.”Around 30 percent of the 21,000 residents in this neighborhood were immigrants or foreigners in 2019, according to France’s national statistics institute.Sixteen teams registered this year, the event’s fourth edition, to play 31 games over three weeks. On this June night, we are down to the finals. The Ivory Coast, a veteran team that won the inaugural tournament in 2019, is back in its orange and green jerseys, trying to reclaim the title. Challenging them is Mauritania — a team packed with young players, many of them semiprofessionals, wearing yellow and brown. The jerseys were created by a celebrated local designer who collaborates with Nike, and who has been invited to the presidential palace.The teams for Cameroon and Tunisia before their match. A local designer who has collaborated with Nike created the uniforms for the 2023 tournament.“For me, CAN is one of those moments when the neighborhood can revel in being a bit exceptional,” said Éric Lejoindre, the mayor of the 18th arrondissement.It is just one sign of how the tournament has matured. This year, the neighborhood city hall provides a small grandstand on one side of the court. Everywhere else, spectators stand, claiming their spots a good hour before the game begins.By the time the referee blows his whistle, we are standing eight rows thick.The court measures just 25 meters by 16.5 meters — about 82 feet by 54 feet — roughly one-seventeenth of FIFA’s recommended field size. It is framed by a low concrete wall, topped by a tall chain link fence.The confined area makes for an intense game of precision, tight tricks, bursts of speed and a blasting ball that echoes against the walls and crashes into the fence every few minutes.This is soccer by inches, with a team losing and gaining the ball within seconds.Camara and other organizers devised the rules: five players per team on the court; no offside; corner kicks are thrown in; any foul after the fifth within a half results in a penalty kick; and games last 30 minutes to an hour, depending on their importance.Two people livestream matches, and another camera is rolling for the referee to review plays.The first year, all players had to be locals, but the rules have since loosened, allowing players from elsewhere to participate. But those who grew up competing on the court quickly reveal themselves by using the side walls to their advantage, bouncing passes around defenders to their teammates and back to themselves.Martin Riedler, who three years ago formed the tournament’s French team, compared it to a boxing ring.The playing surface is much smaller than that of a full-size soccer field. “You have to be on your toes the whole time, which makes the experience so intense,” one player said.“You have to be on your toes the whole time, which makes the experience so intense,” said Riedler, who attended Santa Clara University in California on a soccer scholarship. He has packed his team with elite players who can hit the cross bar from the halfway line of a full field, but who also find the arena overwhelming. “You know you won’t sleep at night after a game.”Players slam each other to the turf, then pick one another up. They continually battle against the wall, so close that a spectator might graze them through the fence. They offer up-close renditions of spectacular maneuvers, flicking the ball over their opponents’ heads and spinning it around their feet. That is one of the beauties of a small court, the referee Bengaly Souré tells me. It’s a compression chamber of technical plays.“There’s no space, but they create space,” he said.When a player jumps and kicks the ball into the net midair, Souré turns to the fence and expresses his admiration.The crowd is part of the fun. Spectators shout their observations over the sounds of African beats, booming from loudspeakers. It is agreed that the player wearing No. 7 for Mauritania — who plays for a team in Italy — is a dangerous force. And though the Ivory Coast falls increasingly behind, the game could turn at any moment.The Guinea-Bissau team before a match.Some people claim their spots an hour before the match.“I’ve seen a team that’s losing 4-1 make a comeback,” said Makenzy Kapaya, a 37-year-old artist who grew up in the Goutte d’Or but later relocated to a less cramped apartment elsewhere. Like many in the crowd, he has returned to watch the games and to reunite with childhood friends.“If you have problems, people will help you here, no matter what your origins,” Kapaya said. The Goutte d’Or, a dense, working-class area, often makes news for unflattering reasons — drugs, prostitution, violence. The library closed for months three years ago because employees said they had been repeatedly threatened by dealers selling near its doors. Following the fatal police shooting of 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk this summer and the subsequent protests across the country, the local police station was attacked.Éric Lejoindre, the mayor of the 18th arrondissement, pointed out that local volunteers had been quietly helping with homework, cooking and housing for years. A group of therapists in the Goutte d’Or hold regular listening sessions, setting out chairs in an abandoned lot for passers-by to unload their burdens.For all its problems, the neighborhood has huge heart, Lejoindre said.“Locals know it, but sometimes we need it to emerge in a spectacular fashion,” he said. “For me, CAN is one of those moments when the neighborhood can revel in being a bit exceptional.”Mauritania went on a scoring outburst as night fell.After halftime, the Ivory Coast players rally, bringing the score to 9-7. But then Mauritania yanks the plug from their energy and dreams. As the sky dims into an inky night, and spectators hold up their phones as lanterns, Mauritania scores again. And again. And again. Boom, boom, boom. The players start to do little dances after each goal.When Souré blows his whistle for full time, a crowd surges onto the tiny court to embrace the young Mauritanian team in a squealing cyclone of joy.Camara, who will take a few weeks off before beginning preparations for next year’s event, said he was continually surprised by how much joy the little tournament had brought to the neighborhood. At a time when anti-immigration sentiments are growing and identity politics are flaring in France, he said he considered it a unifying event. “We thought we were just starting something for fun,” he said, “but we created something bigger.”Red and white fireworks burst above the little park in the heart of the Goutte d’Or. The celebration will continue for hours.Spectators applauded Mauritania’s victory against Ivory Coast.Juliette Guéron-Gabrielle More

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    New Zealand wants to build on ‘Fern Fever.’ Norway needs a comeback.

    New Zealand, the World Cup’s co-host, has a chance to take another big step forward on Tuesday. Days after it earned the first World Cup victory in the team’s history, New Zealand knows a win over the Philippines in Wellington would effectively assure that the Football Ferns, as the team is known, will reach the knockout rounds for the first time. In Tuesday’s other games, Colombia and South Korea will become the last of the 32 teams to take the field, and Norway — beaten by New Zealand in its opener — will try to right itself against Switzerland.Colombia vs. South KoreaColombia is coming off a strong performance in the Copa América Championship, where it beat Argentina in the semifinals and fell to Brazil in the final, 1-0. Those results suggest a readiness to contend on the world stage.But that competitiveness may have gone too far in a recent exhibition against Ireland: That match was called off after 20 minutes for what the Irish labeled “overly physical” play from the Colombians. Colombia rejected that characterization and defended its style; it said the Irish simply “preferred not to continue playing.”Colombia will face South Korea, the runner-up to China in the 2022 Asian Cup, on Tuesday in Sydney, Australia, (10 p.m. Monday Eastern time). The South Koreans have made it to the knockout stages once in three previous World Cup appearances, in 2015. Four years ago, the Koreans lost all three of their games.New Zealand vs. PhilippinesNew Zealand’s players shocked many people — including themselves — by upsetting Norway, 1-0, in the opening match of the World Cup. Now, the Ferns find themselves in new territory: in a favorable position for a path beyond the group stage, a checkpoint not reached in five previous trips to the tournament.The biggest obstacle to advancing, in fact, may be behind them. Norway entered the tournament 12th in FIFA rankings, whereas the Philippines is 46th. New Zealand is 26th, but now riding a wave of so-called Fern Fever, and looking forward to another night in front of a friendly crowd.The Philippines lost, 2-0, to Switzerland in its World Cup debut. Its team draws heavily from the United States — 18 players on the squad’s 23-women roster, in fact, were born in America — and makes no excuses about that. “I don’t really care where they’re born,” the team’s Australian coach, Alen Stajcic, said. “If they have Philippines in their heart and in their blood, and they’re good at football, then they’re eligible for our team. “They all play for their flag, they all play for their country, they all play for the people in the Philippines, wherever they reside.”Switzerland vs. NorwayNorway is looking to bounce back from its opening loss and probably needs a win against Switzerland, and then another against the Philippines, to ensure it goes through to the knockouts.The Norwegians are led by Ada Hegerberg, the 28-year-old striker — and former world player of the year — who sat out the 2019 World Cup in protest of her federation’s treatment of women’s soccer. Hegerberg, one of the best players in the game, was absent from the national team for five years before returning for the European Championship last summer. But she was surprisingly ineffective against New Zealand, and that won’t do against the Swiss.Switzerland dominated the Philippines in their opener, outshooting their opponents by 17-3. They are unlikely to have the same advantage over the Norwegians. Ramona Bachmann, who plays her club soccer for Paris St.-Germain, was the standout player in her team’s opening win. She will need a similar performance today to keep Switzerland moving forward. More

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    The president of Norway’s federation, a rare woman of influence in soccer, is speaking up.

    Lise Klaveness does not pull punches. It is not her style. To some, that is a problem. To Klaveness, a former national team player who is now the president of Norway’s soccer federation, it is just who she is. So she will needle FIFA about its ethical conflicts, about the treatment of migrant workers on World Cup projects, about the rights of women and gay people. She is happy, if needed, to say it straight to the (mostly male) officials at FIFA gatherings, demanding that they, as soccer’s leaders, hold the sport — and themselves — to a higher moral and ethical standard.“Politically it made me a bit more exposed, and maybe people want to tell me, ‘Who do you think you are?’ in different ways,” Klaveness, 42, said in an interview before the Women’s World Cup. Openly raising questions about human rights and good governance, she said, also “came with a price.”She also believes her positions reflect those of her federation, and her country. And she says she will not stop pressing them. “I’m very motivated,” she said, “and the day I’m not, I’ll quit. I have nothing to lose.” More

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    Kylian Mbappé Is Target of Record Offer From Saudi Arabia’s Al Hilal

    Al Hilal of the Saudi Professional League made a bid to Paris St.-Germain to acquire the French striker in what would be the most expensive soccer transfer in history.Saudi Arabia’s turbocharged attempt to turn its domestic soccer league into one of the sport’s most glamorous has already attracted Cristiano Ronaldo, one of the greatest stars of his generation, and Karim Benzema, the reigning world player of the year. Those deals, though, pale into comparison with its most ambitious target yet: Kylian Mbappé.Over the weekend, one of the Saudi Professional League’s more prominent teams, Al Hilal, submitted an offer worth $332 million for the France striker to his current team, Paris St.-Germain. Should the deal go through, it would make Mbappé the most expensive player in the sport’s history by some distance, dwarfing the $263 million P.S.G. paid for the Brazilian forward Neymar six years ago.The official bid was sent to P.S.G.’s chief executive, Nasser Al-Khelaifi, on Saturday. It was signed by Al Hilal’s chief executive, and it confirmed the price the club was prepared to pay and requested permission to discuss salary and the length of a contract with Mbappé. On Monday, it was reported by some news outlets that P.S.G. had granted that request.Al Hilal was expecting to hold initial talks with Fayza Lamari, Mbappé’s agent and mother, early this week, according to three people with knowledge of the offer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the details. It is likely that the club will have to commit hundreds of millions of dollars more in salary to persuade Mbappé, 24, who is regarded as the likely heir to Ronaldo and Lionel Messi as the finest player on the planet, to leave P.S.G. for a team in what was most recently ranked as soccer’s 58th strongest domestic league.Mbappé is already lavishly remunerated at P.S.G., his hometown club. Last summer, he was handed a contract worth $36 million a year, complete with a $120 million golden handshake.Even the amount of money that P.S.G.’s ultimate owner — Qatar Sports Investment, drawing on the wealth of the Qatari state — can afford to pay him, though, may not prove off-putting to his prospective employer: Al Hilal is now one of four Saudi teams majority owned by the Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.There is an element of opportunism in Al Hilal’s approach. Mbappé’s future has been the subject of intense speculation since the start of June, when the player informed P.S.G. that he intended to see out the final year of his current deal and walk away as a free agent in 2024.P.S.G. has insisted that it will not contemplate losing such a prized asset for nothing, informing Mbappé that he must sign a new contract — one that would extend his stay beyond 2024 — or face an uncertain future: either being sold or having to spend the season on the substitutes’ bench.The club has sought legal advice to gauge the strength of its position. Mbappé has maintained that he intends to spend the coming season in Paris, although he was omitted from the squad for the club’s preseason tour of Asia last week as a result of the standoff.Al Hilal headquarters in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.Ahmed Yosri/ReutersAl Hilal is not the only team hoping to take advantage of the growing schism between P.S.G. and one of soccer’s most talented players and most marketable names.P.S.G. has received several inquiries about Mbappé’s theoretical price tag. Chelsea, now owned by a consortium that includes Clearlake Capital Group, the private equity firm, has asked P.S.G. how much the player would cost. Barcelona, the Spanish champion, has discussed a deal in which more than one of its own prime assets would arrive in Paris in an exchange.Real Madrid, long assumed to be Mbappé’s preferred destination, has yet to show its hand. Some executives at P.S.G. believe a deal is already in place in which Mbappé would move to the Spanish capital next summer.It is that expectation that Al Hilal — most likely not the sort of place that Mbappé, at this stage of his career, would ordinarily have considered as his natural next step — hopes may provide it with an advantage.It has been reported that, despite all the money it is prepared to spend to secure his arrival, the Saudi club would allow Mbappé to leave for Spain after just a season in the Middle East. More

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    Norway’s Lise Klaveness Is Calling Out FIFA From the Inside

    Lise Klaveness was only a few weeks into her post as the president of Norway’s soccer federation last year when she decided to start saying the quiet parts out loud.Rising from her seat among the delegates at FIFA’s annual congress in Qatar, Klaveness strode purposefully to the raised dais where officials had, for the better part of an hour, offered little beyond perfunctory comments about the men’s World Cup that would be staged in the Gulf country later that year. There had been talk of procedural matters, and updates on the financial details.Klaveness, one of the few women in soccer leadership, had other themes on her mind. Addressing matters that for years had dogged FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, she spoke about ethical questions, about migrant workers, about the rights of women and gay people. She spoke of the responsibility of the (mostly male) officials in the room to ensure that soccer hold itself to a higher moral and ethical standard when it chose its leaders and the sites for its biggest competitions.By the time Klaveness had finished about five minutes later, she had, in typically direct style, issued a challenge to FIFA itself.But she had also made herself a target.Almost as soon as she had returned to her seat, an official from Honduras asked to speak. He bluntly told Klaveness that the FIFA Congress was “not the right forum or the right moment” to make such remarks. A few moments later, she was assailed by the head of Qatar’s World Cup organizing committee, who told her she should “educate yourself” before speaking out.“Ever since that speech in Doha so many people, and powerful people, want to tell me to calm down,” she said, describing how on several high profile meetings where she, and the Norwegian federation, have been obliquely and open criticized in a manner that she contends is a calculated effort to muzzle her.Lise Klaveness, the president of Norway’s soccer federation, walking through a crowd of men in March 2022 after addressing a FIFA congress in Qatar.Hassan Ammar/Associated PressFar from being cowed, Klaveness, who played on Norway’s national team before becoming a lawyer and a judge, has continued to speak, and continued to challenge soccer’s orthodoxy that sensitive matters should remain behind closed doors.“Politically it made me a bit more exposed, and maybe people want to tell me, ‘Who do you think you are?’ in different ways,” Klaveness, 42, said in an interview before the Women’s World Cup. Openly raising questions about human rights and good governance, she said, also “came with a price.”She also believes her positions reflect those of her federation, and her country. And she says she will not stop pressing them. “I’m very motivated,” she said, “and the day I’m not, I’ll quit. I have nothing to lose.”Klaveness’s style — so out of step with soccer’s conservative traditions — has been questioned even by some of her closest allies.“It’s maybe not the most strategic because it was very confronting,” Gijs de Jong, the secretary general of the Dutch soccer federation, said of Klaveness’s speech in Qatar. De Jong has worked closely with Klaveness over the past two years, and he said he shares many of the same frustrations over FIFA’s record on following through on its stated commitments, particularly when they concern human rights.But while he acknowledged soccer could afford to face a few hard questions, he suggested a more diplomatic approach was what produces results.“I learned in the last six, seven years that you have to stay connected,” he said. “And the risk of bringing such a confronting speech is that you lose connection with the rest of the world. And I think that’s the danger of this approach.”Klaveness said she has been told “not to exaggerate at least a thousand times” by other soccer leaders. They have encouraged her to speak in what she describes as an “indoor voice,” to be more diplomatic, to work differently. But she said that is difficult “when you have 100 years of proof of no change.”Klaveness, center left, played on Norway’s national team before becoming a lawyer and a judge.Feng Li/Getty Images“I think she is very, very popular in Norway because she never hides and she never lies and she speaks a language that everyone can understand,” said the coach of Norway’s men’s team, Stale Solbakken. “I think also that football needs voices that can dare to confront the men’s world that football is.”Earlier this year, Klaveness decided to challenge convention again by standing in elections for a place on the governing board of UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, against male candidates, instead of seeking election the one place reserved for women. She was soundly beaten, but afterward preferred to see the positives from the votes — 18, from Europe’s 55 member nations — she received.“I see it as one-third of the presidents of UEFA want change — 18 of them voted for this,” she said. There remains significant resistance from soccer’s top leaders to her priorities, she said, “but underneath them there are a lot of people reaching out.”Soccer remains infused by what Klaveness described as “a culture of fear,” a chilling effect that keeps officials, aware they could be ostracized and lose prestigious and often well-paid roles, from speaking out. For Klaveness, the conversation is still worth having.The plight of migrant workers in Qatar, for example, continues to be a concern. In March, FIFA promised to study whether it had any ongoing responsibilities in policing soccer projects if its statutes on human rights had been breached. European officials enlisted Klaveness and De Jong to join a FIFA committee on the matter, but now months have passed without any confirmation about how the committee will operate, Klaveness said. Letters and messages for updates, she said, are met with a now familiar response: “Let me get back to you.”Klaveness rejected the idea that any of the stands she has taken make her an activist, as some claim, or detract from her role as a soccer leader, something that will undoubtedly attract increased scrutiny should Norway’s national teams continue to struggle on the field.Migrant workers and other spectators watching a men’s World Cup match at a cricket stadium on the outskirts of Doha, Qatar, in November.Mads Claus Rasmussen/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNorway’s men’s team, blessed by a talented generation that includes Erling Haaland and Martin Odegaard, could not take part in protests at the Qatar World Cup because it failed to qualify. The women’s team, which features the former world player of the year Ada Hegerberg, was humbled, 8-0, by England at last year’s European Championship,and opened the World Cup last week with a loss to New Zealand, which had never won a game in the tournament.Rather than distract her, Klaveness said the issues and platforms she an Norway’s federation and teams have championed are directly related to the game, particularly when it comes to questions about inclusivity.She said she is trying to set an example, to show other soccer leaders that they can be more than what the world has come to expect of them, more than the sea of men in suits that usually fills the hotel lounges and conference halls whenever FIFA comes to town.She has traveled to New Zealand with her wife, and three young children all under 10, and has told other officials in the Norwegian contingent that they can bring their families with them, too.“It’s a big issue for me and us at Norway federation,” she said, explaining how the travel commitments inherent in soccer’s leadership roles have made it hard to recruit women, and made it “easy for people to say women don’t want the job.”Klaveness, whose term as federation president expires in March 2026, knows her time is limited. She is not prepared to hang onto the role for the sake of staying in soccer, she said. But while she is there, she will continue to speak up. And that continued this week.Her current focus is the prize money at the Women’s World Cup. Before the tournament, FIFA announced that participating players would be guaranteed 30 percent of the $110 million prize money on offer, and a minimum of $30,000 per player. Some national federations, including England’s, appear to be using FIFA’s offer as cover to withhold supplemental bonus payments. And last week FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, declined to guarantee the money would eventually get to the players. Per FIFA rules, he said, the money will be paid to the federations, suggesting the proposed bonuses were a recommendation and not a guarantee.“He could and should be clear that it’s an obligatory payment,” Klaveness said. “Why would you ever say it’s not that straightforward?” More

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    Jamaica gets an unexpected draw with France.

    Despite a successful run in international play over the past few years, France has been in turmoil behind the scenes. In March, the French federation fired its longtime coach, Corinne Diacre, after players complained of an unhealthy environment on the team.Hervé Renard, a well-traveled coach but one who had never led a women’s team, has worked to steady the ship.But Jamaica, a team playing in its second World Cup, stifled that run on Sunday, earning its first ever point in the standings with an unlikely draw against France, 0-0. Jamaica had to use crowdfunding websites to raise money for the team’s trip to Australia and New Zealand, and lost all three of its games in the group stage in 2019. More