Raphael Stevens

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    The Premier League Is Back, With Quite an Act to Follow

    The Premier League will play on Boxing Day because the Premier League always plays on Boxing Day. But the title race changed over the World Cup break.The Premier League was absolutely, resolutely clear. This was not a bluff. It was not a card to play or a chip to barter or a point to haggle. It was not, and this cannot be stressed enough, on the table. Whatever FIFA did with the World Cup, however the rest of Europe’s major leagues contorted themselves to make way for it, the Premier League would be playing matches on Boxing Day.That stance must, deep down, have seemed just a little absurd to the rest of the executives present at that summit in Doha in 2015, when the most powerful clubs and leagues in global soccer were informed that the World Cup was being shifted to the winter, like it or lump it. None of the leagues were happy, of course.But only the Premier League — the richest domestic competition in the world, the one that earns more from its domestic broadcast deals than FIFA turns over in a whole World Cup cycle — seemed so aghast at the very notion of its cherished traditions being imperiled that it drew a red line. The tournament had to be finished, it declared, in time for the fixtures that would be scheduled for the day after Christmas could go ahead.There were reasons for that stance beyond habit, obviously. What is described so often in England as the “busy festive period” that it really should be trademarked is a key pillar of those television rights sales from which all of the Premier League’s wealth and power flow: All those potential viewers sitting at home, their heads maybe just a little sore and their stomachs just a little full, gift vouchers from uncles they do not like burning holes in their pockets. Like most traditions, Boxing Day soccer is really about selling you stuff.And, of course, the Premier League is powerful enough to have received its wish. The World Cup, distilled into only 29 days, finished on Sunday. Most of Europe’s other major leagues have given their players a little more of a hiatus, a little more chance to rest and recover. Italy’s Serie A does not resume until the start of January, Germany at the end. Spain and France both have games scheduled this month, but the burden on teams, and on players, is much lighter.The Premier League, though, will play on Boxing Day because the Premier League always plays on Boxing Day. No, it must play on Boxing Day. It would not be Christmas without it.Raphael Varane, Hugo Lloris and Ibrahima Konaté will have a shorter break than most players: Their club seasons will resume only days after they played in the World Cup final.Julian Finney/Getty ImagesAt which point, the word hubris lingering ever so slightly at the back of the mind, all we can do is wish everyone involved the best of luck. Did you enjoy the greatest World Cup final in history? The one with what may well have been the best goal ever scored in a final — that sweeping, wondrous move capped by Ángel Di María — and the hat trick from Kylian Mbappé and Argentina winning it once, twice, three times and Lionel Messi, the finest player to have ever graced the game, at last fulfilling his dream and his destiny, as the world watched on with eyes wide?Well, next up we have Crystal Palace against Fulham. And it’s live.Before the World Cup, it was easy to wonder what physical impact the presence of the tournament in the middle of the season might have on Europe’s major leagues. (Which is why this newsletter did it, by my count, three times.) Would players return from Qatar exhausted or injured? Would there be a significant advantage for those teams who had fewer representatives at the World Cup? Would the second half of the season just be Erling Haaland, revived by a month of boredom, mowing down weary, disinterested defenses?At first glance, it would appear that the Premier League has no need to worry. England made the quarterfinals, of course, and those players who formed the core of Gareth Southgate’s team most likely will need a little time to rest and recover before being thrown back into the fray by their clubs. But there were surprisingly few Premier League stars who made it into the tournament’s final week.Nobody should be expecting to see Emiliano Martínez, Cristían Romero, Alexis Mac Allister or Julián Álvarez any time soon, since all were key members of Messi’s supporting cast. Only two players who started the final for France are currently employed in England — Raphael Varane and Hugo Lloris — and only one more came on as a substitute, the Liverpool defender Ibrahima Konaté.Likewise, while Chelsea’s Hakim Ziyech was a central figure for Morocco, it is fair to say Morocco’s Hakim Ziyech is not a central figure for Chelsea. Mateo Kovacic, his Croatian teammate at Stamford Bridge, is more of a loss, but a tolerable one.That is not to say that there is not an impactful injury legacy of the World Cup. Indeed, there is every chance that it was in Qatar that the fate of the Premier League title was decided: The medial ligament injury sustained by Arsenal forward Gabriel Jesus was precisely the sort of blow that England’s unlikely leader could not afford, particularly with Manchester City breathing down its neck.A knee injury sustained at the World Cup is expected to keep Gabriel Jesus out of Arsenal’s lineup for months.Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA, via ShutterstockIt will take time for the significance of that injury to become apparent. When Boxing Day rolls around, the Premier League may look as if it is at not far off full strength. That, though, was never likely to be the problem. There will be a physical impact on those players who were in Qatar, but it will not manifest until spring, once the miles in the legs have piled up. Even then, it will not take the form of mass absences, but greater vulnerability to minor aches and strains. Those looming concerns may not have much effect on the destiny of most of Europe’s domestic championships, but in the knockout rounds of the Champions League, where an ill-timed two-week absence can prove the difference between glory and disappointment, it may yet be decisive.The more immediate problem, though, is psychological. It is not just the Premier League’s wealth — and the quality of player and coach that can attract — which has made it soccer’s dominant domestic competition. Nor is it just the aesthetic appeal of its stadiums, or the fame and grandeur of its biggest names, or even the fact that it is all conducted in English. Part of its success is down to its ability to project just how much every single moment matters.Eight days after a World Cup, that is probably best described as a tricky sell. No other tournament, not even the Champions League, can offer quite the drama, quite the tension of the final rounds of the World Cup. Its secret is its scarcity; every game carries the sense that it is now or never, do or die, once in a lifetime. It is a competition of a different order, a blockbuster in a world of soaps, and one that offers something that most leagues are now far too stratified, far too hierarchical to provide on a regular basis. Every World Cup game has an air not just of jeopardy, but of balance, too. The gap between the strong and the (allegedly) weak is not quite such a chasm has it has been allowed to become in domestic soccer. The World Cup offers regular viewers a dash of something they do not get — but may secretly want — from their more ordinary diet.That is not to say, of course, that the Premier League, and the rest of Europe’s major competitions, will trudge reluctantly to a conclusion. The stadiums will be full on Boxing Day, because that is what lots of people do on Boxing Day. There are still plentiful stories to transfix fans around Europe: Arsenal and Napoli, genuine outsiders, competing for championships; the ongoing crisis at Barcelona; Liverpool and Manchester United trying to attract new investment, in the wake of the rise of Newcastle United; Chelsea’s attempts to buy every player in existence. In February, the Champions League will be back, too, which means we all have at least three remarkable Real Madrid comebacks to admire.To ask fans to pick up with those plot lines so soon, though, feels just a little like a misstep. It invites a contrast that, unusually, is not especially flattering for the Premier League, in particular, and risks casting the flaws in European domestic soccer in a rather sharper light than it might like. It will be eight days since what may well come to be regarded as the best soccer game of all time. It is asking a lot of Everton and Wolves to match that standard. Just because you always play on Boxing Day does not, in fact, mean you should.Up Next: A BreakAfter a World Cup that can, I think, be fairly described as intense, I’m going to allow myself a one-week break from the newsletter over the holiday period. Think of it as The Times taking the Serie A approach to life, and coming back, fully refreshed, in early January. We already have a month’s worth of correspondence that has gone unattended, but if you have any questions, or thoughts, or observations that you would like to throw into the mix, they’d be more than welcome: Send them along to askrory@nytimes.com.And if you don’t have any thoughts and would prefer to relax over the next few days, that’s fine, too. I will be endeavoring to have as few thoughts as possible. I hope that those of you who celebrate enjoy the time with family, or friends, or people you know from Twitter, and I hope that those of you who do not choose to celebrate have a wonderful time, too.All the best,Rory More

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    81 Minutes in, Two Big Goals and One Big Rewrite

    The Times’s chief soccer correspondent hoped for a “boring” World Cup final. He didn’t get one.DOHA, Qatar — Everything was going swimmingly, right up to the point that my editor — sitting to my left in the cavernous bowl of Lusail Stadium, a soccer arena so vast that the sound from the stand opposite ours seemed to arrive on a satellite delay — turned to me and threw seven casual, careless words out into the universe. “We kind of need France to score.”It’s hard to overstate the scale of a World Cup final. Every one is four years in the making. Every one sends millions of people to the streets in celebration, and millions more back to their homes in sorrow and regret. It is one of the most-watched events on the planet. It is, by some distance, the biggest occasion sport has to offer.So, as a journalist enjoying the honor of covering the 2022 World Cup final in Qatar, at least part of you hopes that it is intensely boring. Not devoid of action. Not the angst-ridden anticlimax that happens more often than not, in which both teams retreat into their shells, the pain of losing far more concerning than the euphoria of winning.No, the perfect World Cup final — as the person who has to have several hundred cogent words, spelled correctly, bound by what might pass as some sort of thematic thread, ready to publish as soon as the final whistle blows — is one in which one team has the game all but won with a quarter of an hour to spare.Which is, as it happens, exactly what we had on Sunday. It was at roughly that point when my editor, Andy Das, decided that what Argentina and France had offered so far wasn’t quite entertaining enough for him. He wanted, apparently, a little drama.There is just one aspect of being a sportswriter that seems to make my wife, children and relatives accept my entreaties that it is a proper job, rather than, and this is a direct quote from my wife, “talking to your friends all day” — the part in which you have to compress everything that happens in a game, all of the content and the context and the consequences, into about a thousand words.Oh, and you have to do it late at night. And within a few minutes, or at most an hour, of the game ending.The truth is, though, that most of the time there is nothing nerve-racking about writing live. I spent a rather pleasant portion of this spring in Madrid, watching Real Madrid stage a series of ridiculous comebacks on its way to the Champions League title. Each one was just a little more absurd than the last. One night, Real Madrid scored in the 90th and the 91st minutes, going from what would have been elimination to the most remarkable success, all in the blink of an eye.No problem: The more cinematic a game feels, the less thinking there is to do as a journalist. That’s part of the glory of sport. There are plenty of times when the story tells itself; we’re just there to transcribe it.World Cup finals are different. You never know how many you will have the chance to cover. And there was only ever going to be one chance to write about this World Cup final, Lionel Messi’s last shot at the ultimate prize, his opportunity to do what Diego Maradona did in 1986 and deliver the World Cup to Argentina.That is one you want to get right, and it is much easier to get right if you have at least a little time to think.Messi had done all he could: Argentina had established a two-goal lead at halftime and looked impressively serene for much of the second half. France seemed resigned to its fate. The shapes were starting to fall into place in my head: a portrait of Messi in those final few minutes, a man whose dream is about to come true. That could work.And then, well, Andy’s hope came to pass: Kylian Mbappé exploded Argentina’s advantage in two minutes. France might have won it inside 90 minutes; Argentina seemed to have won it in extra time. Then Mbappé intervened again. Both teams had glorious, glaring chances to claim the trophy in the last few seconds before the penalty shootout. But of course, only one did: Argentina.It feels like hyperbole — and maybe it is — but the final 40 minutes of the 2022 World Cup final, between Mbappé’s first goal and Gonzalo Montiel’s game-winning penalty shot, might be not only the greatest final in history but the best 40 minutes of soccer, too, the pinnacle of a sport that has become a cultural phenomenon.The write-up would have been easier had the game ended at 2-0, as it looked like it would for so long. Less stressful for me, less mind-blowing. It would not, though, have been nearly so much fun. More

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    Shakhtar Donetsk Claims FIFA Rule Is Hurting Teams From Ukraine

    A hearing will be held over a rule that allows overseas players to suspend their contracts with Ukrainian teams during the Russian invasion.LONDON — Fresh from the conclusion of the men’s World Cup, soccer’s governing body FIFA faces a legal challenge of its rule that allowed players to immediately leave Ukrainian club teams because of Russia’s invasion.On Thursday, sport’s top court will begin hearing a more than $40 million claim for damages brought against FIFA by a top Ukrainian soccer team.The hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland, centers on a temporary rule by FIFA that allowed overseas players on Ukrainian teams to suspend their contracts and sign for teams elsewhere. The Ukrainian league stopped play for about six months, then restarted in August.Shakhtar Donetsk, the club that is bringing the claim, has lost several of its top players without receiving a transfer fee under a regulation first implemented in March. The system is slated to run at least until June next year.Under FIFA’s emergency statute change, the suspension is only temporary, meaning that many players will eventually have to return to their host teams in Ukraine as their contracts continue to run. But with little sign of the war ending, many of those players may be out of contract by the time FIFA lifts the temporary order, which would enable them to leave as free agents.The State of the WarA Botched Invasion: Secret battle plans, intercepts and interviews with soldiers and Kremlin confidants offer new insight into the stunning failures of Russia’s military in Ukraine.A New Russian Offensive? A top adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine is bracing for the possibility that Russia will sharply escalate the war in a winter offensive that could include mass infantry attacks.Putin in Belarus: President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia made a rare visit to Belarus, raising concerns in Ukraine that Russian forces could aim again at Kyiv, which is near the Belarusian border.The War in the Skies: As Ukrainian officials warn of a new Russian ground offensive, waves of Russian missiles continue to batter Ukraine’s infrastructure. The attacks are leaving a trail of destruction and grief.“We want fairness and justice,” Sergei Palkin, Shakhtar’s chief executive, told The New York Times. “On one side FIFA protects players but it should also protect clubs.”FIFA did not respond to a message seeking comment.Shakhtar has seen millions of dollars’ worth of talent leave for nothing since the invasion started, losing a crucial source of revenue it requires to balance its books. Last summer, it could only watch as top players moved without fees to teams in England’s Premier League, historically a lucrative market for Shakhtar, and also to France’s top division.“Two days before FIFA made the announcement, we almost had a contract on the table: we were to sign the next day,” Palkin said of one high value sale that was scuttled. The club pulled out from the talks, he added, learning it could instead register the same player for free.To make matters worse, no special provisions have been put in place for Ukrainian teams whose finances have been crushed by the ongoing war. The league was initially suspended before restarting without fans, even as the war continues. Several matches have been suspended by air raid sirens, with players and officials forced to take cover in shelters.Shakhtar and the other Ukrainian teams are still required to pay money owed to teams outside the country, including for players that have been allowed to suspend their contracts.Palkin described an example of one situation in which the team agreed to sign a player from an Italian team just before the Russian invasion. The player never set foot in Ukraine and was allowed to move elsewhere, leaving Shakthar on the hook for about $9 million. It asked his former team to scrap the deal and to sell him elsewhere, but those talks floundered. Shakhtar has balked at the payment, Palkin said, and the club, which he declined to name, is asking FIFA to punish Shakhtar.Palkin said efforts to come to an arrangement with FIFA have largely been met with silence. Multiple Ukrainian teams have asked the governing body to suspend their obligations to other clubs until normal operations can be established. He also suggested FIFA, which announced it had made $7.5 billion from the World Cup in Qatar, could also establish “a reparation fund” for Ukrainian teams.Shakhtar, which is owned by the billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, has the highest payroll among Ukrainian teams. But it is also benefiting from playing in the Champions League, Europe’s top club competition. Its home games are played across the border in Poland and have provided a lucrative — and much needed — financial boost, as well as providing a platform for its domestically reared talent, which, unlike foreign players, are not able to suspend their contracts.That has allowed Palkin to try and negotiate player sales ahead of the opening of the midseason European player trading window next month. He attended meetings in London recently with English clubs interested in signing forward Mykhailo Mudryk, 21, who is considered to be one of European soccer’s biggest emerging talents.Palkin said he is conscious of teams looking to take advantage of his team’s situation and is unwilling to be forced to sell for a below-market price despite the ongoing hardship. That means Mudryk could remain with Shakhtar until next summer’s off-season, a time when the biggest trades are typically made. “It’s quite a long negotiation process,” he said.The Ukrainian league is currently on break for the winter and is scheduled to restart in March. By then, there should be a resolution in Shakhtar’s case against FIFA.“We want to sit together with all the stakeholders and work out a plan,” Palkin said. “And we want fairness and justice.” More

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    World Cup Homecoming Brings Argentina to a Halt

    As Argentina’s national soccer team touched down in Buenos Aires on Tuesday after winning the World Cup, millions of Argentines flocked to greet the players. The government declared their homecoming a national holiday, and the team began a 50-mile victory parade through the capital.The team toured the city on an open-top bus flanked by security guards, and players were seen beating drums and sipping viajeros, a local drink that combines Coca-Cola with Fernet, an Italian spirit, downed from a cutoff plastic bottle. So many people turned out to welcome the team around the Obelisco, a downtown monument, that the caravan had to change course at the last minute because of security concerns.The celebrations have been constant since Argentina won its third World Cup title on Sunday. The night of the victory, more than a million people streamed into Avenida 9 de Julio, in the heart of the capital, chanting songs, blaring car horns and setting off fireworks.Here are scenes from what may be the biggest open-air party in Buenos Aires’s history.— Ana LankesBy The Associated PressMillions of people celebrated in Buenos Aires after Argentina’s national team delivered the country’s third World Cup victory.Natacha Pisarenko/Associated PressLeandro Paredes held the World Cup trophy aloft as he and his teammates sang with supporters along the parade route.Marcelo Endelli/Getty ImagesThe Obelisk at the center of Buenos Aires, which commemorates the founding of the city, was so full of supporters that it forced a last-minute change in the parade route.Emiliano Lasalvia/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFans around the Obelisk climbed onto everything that could hold them, including street lamps and the awnings above bus stations.Natacha Pisarenko/Associated PressSeated on the back of the bus, Lionel Messi and his teammates started the journey from the Ezeiza training center to downtown Buenos Aires shortly before noon on Tuesday.Cristina Sille/ReutersAccompanied by trumpets, drums or sometimes nothing at all, Argentina supporters have been singing seemingly since the start of the final match on Sunday.Matilde Campodonico/Associated PressImages of Messi alongside the legendary Argentine soccer player Diego Maradona were unfurled throughout the capital.Marcelo Endelli/Getty ImagesTrophy in hand, Messi led his team off the plane at Ezeiza International Airport, where they were greeted by a massive crowd of supporters.Tomas Cuesta/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe team’s bus drove from the airport to the Argentina Football Association training center in Ezeiza, in the Buenos Aires province.Rodrigo Valle/Getty ImagesFans young and old sang in the streets before, during and after seeing the players’ bus drive by.Argentina’s national team paraded through the capital in a bus as fans cheered and welcomed them home.By The Associated PressArgentina’s national team paraded through the capital in a bus as fans cheered and welcomed them home.Marcelo Endelli/Getty ImagesLionel Messi, Rodrigo de Paul, Leandro Paredes, Lautaro Martínez and Julián Álvarez were among the players seen singing from the open-top bus that transported them to the training center.Mariana Nedelcu/ReutersFans and players have adopted a song with lyrics modified by a fan, “Muchachos, Ahora Nos Volvimos a Ilusionar,” as the unofficial anthem of their World Cup run.Tomas Cuesta/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFans cheered from the base to the peak of Buenos Aires’s iconic Obelisk.Luis Robayo/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe team’s official parade began in earnest on Tuesday with players again touring a 50-mile route through the city in buses. More

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    How Argentina Celebrated the 2022 World Cup Win

    Argentina erupted in celebration after the country’s World Cup victory over France.Anita Pouchard Serra for The New York TimesBUENOS AIRES — After 36 years, the parade couldn’t wait.Half a world away, Argentina’s beloved men’s national team hoisted its third World Cup trophy. And the nation began to march.In a sort of euphoric procession that played out across the country, millions of Argentines paraded to central squares and monuments in cities and towns, large and small. In Rosario, the hometown of their World Cup hero, Lionel Messi, they marched to the Flag Monument. And here in the capital, Buenos Aires, fans streamed down broad avenues that all pointed to the city’s effective center — a large plaza centered around a 235-foot-tall monument known simply as the Obelisk.“It is our pilgrimage,” said Elsa Diaz, 70, a handywoman draped in an Argentine flag, making the same walk she made in 1978 when Argentina won its first World Cup, but this time with her 32-year-old daughter. “We are all going to the Obelisk. It is our monument, and the center of Argentina.”In a country where soccer is religion, this was among the holiest of Sundays. And so when Gonzalo Montiel’s penalty kick hit the back of the net — vanquishing France, ending a World Cup final for the ages and bringing the championship back to this soccer-obsessed country for the first time since 1986 — Argentina was plunged into a sort of rapture.Strangers hugged. Friends kissed. Grown men wept. And everyone shrieked. “Argentina, mi amor!” one man yelled during extra time, tears streaming down his face. “Argentina, my love!”“Emotion, joy — and a release,” said Federico Polo, 19, right after the victory.Argentines celebrated the country’s first World Cup title in 36 years.Anita Pouchard Serra for The New York TimesThousands had gathered in Centenario Park in western Buenos Aires to watch the game on a large screen set up by the city. After the match, everyone had the same idea: Head to the Obelisk.But the roads were jammed, the metro was shut down and the city buses were parked. So they walked.“The entirety of Argentina is on this avenue right now,” said Sergio Gutierrez, 46, a drugstore worker banging a drum, who walked with his wife and three children down Corrientes Avenue, a famed thoroughfare closely associated with the tango for the many theaters and dance halls that line the way. “We will walk until we can’t get any farther.”The walk from the park would take 70 minutes, according to Google Maps, but the avenue was jammed, the pace was slow, and there were plenty of distractions along the way.Every woman who looked to be of grandmother age was serenaded with a chant that has become a rallying cry of this year’s World Cup in Argentina: “Abuela, la, la, la, la, la.” The chant, of the Spanish word for grandmother, began in Buenos Aires after one of Argentina’s victories, when a group of young men sang it to a dancing older woman who wore a medical mask and wrapped herself in a flag.“She still doesn’t know why everyone is singing to her but she loves it,” said Silvia Belvedere of her 89-year-old mother, Nelida Peralta, who was standing on the sidewalk along the procession, gripping a cane and waving two small Argentina flags. As the procession passed, each group that noticed her stopped to serenade her and take photos.“I’m so happy,” Ms. Peralta said. “I can’t go there, so I’m staying here waving the flag.”Farther down the avenue, a group of Bangladeshi immigrants were greeted warmly by the marching fans. Bangladesh’s love for Argentina’s national soccer team has become a major storyline here, and so Argentines parading down the route stopped for photos and high fives. One of the men from Bangladesh, who said he had lived in Buenos Aires for 24 years, said he had never felt more connected to his adopted home.Along the route, Argentines expressed their joy with whatever was at hand. Cars stuck at intersections watching the procession beeped incessantly; one man banged a pan with a spoon. And over and over again, the crowd sang this year’s anthem of the Argentina national team, “Muchachos, Ahora Nos Volvimos A Ilusionar” — or “Guys, Now We’re Getting Excited Again.”The song has become a sort of celebratory hymn in Argentina over the past several weeks, and it speaks of Argentina’s late soccer star, Diego Maradona, a sort of deity in this country, looking down from the sky to help Messi and his teammates bring Argentina another World Cup. After the song’s prediction came to fruition on Sunday, it was the soundtrack of the march.Vast crowds surround the Obelisk in the center of Buenos Aires on Sunday.Anita Pouchard Serra for The New York TimesAs the Obelisk came into view, the crowd thickened. A city bus that had been abandoned in the middle of the street had more than a dozen revelers dancing atop it. Elsewhere, men hung from light poles, and people climbed to the roof of a restaurant via a ladder that created a sort of bridge between the restaurant and the top of a newsstand.Some people had already been to the Obelisk and were heading the other way, their pilgrimage complete. A man with his face and chest painted blue and white looked drained. “My throat hurts from screaming,” said Pedro Humberto Aguilar, 51, behind blue-tinted shades.The procession ended at Republic Plaza, a sea of celebration in every direction. Every avenue leading to the plaza was clogged with revelers. From above, the plaza was an expanse of humanity, hundreds of thousands of people, interspersed with waving flags and occasional fireworks.Through the rapturous cacophony, the anthem could be made out here and there.Over and over again, revelers belted out the lyrics, which try to convey Argentina’s intense love for its soccer team.“I can’t explain it to you,” they sang, “because you won’t understand.”Macarena Funes and Valeria Dorrego contributed reporting. More

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    Qatar Got the World Cup It Wanted

    DOHA, Qatar — In the end, Qatar got what it wanted.The tiny desert state, a thumb-shaped peninsula, craved nothing more than to be better known, to be a player on the world stage, when in 2009 it launched what seemed like an improbable bid to stage the men’s soccer World Cup, the most popular sporting event on earth. Hosting the tournament has cost more than anyone could have imagined — in treasure, in time, in lives.But on Sunday night, as the fireworks filled the sky above Lusail, as the Argentina fans sang and their star, Lionel Messi, beamed while clasping a trophy he had waited a lifetime to touch, everyone knew Qatar.The spectacular denouement — a dream final pitting Argentina against France; a first World Cup title for Messi, the world’s best player; a pulsating match settled after six goals and a penalty shootout — made sure of that. And as if to make sure, to put the nation’s final imprint on the first World Cup in the Middle East, Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, stopped a beaming Messi as he made his way to collect the biggest trophy in the sport and pulled him back. There was one more thing that needed to be done.He pulled out a golden fringed bisht, the black cloak worn in the Gulf for special occasions, and wrapped it around Messi’s shoulders before handing over the 18-karat gold trophy.The celebration ended a tumultuous decade for a tournament awarded in a bribery scandal; stained by claims of human rights abuses and the deaths and injuries suffered by the migrant workers hired to build Qatar’s $200 billion World Cup; and shadowed by controversial decisions on everything from alcohol to armbands.Fireworks went off at Lusail Stadium after Argentina was presented the World Cup trophy after its win.Robert Cianflone/Getty ImagesYet for one month Qatar has been the center of the world, pulling off a feat none of its neighbors in the Arab world had managed to achieve, one that at times had seemed unthinkable in the years since Sepp Blatter, the former FIFA president, made the stunning announcement inside a Zurich conference hall on Dec. 2, 2010, that Qatar would host the 2022 World Cup.It is improbable the sport will see such an unlikely host again soon. Qatar was perhaps among the most ill-suited hosts for a tournament of the scale of the World Cup, a country so lacking in stadiums and infrastructure and history that its bid was labeled “high risk” by FIFA’s own evaluators. But it took advantage of the one commodity it had in plentiful supply: money.Backed by seemingly bottomless financial resources to fuel its ambitions, Qatar embarked on a project that required nothing less than the building, or rebuilding, of its entire country in service to a monthlong soccer tournament. Those billions were spent within its borders — seven new stadiums were constructed and other major infrastructure projects were completed at enormous financial and human cost. But when that was not enough, it spent lavishly outside its boundaries, too, acquiring sports teams and sports rights worth billions of dollars, and hiring sports stars and celebrities to support its cause.And all that was on display Sunday. By the time the final game was played in the $1 billion Lusail Stadium, Qatar could not lose. The game was being shown across the Middle East on beIN Sports, a sports broadcasting behemoth set up in the aftermath of Qatar’s winning the World Cup hosting rights. It also could lay claim to the two best players on the field, Argentina’s Messi and the French star Kylian Mbappé, both of whom are under contract to the Qatar-owned French club Paris St.-Germain.Mbappé, who had scored the first hat trick in a final in over a half-century, finished the game sitting on the grass, consoled by President Emmanuel Macron of France, an invited guest of the emir, as Argentina’s players danced in celebration all around him.Despite scoring a hat trick in the final game, Kylian Mbappé of France finished the tournament dejected on his team’s bench.Carl Recine/ReutersThe competition delivered compelling — and sometimes troubling — story lines from the outset, with the intensely political opening at Al Bayt Stadium, an enormous venue designed to look like a Bedouin tent. That night, Qatar’s emir had sat side by side with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, less than three years after the latter had led a punishing blockade of Qatar.For a month, deals were discussed and alliances were made. Qatar’s team was not a factor in its World Cup debut; it lost all three of its games, exiting the competition with the worst performance of any host in the competition’s history.There would also be other challenges, some of Qatar’s own making, like a sudden prohibition on the sale of alcohol within the stadium perimeters only two days before that first game — a last-minute decision that left Budweiser, a longtime sponsor of soccer’s world governing body, FIFA, to fume on the sideline.On the tournament’s second day, FIFA crushed a campaign by a group of European teams to wear an armband to promote inclusivity, part of efforts promised to campaign groups and critics in their home countries, and then Qatar quashed efforts by Iranian fans to highlight ongoing protests in their country.But on the field, the competition delivered. There were great goals and great games, stunning upsets and an abundance of surprising score lines that created new heroes, most notably in the Arab world.First came Saudi Arabia, which can now lay claim to having beaten the World Cup champion in the group stage. Morocco, which had only once reached the knockout stage, became the first African team to advance to the semifinals, pulling off a succession of barely believable victories over European soccer heavyweights: Belgium, Spain and then Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal.Those results sparked celebration across the Arab world and in a handful of major European capitals, while also providing a platform for fans in Qatar to promote the Palestinian cause, the one intrusion of politics that Qatari officials did nothing to discourage.Morocco became the first African team to reach the semifinals of the World Cup in the tournament’s history.Kirill Kudryavtsev/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn the stands, the backdrop was a curious one, with several games appearing short of supporters and then mysteriously filling up in the minutes after kickoff, when gates were opened to grant spectators — many of them the South Asian migrants — entry free of charge. The true number of paying spectators is unlikely to ever be known, their empty seats filled by thousands of the same laborers and migrants who had built the stadium and the country, and who kept it running during the World Cup.That group, largely drawn from countries like India, Bangladesh and Nepal, was the most visible face of Qatar to the estimated one million visitors who traveled to the tournament. They worked as volunteers at stadiums, served the food and manned the metro stations, buffed the marble floors and shined the hand rails and door knobs at the scores of newly built hotels and apartment complexes.By the end of the tournament, most of those fans had gone, leaving the Argentines — an estimated temporary population of 40,000 — to provide the sonic backdrop to the final game. Dressed in sky blue and white stripes, they converged on the Lusail Stadium, creating the type of authentic World Cup atmosphere — bouncing and singing throughout 120 minutes of play, and then long afterward — that no amount of Qatari wealth could buy.They had gotten exactly what they wanted from the World Cup. And so did Qatar.Lionel Messi was hoisted on his teammates’ shoulders after Argentina’s victory.Matthias Hangst/Getty Images More

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    Todos los goles de la final de la Copa del Mundo

    Argentina y Francia anotaron, respectivamente, dos goles en el tiempo regular, después ambos anotaron un gol en la prórroga, y al final Argentina ganó en la tanda de penales, 4-2.En el final más emocionante de la final más emocionante en la historia de la Copa del Mundo, Argentina venció a Francia, y Lionel Messi y Kylian Mbappé cumplieron una y otra y otra y otra y otra y otra vez, y otra vez.Ya sea que te hayas perdido la conclusión absurda de un torneo absurdamente deleitante o solo quieras revivirla, aquí están los momentos más importantes. (Y asegúrate de leer nuestro resumen del juego).Primer tiempo21’: Penal para Argentina. Ousmane Dembélé embatió a Ángel Di María🚨 ¡PENAAAAAAAL PARA ARGENTINAAAAAA! 😱 Falta sobre Dembélé dentro del área sobre Ángel Di María… Para ti, ¿Es o no es?#ARG 0-0 #FRA#MundialTelemundo #ElMundialLoEsTodo #Qatar2022 #ARGvsFRA pic.twitter.com/vztsBjVOCz— Telemundo Deportes (@TelemundoSports) December 18, 2022
    ¿Puede ser?23’: ¡Gol! Lionel Messi anota. Argentina 1, Francia 0Sí es. ¡Sí es!36’: ¡Gol! Di María anota. Argentina 2, Francia 0Santo cielo.Pero…Segundo tiempo79’: Penal para Francia. Randal Kolo Muani consigue que Nicolás Otamendi le haga penalLa cosa se pone interesante.Y entonces …80’: Gol! Kylian Mbappé anota. Argentina 2, Francia 1Y luego…81’: Gol! Mbappé vuelve a anotar menos de dos minutos después. Argentina 2, Francia 2Queremos más.Tiempos extras108’: ¡Gol! Messi anota su segundo gol. Argentina 3, Francia 2¡Perros y gatos viven en paz!¡A menos que…!116’: Penal para Francia. El balón le da en el codo a Gonzalo Montiel en el área118’: ¡Gol! Mbappé hace un triplete. Argentina 3, Francia 3¡In-cre-í-ble!Tanda de penales¡Mbappé anota para Francia!¡¿Quién más?!¡Messi anota para Argentina!¡Obvio!¡Emiliano Martínez detiene el tiro de Kingsley Coman!Qué. Está. Pasando.¡Paulo Dybala anota para Argentina!¡Pum!¡Aurélien Tchouámeni falla por Francia!¡Ay ay ay ay!¡Leandro Paredes mete un gol para Argentina!Ya casi, ¡ya casi!¡Kolo Muani mantiene viva a Francia!Respira, respira, respira.¡Montiel anota y Argentina gana la Copa del Mundo!Andrés Cantor, el presentador de Telemundo, es originario de Buenos Aires.Y aquí hay algo para comprenderlo todo: More

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    For Mbappé, Three Goals Are a Bitter Consolation Prize

    LUSAIL, Qatar — The president of France waited patiently on the grass, but Kylian Mbappé was not ready to be consoled. Not yet.He had done all he could on Sunday to avoid this moment. There was the first penalty kick, the one that shook France out of its torpor, that gave it a lifeline in a World Cup final it was losing. There was the stunning goal that followed just over a minute later, the one that had let Mbappé, had let France, think that the golden trophy sitting on a plinth near the tunnel, the one he had lifted four years ago, was still there to be won.The rest seemed to play out in fast motion. Lionel Messi of Argentina scored another goal in extra time to give his team the lead. Mbappé scored in response. When the tie could not be broken, Mbappé scored to open the penalty shootout. Messi followed and did the same. Then came two France misses, three Argentina makes and it was over.That was how Mbappé found himself sitting on the grass near the midfield stripe wondering how it could have all gone so wrong, then so right, and then so painfully, so permanently wrong. It would take a moment to process that. The president would have to wait.“Kylian has really left his mark on this final,” Mbappé’s coach, Didier Deschamps, said. “Unfortunately, he didn’t leave it in the way he would have liked. That’s why he was so disappointed at the end of the night.”The story of Sunday’s World Cup final, arguably the best in the tournament’s history, was always going to be about Messi’s quest for the one title that had eluded him in his career. But Mbappé had come to Lusail with history and victory in his sights, too. He had his own story to write.Mbappé had already experienced the feeling of winning the World Cup. In 2018, he and France lifted the trophy in Moscow, where Mbappé had become the first teenager since Pelé to score in the final. On Sunday, he was hoping to match Pelé again and make France the first country to retain the trophy since Pelé’s Brazil in 1962.He had already done Pelé one better before the game went to penalty kicks: Not even the Brazilian great had ever scored a hat trick in a World Cup final. Mbappé’s was the first since 1966.Mbappé scored his third goal on a penalty in extra time. His hat trick was the first in a men’s World Cup final since 1966.Odd Andersen/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMbappé, 23, will have known that. He is not just one of the world’s best players. He is also a student of the game and its history and its stars. For months he had been targeting Qatar as the moment, and the place, where he closed the gap with Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in the debate over the best player in the game.In an interview with The New York Times this summer, he was quick to recall the number of times each of his rivals had been named world player of the year. He knew he already had something on his résumé that they did not — a World Cup title — and he knew that a second in a row would be a feat even they could never match.“I always say I dream about everything,” Mbappé said at the time. “I have no limits. So of course, like you say, it’s a new generation. And Ronaldo, Messi — you’re gonna stop. We have to find someone else, someone new.”Mbappé thought that he was that someone else. His performance on Sunday made it seem more like a prediction than a boast: a penalty kick coolly dispatched in the 80th minute, after his teammate Randal Kolo Muani was knocked down from behind in the box; a second goal just over a minute later, a sliding right-footed finish after a give-and-go with Marcus Thuram at the top of the area; and a second penalty three minutes before the end of extra time, after Messi, for the second time, had given Argentina the lead and the momentum.“They managed to get us back in the match, to keep the dream alive,” Deschamps said. “Unfortunately, we couldn’t achieve the dream.”The penalties finished the game and the story. Mbappé eventually rose from the grass, lifted by a hand from Argentina’s goalkeeper, Emiliano Martínez, and eventually took a moment to share an embrace, and a few words, with the French president, Emmanuel Macron. But even his moment of personal triumph seemed cruel.His three goals gave him eight for the tournament, edging Messi by one for the Golden Boot as the World Cup’s top scorer. But it also meant he had to walk onstage three times: first to collect the award, then to return to pose for photos and then a third time to receive his silver medal.Each time, he made the long walk across the curling white stage. Each time, he passed the golden World Cup trophy. Each time, it was close enough to touch.On Sunday, it was there for the taking. He will have to wait four years to get that close again.Mbappé received the Golden Boot as the top scorer in the tournament after France’s loss in the final.Paul Childs/Reuters More