Raphael Stevens

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    How Morocco Beat Portugal

    DOHA, Qatar — Another step for Morocco, another step for the Arab world, another push to a new frontier for Africa. Morocco’s reputation-shredding journey through the World Cup has now felled another European giant.After sending the Arab world into a state of ecstasy that it had previously never experienced, Morocco’s soccer team did so once more. In a display of defensive grit and ice-cold nerves, the Moroccans are now barely believable qualifiers for the semifinals, adding Portugal to a list of major European nations it has dumped out of the World Cup on its thrilling joyride through Qatar.Having never previously been in contention for soccer’s biggest prize, Morocco is just one game from a place in the final, having seen off Belgium, Spain and now Portugal, thanks to a first-half goal from Youssef En-Nesyri on Saturday. It is also the first African team to make the semifinals, where it will meet either England or France.“Pinch me, I think I’m dreaming,” Bono, the Morocco goalkeeper, said after the game. “These moments are great, but we’re here to change the mentality. With this feeling of inferiority, we have to get rid of it. The Moroccan player can face any in the world. The generation coming after us will know we can create miracles.”Morocco’s Youssef En-Nesyri hit a header to score the winning goal against Portugal.Martin Meissner/Associated PressMorocco’s storybook run has seen millions of Arabs, Muslims and North Africans coalesce behind a single team in a way that this tournament has not seen. That fanatical support was in full display inside the Al Thumama Stadium, which for 90 minutes (plus eight minutes of heart-stopping injury time) resembled a corner of Casablanca, Rabat or Marrakesh. Every period of Portuguese possession was met with ear-piercing whistles, and every Moroccan incursion the other way greeted with the type of boisterous cheering that threatened to pull the ball into the Portuguese net.While Morocco celebrates its victory and ponders the next step of its magical journey, the result almost certainly means the end of an era.A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

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    What Happened to the Qatar Women’s National Team?

    A squad that featured in the host nation’s bid to host the World Cup in 2010 hasn’t played a game in eight years.DOHA, Qatar — The last official soccer match that the Qatar women’s national team played was on April 19, 2014. Hagar Nader Nessim Aziz Saleh, who was only 15 years old at the time, can hardly remember it now. It was a little cold that day, she recalled, and Qatar was playing in Amman, Jordan, at the West Asian Football Federation Women’s Championship.She remembered screaming and celebrating when Dana al-Jassim scored in extra time, in the 92nd minute, one of Qatar’s only goals of the tournament. Her team lost that day, 8-2. It has not played an official match since.There have been some friendly matches and several cultural exchanges, including a visit from players on an American women’s team in 2020, and a trip to New York and San Francisco earlier this year to learn about women’s soccer in the United States. There are photos of the team, in maroon tracksuits and white jerseys with the official patch for the Q.F.A., the Qatar Football Association. But the jerseys are dated by the sponsor, Burrda, whose partnership with the soccer federation ended years ago.Other than that, there is hardly any trace of a national women’s soccer team in Qatar, even as the country hosts the men’s World Cup. There is no mention of a women’s team on the Qatar Football Association website, and there is no team listed on the FIFA women’s rankings. There’s a Wikipedia page and a curious Instagram account called Women’s Football Qatar with 106 followers.The World Cup in Qatar seemed a good chance to ask: Where did the team go?Members of the Qatar women’s national team at a cafe in Doha, Qatar.Allison McCann/The New York TimesOrigins of a TeamIn 2001, Sheikha Moza bint Nasser al-Missned — the wife of the emir at the time, and the mother of the current emir — established the Qatar Women’s Sport Committee to oversee all sports for women and girls. In 2009, the national women’s soccer team was created, just as Qatar was preparing its bid to host the 2022 World Cup.A year later, and only weeks before FIFA was to choose the host of the 2022 World Cup, the women’s national team played its first-ever official match. It did not go well. Beaten by 17-0 by Bahrain at the Arabia Women’s Cup, the team went on to lose to Syria and Palestine in the same tournament, by double-digit scores each time. But there was a team and a record of its games.A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

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    Brazil Feels the Familiar Sting of Failure

    DOHA, Qatar — Once more, then, Brazil’s World Cup ends in the dance the country has come to know better than any other. The players were still cocooned in the locker room at the Education City Stadium, trying to process the bitterness and regret of elimination at the hands of Croatia, but the fingers were already being pointed, the blame being assigned.The primary target, of course, was the same as it always is: the coach. Just a couple of days earlier, back when things were light and fun, Tite had been at pains not to take too much of the credit. Brazil might have been strutting and gliding through the tournament, its jersey shining as brightly as it had for a generation, but the 62-year-old Tite did not want anyone thinking it was because of him.He was, if anything, nothing but a facilitator. The glory should go to the players, he said, the ones who were out on the field, making things happen, sweeping the country to within touching distance of that elusive sixth World Cup. “It is the athletes,” he said. “They are the whole painting.”Brazil’s Tite consoled his players, but he could not appease his critics.Matthew Childs/ReutersSuch is the bargain coaches make. Tite did not feel entitled to any of the credit, but as soon as things grew dark and heavy, he was the primary outlet for much of the blame. “It’s not about being a hero or a villain,” he said, his devastated players still not yet able to face the public. “But I understand that I am the most responsible.”There was no shortage of people willing to agree with him. In the immediate aftermath of the game, Tite had been sufficiently composed to offer what was, by some distance, the most reasonable, the most rational, analysis of Brazil’s elimination. “When their goalkeeper is the best player on the field, the game is talking to you,” he said.He was right, too. Brazil created a flurry of chances against Croatia. With a little more luck or a little more poise, it would have been out of sight long before penalties, long before Bruno Petkovic’s equalizer, long before extra time. “Sometimes we have a great performance, we shoot at goal, and the ball deviates,” he said. It is cruel, of course. “But it is normal.”A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

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    Grant Wahl Dies at World Cup After Collapsing at Argentina Game

    Grant Wahl, who in his career covered soccer for Sports Illustrated, Fox Sports and CBS, was in Qatar for his eighth World Cup.Grant Wahl, a highly regarded soccer journalist who wrote extensively on the game, died Friday in Qatar, where he was covering the World Cup quarterfinal match between Argentina and the Netherlands in Doha.Wahl’s agent, Tim Scanlan, confirmed the death in a phone interview on Friday night. Scanlan said that Wahl had been in the press tribune in the closing minutes of a quarterfinal game when he went into acute distress.He is believed to have died, Scanlan said, at a hospital in Qatar or while he was being taken to one, after feeling unwell as the tournament proceeded.“He wasn’t sleeping well, and I asked him if he tried melatonin or anything like,” Scanlan said. “He said, ‘I just need to like relax for a bit.’”Wahl was in the midst of his eighth World Cup, with an aggressive schedule of reporting and appearances.Wahl’s wife, Dr. Celine Gounder, also confirmed the death in a post on Twitter. Wahl, 48, began his professional journalism career in 1996, at Sports Illustrated, where he worked for 24 years. He initially covered both college basketball and soccer — he wrote a famed 2002 Sports Illustrated cover story on LeBron James, who was then a junior in high school — but over the next two decades transitioned exclusively to soccer, attending and writing about each World Cup, growing in prominence as the sport grew in the United States.“Grant’s passion for soccer and commitment to elevating its profile across our sporting landscape played a major role in helping to drive interest in and respect for our beautiful game,” the United States Soccer Federation said in a statement Friday night. Don Garber, the commissioner of Major League Soccer, wrote that Wahl “was a kind and caring person whose passion for soccer and dedication to journalism were immeasurable.”In recent days, Wahl wrote about struggles with his health during a run of coverage that, he said, typically left room for about five hours of sleep a night.“My body finally broke down on me,” he wrote on Monday. “Three weeks of little sleep, high stress and lots of work can do that to you.”What had seemed to be a common cold for more than a week, he said, had “turned into something more severe” around Dec. 3, when the United States played the Netherlands.“I could feel my upper chest take on a new level of pressure and discomfort,” he wrote, adding that he had tested negative for the coronavirus. Medical officials in Qatar, he said, thought he had bronchitis. The antibiotics he received, he said, appeared to work, backed up by 12 hours of sleep.On Wednesday night, he hosted a gathering at his apartment to mark his birthday, which Scanlan said was on Thursday. More

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    A Two-Goal Lead Disappears, So Argentina Has to Do It the Hard Way

    LUSAIL, Qatar — Argentina almost did it the easy way. For a while, Lionel Messi and his teammates were coasting. They had a two-goal lead against the Netherlands, and just a few minutes to see out. They were comfortable. And then, all of a sudden, they were not. They got there in the end, of course, but it would not be Argentina if there was not a little suffering.It had all seemed like such smooth sailing. Argentina had won even as its battalions of fans, decked out in sky blue and white, were still filling the steep, banked stands of the Lusail Stadium: A few miles away, Brazil had been eliminated by Croatia, Argentina’s fiercest rival and the most intimidating obstacle on its route to the final vanquished in one fell swoop.Barely a couple of hours later, the second victory seemed secure. Messi had created Argentina’s first goal, threading a pass of delicate brilliance into the path of Nahuel Molina, and scored its second, converting a penalty after Marcos Acuña had been tripped by Denzel Dumfries.As Messi stood in front of Argentina’s fans, his arms outstretched in front of him, as if waiting for their gratitude for the gift he had bestowed upon them, many in the crowd would have allowed their thoughts to wander to next week, to the meeting with Croatia, or even a little further still, to what they have come to refer to as “la tercera,” the country’s third World Cup.Argentina’s players celebrated in the direction of the Dutch after they won in a penalty shootout.Peter Cziborra/ReutersThe prospect felt, in that moment, less of a fever dream than ever. Argentina’s campaign in Qatar started with one of the most searing humiliations in the country’s sporting history: beaten, here at Lusail, by a Saudi Arabia team that had barely been granted a second thought in the weeks leading to the tournament.That loss, with its echoes of Argentina’s defeat to Cameroon in 1990, shredded the team’s delicate confidence. The nation indulged in a bout of soul-searching and teeth-gnashing. The players held tense, emotionally charged meetings. Lionel Scaloni, the coach, took a team that had not lost a game for almost three years and ripped it up to start again from scratch. These are not, as a rule, reliable indicators of forthcoming success.A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

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    Brazil’s World Cup Hopes Fell Apart in 15 Minutes

    AL RAYYAN, Qatar — They couldn’t believe it.On the sideline at Education City Stadium, forward Richarlison stared ahead. Pedro, another forward, hunched over with his hands on his knees. And the superstar Neymar, the man responsible for Brazil’s go-ahead goal, started crying, then sat at midfield and cried some more.Stunned and heartbroken, Brazil’s players struggled to process what had just transpired on the field and how they had blown a 1-0 lead against Croatia with 15 minutes left in extra time. Without a shot on goal to that point, Croatia pried the game from the jaws of defeat, tied the score in the 117th minute and then beat a leading World Cup favorite, 4-2, in a penalty shootout in the quarterfinals on Friday.After going 105 minutes without scoring, Brazil’s talented attack finally broke through a tough Croatian defense. Suddenly, it felt like all the pressure on Brazil had been lifted, its joy had returned and it just needed to play keep-away for the second period of extra time. But, then, it all unraveled so quickly and Croatia, the wily 2018 World Cup finalist that has excelled at winning penalty shootouts in the knockout stage, was victorious once again.“It’s hard to find the words to describe this moment,” Neymar said, pausing at times to compose himself as he spoke to reporters two hours after the final whistle.As Richarlison walked toward the team bus and stopped to talk to reporters, his eyes were still bright red from the earlier tears. “It hurts,” he said.Croatian players celebrated after Marquinhos missed Brazil’s last penalty kick.Petr David Josek/Associated PressRicharlison was one of many players on Brazil’s side who broke down in tears after the loss.Matthew Childs/ReutersBrazil may come to regret several moments of its loss to Croatia. How did Brazil fail to convert more of its 19 shots — 11 of them on goal — with all of its speed and dazzle? How could it not defend for the final 15-plus minutes of the game? And how could Brazil let two substitutes on a counterattack following a turnover — Mislav Orsic sprinting with the ball down the left side and then centering to Bruno Petkovic, who fired the shot — catch it off guard?A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

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    How Croatia Knocked Brazil Out of the World Cup

    AL RAYYAN, Qatar — For 45 minutes, then 90, and then 15 more, Brazil tried all the tools in its considerable arsenal: the toe pokes and the back heels, the sweetly bending curlers and the outside-of-the-foot slices. As its frustration mounted, it pivoted to some of soccer’s darker arts: dives and flops, shirt pulls and shoves and appeals to the referee for justice.None of it worked. Croatia had brought a vise to a gunfight, and for more than two long hours on Friday it calmly and methodically squeezed the life and the joy out of Brazil. Croatia, opponents should know by now, does not exit the World Cup without a fight.The Brazilians got a late goal. The Croatians answered with an even later one. The game went to a penalty-kick shootout. And only then, with eight quick kicks breaking a tie after 120 minutes could not, was it over.Croatia was heading to the semifinals. Brazil was going home. Again.“For me, Brazil is football and football is Brazil,” Croatia defender Borna Sosa said. “To beat Brazil, it’s maybe the best feeling ever.”Brazil had arrived in Qatar last month with the singular goal it sets for itself at every World Cup: to win it. A five-time World Cup champion, a country that believes it has as rightful a claim as any nation to supremacy in the sport it adores, Brazil had maneuvered through its first three games on cruise control. Its advancement had never been in doubt after winning its first match with its star, Neymar, in the lineup and splitting the next two while he sat out nursing an ankle injury.Its usual swagger had returned on Monday, with a 4-1 victory over South Korea that featured sublime passing, dancing goal celebrations and a reset of the nation’s annual expectations at sky high.Brazil took the lead in the first extra-time period, but saw Croatia tie the score in the 117th minute.Justin Setterfield/Getty ImagesWhen it all started to go right on Friday, when Neymar’s goal gave Brazil the lead in extra time, the players and the nation breathed a sigh of relief. But just as suddenly, it all went wrong: a Croatian equalizer, a loss on penalty kicks, a quarterfinal exit instead of a possible date with Argentina in the semifinals on Tuesday.“What went wrong is that it’s football,” Brazil goalkeeper Alisson said. “Anything can happen.”Many fans and some journalists immediately blamed Brazil’s coach for the defeat; after the game, he headed off calls to quit by saying he had already decided to leave his post. Others just turned their backs.“I’m not watching this Cup anymore,” said Andressa Valentim, 26, a forestry engineer who was crying at a cafe in Brasilia after the loss. “For me, it’s over.”A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

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    Messi and Ronaldo’s Last World Cup Is the End of Soccer’s Greatest Generation

    The World Cup is bidding farewell to the starriest cast the game has ever assembled. The setting is a perfect fit for the game’s age of excess.DOHA, Qatar — One by one, they have exited the World Cup stage that has been theirs for so long. Some, like Luis Suárez, restless and helpless, on the substitutes’ bench, could not hold back their tears. Others, like Romelu Lukaku and Edinson Cavani, lashed out at whatever inanimate object crossed their path, unable to contain their rage.One or two have managed to greet the end with grace: a smile on the lips of Robert Lewandowski, satisfied that he had, at least, signed off with a goal; a subtle, sorrowful shake of the head from Sergio Busquets as he turned his back on the missed penalty that had all but drawn the curtain on Spain’s campaign.There are some who remain, of course, for now at least: Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, Ángel Di María and Luka Modric, Thiago Silva and Pepe. Some will depart over the next two days. Some will have a stay of execution for another week or so. One or two will have the ending they crave, inside the gleaming, golden bowl of Lusail Stadium, a trophy in their hands and ticker-tape at their backs. But whenever it ends, however they react, for all of them, this will be goodbye.It has felt, at times over the last two weeks, as if this World Cup is essentially a valedictory tour for Messi and Ronaldo, certainly the two standout players of their era and quite possibly any.For the better part of two decades, they have been the central characters in both the sport’s overarching narrative and its daily life; every story has, at heart, been about them. This tournament could not be any different: it is, after all, their last chance to claim the one treasure that still eludes them, to find the missing piece, to cement not only their legend but their apotheosis.Romelu Lukaku and Belgium’s golden generation didn’t survive the group stage.Jack Guez/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesLuis Suárez and Uruguay followed them to the exit a day later.Philip Fong/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMessi and Ronaldo, though, have always been something else, too: the spearheads of and the torchbearers for a generation of players that has dominated soccer for more than a decade, the starriest cast that soccer has ever assembled. Whether it is the most talented is not, in a way, especially relevant. What is indisputable is that it is, by some distance, the most famous.A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More