Raphael Stevens

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    Africa Cup of Nations: Soccer Tournament Offers Joy Amid Coups and Covid

    Many countries competing in the Africa Cup of Nations are enduring security, economic and political crises, but the tournament offers visions of unity, solidarity and joy.YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon — She had watched some of the matches secretly, volume turned down low so that nobody would report her. She had seen the threats, and knew that she could be kidnapped or killed for watching the African soccer tournament that her country, Cameroon, was hosting.But she was fed up with containing her excitement each time Cameroon scored, so on Wednesday, Ruth, who lives in a region at war where secessionist rebels have forbidden watching the games, secretly traveled to the capital, Yaoundé, to support her team in person.“I’d love to scream, if it’s possible,” she said on Thursday, after safely reaching Yaoundé, while getting ready for the big game. “I decided to take the risk.”African soccer is nearing the end of what everyone agrees has been a magnificent month. The 52 games in this year’s much-delayed Africa Cup of Nations tournament have brought some respite for countries going through major political upheaval or war, and those weathering the disruption and hardship wrought by Covid.For a while, it was the year of the underdogs. Small nations like Comoros and Gambia defeated normally mighty teams like Ghana and Tunisia, and a goalkeeper named Jesus became an instant hero in Equatorial Guinea when he saved twice in a penalty shootout against the far bigger Mali.Fans have gathered in places, like this bar in Yaoundé, to watch the tournament.Then it became a fight between bigger dogs — the last four countries were Egypt, Cameroon, Senegal and Burkina Faso. But even as nations have dropped out, fans have switched allegiances to other countries, citing a culture of brotherhood that transcends borders.Across the continent, in packed bars, airports and village clearings and on city sidewalks, each time there is a match, clusters of spectators open beers and make glasses of strong, sweet tea, pull up plastic chairs and rough wooden benches, and settle in for 90 minutes of nail-biting delight.When their team won the day after the coup last week in Burkina Faso, Burkinabe soldiers back home danced with joy. When Senegal then beat Burkina Faso in the semifinal on Wednesday night, Dakar’s streets were filled with cars honking and flags waving. Online, after every match, thousands of people flock to Twitter Spaces to jointly dissect what happened.Bitterly split countries have come together, however briefly, and the solidarity — person to person, group to group, region to region — is palpable. Even in Cameroon, where a deadly conflict has been raging since late 2016, soccer has brought people together.A packed stadium for Wednesday’s Senegal vs. Burkina Faso match. The crisis there started when teachers and lawyers in an English-speaking region in the west went on strike to protest the use of French in courts and classrooms. The repressive, mostly francophone government responded with a harsh crackdown. Human rights abuses by the military helped fuel a fully-fledged armed struggle by English-speaking fighters known as Amba boys, after Ambazonia, the name they have given their would-be state.The separatists have warned people there not to watch Afcon, as the soccer tournament is known, and certainly not to support Cameroon. But many anglophones like Ruth — a government worker who asked to be identified by only her first name to protect her from retribution — have defied the risk and have traveled to majority francophone cities to attend matches.“We may not be a very united nation, but I think this one thing brings us together,” Ruth said, adding that it was common knowledge that even as they threatened, kidnapped and tortured other spectators, the Amba fighters were watching the tournament in their camps.Afcon is special. Players who are relatively unknown outside their countries’ borders play alongside multimillionaire stars from the world’s most elite teams who take time off to represent their countries, right in the middle of the European season.Fans from Burkina Faso, which recently underwent a coup, rehearsed their dances and drumming before Wednesday’s semifinal.It is all worth it, Mohamed Salah, Egypt’s star player, said last week in a news conference before his team met, and tied, with Ivory Coast.“This trophy, for me, would be completely different to others I’ve won,” said Mr. Salah, a player who has won both the Premier League and the Champions League with his other team, Liverpool Football Club. “It would be the closest one to my heart.”One country that has managed to focus on soccer despite a major crisis back home is Burkina Faso. While the Burkinabe players and fans were about to set off for the quarterfinal, the military overthrew their government.“It wasn’t easy,” said Sambo Diallo, a fan standing with his arms out in a Yaoundé hotel bursting with fans from Burkina Faso, as a friend painted his entire head, face and torso with his country’s flag. “We weren’t happy, but we had to be brave.”Despite the anxiety about their families at home, Burkina Faso’s players won that quarterfinal. Still on a high, a green bus full of cheering Burkina Faso fans who had followed their squad around the country rolled into Yaoundé on Wednesday afternoon. Their team was about to meet Senegal in the semis.Soccer had obviously brought the Senegalese team together, the jewel in its crown one of the biggest stars on the continent, Sadio Mané, who also plays for Liverpool.Sadio Mané, Senegal’s star player,  scored a goal in Wednesday’s semifinal.But it also knit together another team of seven young men, one that traveled with the players wherever they went. Every match, each member paints his chest with a letter that, when they all stand next to each other, spells out S-E-N-E-G-A-L.These are men of very different fortunes from the players’: In their lives back home, they are builders, clerks and street hawkers who earn little but drop everything whenever their country needs them to take up their mantle of body paint.Understand the Coup in Burkina FasoCard 1 of 4Seizure of power. More

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    The End of the Transfer Fee

    With the vast majority of teams no longer able to pay stratospheric transfer fees, elite players are recalculating risk and reward on their terms.The two transfers that drew all the oxygen from the summer of 2021 were both monuments to the past.Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have dominated their sport for a generation. That they are both, now, approaching their autumns did not matter; as soon as the chance to to sign them arose, neither Paris St.-Germain nor Manchester United paused for thought. Any doubt at all about what they might do, how they might fit, was assuaged by what they had done.Amid all of the noise generated by those two moves — and two of the greatest players of all time changing clubs in the space of a few weeks will generate a lot of noise — another transfer, one that might come to be seen, in time, as a harbinger, rather faded into the background.That David Alaba had always wanted to play in Spain had long been an open secret. He had, over the course of 12 years at Bayern Munich, won everything there was to win: a couple of Champions Leagues, fistfuls of German titles, a Club World Cup or two. He was part of a Bayern team that won the domestic and international treble. Twice.It was at Bayern where Alaba became, for a time, the best left back on the planet. And when that was not enough, it was at Bayern where he became one of the world’s best central defenders, too. He was appointed captain of Austria’s national team. And, throughout, he was paid beyond handsomely to do it all, by a club that prides itself on the bond it establishes with its players.But Alaba harbored a desire, at some point in his career, to test himself at one of Spain’s twin titans, Real Madrid or Barcelona. Though it is slightly awkward to acknowledge it, now, it was never entirely clear if he had strong feelings on which he would prefer. By late 2020, though, it had become obvious he felt the time was right.Alaba and his representatives had been trying to agree to a new contract with Bayern for some time; his last deal in Bavaria was set to expire in the summer of 2021 — when he would be 29 — and the club wanted to tie him down for the remainder of his peak years. Negotiations, though, were achingly slow. Bayern felt Alaba’s salary demands were too high. They started to suspect there was a reason for that. In October, the club unilaterally withdrew from the talks. Alaba, one of Bayern’s crown jewels, would walk for nothing.In April 2021, he did just that. Despite interest from at least three Premier League teams, Alaba signed a five-year contract with Real Madrid. Reports in Germany at the time suggested it would be worth far more than Bayern had been willing to pay him: $75 million in total, by some estimates. He also stood to earn somewhere in the region of $25 million as a golden handshake.David Alaba: Madrid on his mind.Susana Vera/ReutersWhat Alaba had done, in an American context, was not especially unusual. He had, in effect, used free agency as a way of maximizing the value of what would be, in all likelihood, the most lucrative contract of his career. It was what LeBron James did first to join the Miami Heat, and then to sign for the Los Angeles Lakers. Kevin Durant did it. Albert Pujols did it. Everyone does it.In soccer, though, a star of Alaba’s caliber running a contract down has always been — if not quite a unicorn — the exception, rather than the rule.Quite why that pattern has held is open to interpretation. Players tend to sign long-term contracts, and clubs tend to want them to do so. It gives both sides security, after all. The player knows that their earning power is not dependent on a poorly-timed, lightning-strike injury. The club does not have to worry, every couple of years, about being held over a barrel by an agent.But that is not the only reason. Contract negotiations are rarely, despite appearances, about money; or, rather, they are always about money, just not about money as an end in itself. They are, invariably, about status. A player’s salary is a measure of how much they are appreciated by their club in relation to their teammates, and their peers. The same logic can be applied to the length of their contract. The longer the team will pay you, the more you must mean to it.The corollary to all of that is, of course, that teams tend not to want players to reach the end of their contracts. As a rule, should a valuable player enter the last 18 months — or two years, in some cases — of a deal and prove reluctant to commit to a new contract, the club will seek to sell. Put crudely, allowing a player to run down their contract is, in effect, ceding the economic initiative to the asset, rather than the investor.And yet, increasingly, across European soccer, that is precisely what is happening. Alaba, it seems, may have opened the floodgates. At P.S.G., Kylian Mbappé, the standard-bearer for the sport’s first post-Messi, post-Ronaldo generation, has made it so clear that he wants to leave for Real Madrid on a free transfer in six months that he has even written a comic book on the subject. Reports flutter around Europe every few weeks that a deal has even been agreed.Kylian Mbappé has made no secret of his desire to run out his P.S.G. contract and move to Real Madrid.Franck Fife/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAt Chelsea, both Antonio Rüdiger and Andreas Christensen are out of contract soon and both have delayed signing new deals; Real Madrid has been mentioned as a suitor for the former, too.The saga over Paul Pogba’s contract at Manchester United seems to have been dragging on for so long that it might as well be mentioned in the cave paintings of Lascaux. His deal, finally — for the good of humanity — expires in the summer, too. It is perhaps less surprising that there does not seem to be any great rush to alter that particular situation.Mohamed Salah, meanwhile, has a little longer to run on his deal at Liverpool. Like Sadio Mané and Roberto Firmino, Salah is committed to Anfield until 2023. But talks over a new contract have reached an impasse. He does not seem especially fazed by that fact. It is almost as if he knows that if a new contract does not materialize, he will be able to name his price to take his talents elsewhere.It is tempting to assume that the shift can be attributed, solely, to money, too. All of these players — even Christensen, the youngest of all of those mentioned — have earned enough during their careers to make sure their grandchildren never have to worry about income.They have sufficient financial security to tolerate the small risk that they will pick up an injury before they can land their windfall. The reward is worth it, after all: As Alaba found, a club that has not had to pay a transfer fee can be much more generous with its welcome package.That is not, though, the only factor. The financial landscape of European soccer has changed markedly over the last two years, a consequence not only of the coronavirus pandemic, but of the chronic mismanagement of the game’s elite teams during the wild, hedonistic years that preceded it.The vast majority of Europe’s major teams can no longer afford to pay stratospheric transfer fees, not if they can avoid it.It was telling that, Liverpool’s capture of Luis Díaz apart, the January trading period was characterized by clubs desperately trying to trim their expenses: Barcelona jettisoned Philippe Coutinho and tried to shift Ousmane Dembélé elsewhere; Arsenal offloaded its erstwhile captain, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, to Barcelona on a vastly reduced salary; even Juventus, which signed Dusan Vlahovic from Fiorentina, freed up space by handing off two players to Tottenham and, remarkably, Aaron Ramsey to the Scottish champion, Rangers.Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s transfer fee suited Barcelona’s budget perfectly: zero.Lluis Gene/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNone of these clubs can afford to hand out the sort of sums that it would take to pry a player from the few of their peers that have weathered the storm well: the likes of P.S.G., Bayern and the vast majority of teams in the cash-soaked, bulletproof Premier League.Real Madrid, for example, might be able to pay Rüdiger $60 million over four years, plus a handsome arrival bonus (not least because that cost is absorbed over the length of his contract when it is entered onto the club’s books). It could not, though, pay him $60 million over four years, a handsome arrival bonus and give Chelsea $60 million, too.Even if it could, though, there is no reason to believe Chelsea would accept such an offer. The European champions are bankrolled by a Russian oligarch. There is no price point at which economic logic kicks in, because — like Manchester City and P.S.G. — Chelsea, for all that it attempts to be self-sufficient, does so out of inclination, not out of necessity. It does not have to be subject to economic logic if it does not want to be.For a player at any of those clubs that has emerged unscathed from the last couple of years to have access to a full suite of options on the market is, then, to reach the end of their contract, or near enough for their current team to blink. Their employers cannot be pushed, so they have to jump.This is, perhaps, the conclusion soccer has been waiting a quarter of a century to see. Twenty-five years ago, the Bosman ruling turned the sport on its head, enshrining in European law for the first time the idea that a player, when their contract was up, was in complete control of their destiny.That has been the case for more than a generation, but it is only now that the first few players seem to be breaking from tradition, exploring the full range of possibilities unleashed by that case.For the overwhelming majority of the rest, of course, that will not be possible: The young, the hopeful, the unsettled and the unwanted will all still have a price, just as they have always done. Some teams will have to sell. Others will be happy to buy.For the elite few, though, what was once the security of a long-term contract might soon come to be seen as restriction. Rocco Commisso, the outspoken owner of Fiorentina, had it right when he reflected on his club’s being forced to sell Vlahovic, its prize possession, to Juventus, its loathed rival: The player and his agents, Commisso said, had it in their minds from the start to run down the player’s contract, and to keep all the rewards for themselves.The age of free agency may now be upon us. It might, in time, come to be named the Alaba Model, in honor of the quiet transfer in the noisy summer of 2021 that started it all, the deal that offered a glimpse of the future while everyone was dawdling in the past.Cutting Out the Middle TierDele Alli, who might get to do more than warm up once he joins Everton.Peter Powell/ReutersJanuary had been a month of slumber, right until those last couple of days. It was only when Europe’s transfer deadline loomed that everyone suddenly sprang into action. Everton did the most Everton thing imaginable, signing two good players — Dele Alli and Donny van de Beek — who play in much the same position, therefore condemning at least one of them to failure.Tottenham, too, conformed to type, shipping out Tanguy Ndombélé and Giovani Lo Celso, as well as Alli, only to replace them with Dejan Kulusevski and Rodrigo Bentancur, leaving Antonio Conte with a squad roughly exactly as good as the one he had before all that whirlwind activity, only $50 million lighter.Much more uplifting, of course, was the news of Christian Eriksen’s signing with Brentford. Eriksen, who will turn 30 on Feb. 14, has not played in seven months, not since he collapsed to the turf and went into cardiac arrest while playing for Denmark at the Euros last summer. His return, then, was different from the money-driven moves and hard-feelings exits as friends, rivals, former clubs and fans lined up to wish him well.But it is worth pausing on another deal, too, one that attracted a little less hullabaloo: Manchester City’s acquisition of Julian Alvárez, a 22-year-old forward, from the Argentine club River Plate. Quite what City expects from Alvárez is not entirely clear: Some within the club’s hierarchy see him as a potential replacement for Sergio Agüero; others, it seems, feel he may spend time at City’s network of clubs before arriving in England.Either way, his arrival — as well as that of the 17-year-old wing Zalan Vancsa — illustrates the next phase in City’s attempts to reshape soccer’s established order in its favor. The transfer market, ordinarily, functions as a pyramid. Players move up the tiers at ever increasing cost; those at the top pay a premium to avoid risk.Is Julián Álvarez Manchester City’s next big thing?Natacha Pisarenko/Associated PressIn the ordinary run of things, then, Alvárez might have moved from River Plate to — say — Benfica. Benfica would pay $20 million: a large bet, of course, but not an astronomical one. If he succeeded, then perhaps he would move to Atlético Madrid for $50 million, the price having risen because Atlético could be more certain that he would be a success.Only after he had passed that step would a team of City’s profile — one expecting to win the Premier League, and hoping to lift the Champions League, too — step in and pay $80 million or more for a player it could almost guarantee had the quality to contribute.It is, of course, in City’s interests to short-circuit that process, to have a scouting process so refined and so sophisticated that it can tell who will succeed and who will not without being forced to pay Roma and Atlético and all the other denizens of soccer’s (financial) second tier to find out. It is to the club’s credit if that is the case.Whether it is in the game’s interests is less clear. Money trickling down through the transfer market is the closest thing soccer has to a solidarity mechanism. Flipping players has long allowed countless clubs — Lyon and Porto and Sevilla and Borussia Dortmund among them — to compete despite massive financial disparities.Clearly, there is a sense among the elite that such an approach does not work for them (and, let’s be clear: it doesn’t). In their eyes, the risk is now worth the potential reward. True, City may not have a use, in the long run, for either Alvárez or Vancsa. In that case, they will be sold. And the profit — and there will, in all likelihood, be a profit — will not be banked by a club in desperate need of it, but by one of the richest teams on the planet. More

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    Relevent Wins Champions League Rights in U.S.

    UEFA awarded its global broadcasting rights to a longtime partner, but granted Relevent, owned by the Miami Dolphins owner Stephen M. Ross, the same deal for the United States.One after another, the executives from some of the world’s biggest sports agencies filed into a basement auditorium at the headquarters of European soccer’s governing body. On their way in, they passed replicas of some of the biggest trophies in the sport, a pointed reminder of why they had traveled to UEFA’s offices on the banks of Lake Geneva to offer large sums of money to some of soccer’s most powerful officials.On offer that week in November? A rare chance, the first in 20 years, to bid for the rights to one of the most valuable properties in sports: the Champions League.For two days, groups armed with slides and projectors pitched a group that included not only UEFA’s leadership but also representatives of Europe’s top clubs, who, for the first time, were allowed to participate in the process. After three rounds of bidding, UEFA and the European Club Association, its partner in the venture, picked the winners.The global rights went to the Europeans’ longtime partner, TEAM Marketing, which now controls the rights for a three-year cycle from 2024 to 2027, the first in an expanded Champions League that will include more matches.The Champions League Is Changing. Here’s How It Will Work.After more than a generation in its current form, the Champions League is remaking itself, and about to become an actual league for the first time.The bigger surprise came in what they will not control: the lucrative rights to the United States. Those were won by Relevent Sports Group, the marketing company backed by the Miami Dolphins owner Stephen M. Ross. Relevent prevailed after it said it could guarantee at least $250 million for the rights in the United States, about $100 million more than UEFA’s competitions currently deliver there.Relevent and rivals like Endeavor-owned IMG, Octagon and Infront Sports & Media also bid for the global rights, which are estimated to be worth as much as $5 billion per season. TEAM, according to people familiar with the bidding process, was selected because it agreed to lower its commission on selling the rights and because it has a dedicated staff on hand to begin sales immediately.An official announcement of the new rights agreements will be made next week, after a meeting of UEFA’s board. The European Club Association’s board was informed of the selections at a meeting in Munich on Wednesday.UEFA, Relevent and TEAM all declined to comment on the deals, which came as part of an unexpected bit of collaboration between European officials and some of the continent’s biggest clubs only months after some of those same teams attempted to form a breakaway Super League.After two decades of frustration, and with clubs growing increasingly concerned that money was being left on the table, the club association finally pushed UEFA to take the rights to market. In the past, the Champions League agreement had consistently rolled over into a new one with TEAM, a company that has historically had just one client: UEFA.Nasser al-Khelaifi, the chairman of the E.C.A. and the president of the French club Paris St.-Germain, and the E.C.A.’s chief executive, Charlie Marshall, joined a UEFA contingent led by UEFA’s president, Aleksander Ceferin, to hear the pitches late last year.A final decision on the winners was made after a meeting Jan. 25 of their new joint venture company, UCC S.A. That company will grow in importance in the coming months: A new management team set to be installed that could reduce the need for intermediaries like TEAM and Relevent, and give clubs an even greater say over the commercial operations of competitions that produce billions of dollars in television and sponsorship revenue every season.For Relevent, the deal is the latest chapter in its efforts to pivot toward a new strategy geared around selling premium soccer rights after a decade in which its highest-profile asset was the loss-making International Champions Cup, an annual off-season tournament that matched top European clubs in exhibition games in North America, Europe and Asia. But it also comes amid a significant bit of price escalation for soccer rights in the United States; the Premier League recently agreed to a six-year deal with NBC worth almost $2 billion.In 2018, Relevent signed a 15-year collaboration with Spain’s top league, an agreement that essentially turned the company into La Liga’s commercial operation for North America in exchange for a guarantee that it could generate business worth a minimum of $2 billion during the term of the contract. Three years later, Relevent brokered an eight-year, $1.4 billion rights agreement with ESPN for La Liga games, then got $600 million more from broadcasters in Mexico and Central America.Now, its relationships with European soccer may only deepen. Relevent has been courting UEFA to add its name to its off-season tournament business, which has lost about $100 million since it was established in 2012.With the Champions League deals in place, UEFA and the club association are likely to enter into a protracted period of wrangling over how the income from the rights sales will be distributed, with the largest teams likely to demand a greater share than they are currently receiving. More

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    U.S. Beats Honduras In Frigid World Cup Qualifier

    After losing to Canada, the team recorded its first set piece goal of the qualifying campaign and the star striker Christian Pulisic scored in an appearance off the bench.Perhaps no moment better exemplified the mounting pressure — and its slight alleviation — on the United States men’s national soccer team than the 67th minute on Wednesday. Christian Pulisic, the talented striker who plays for Chelsea, has sputtered and looked frustrated in his recent performances for his country.And against Honduras, on a frigid night in St. Paul, Minn., Pulisic wasn’t even in U.S. Coach Gregg Berhalter’s starting lineup. But after he entered the game as a substitute in the 64th minute and knocked in a goal three minutes later, Pulisic calmly ran off with his arms outstretched, then pumped his fist and hugged his teammates.With a commanding 3-0 victory over Honduras to close this World Cup qualifying window, the United States stayed firmly in control of its fate and lightened some — but not all — of the load on its collective shoulders heading into the next set of games in March.By picking up three points in the standings, the United States moved into sole possession of second place — for now, pending the outcome of Mexico’s game against Panama later on Wednesday — in the eight-team qualifying group from North and Central America and the Caribbean that will determine the region’s berths in this year’s World Cup. The top three teams will receive automatic entry to the tournament in Qatar in November.Three days earlier, the United States had made matters more difficult for itself by falling 2-0 to a revived Canada squad in a showdown between the top two teams in the region. After the match, questions resurfaced about the United States’ coaching, tactics and play.But even in brutal cold on Wednesday, the United States looked much different against Honduras, which is last in the qualifying group and had already been eliminated from World Cup contention. The United States scored in ways it hadn’t before and looked more at ease.The United States played its previous two games of this qualifying window in outdoor stadiums in cold places — at home against El Salvador in Columbus, Ohio, last week and on the road against Canada in Hamilton, Ontario, on Sunday — but Wednesday’s game at Allianz Field had the worst conditions.The wind chill was negative 8 degrees Fahrenheit at kickoff but dropped as the game progressed, making it the coldest U.S. home game. U.S. Soccer wanted to not only limit its travel during this qualifying window but also gain an advantage over its Central American rivals.Warmers and hot beverages were provided for both teams. Some players wore balaclavas and gaiters around their necks and, at times, over their faces to keep warm. U.S. goalkeeper Matt Turner wore a muff around his waist to keep his hands warm but removed it only minutes into the game after a referee ran over to talk to him.Because of performance and injuries (Tyler Adams and Chris Richards), Berhalter went with a different lineup on Wednesday, starting, for example, Jordan Morris at forward instead of Pulisic and inserting Kellyn Acosta at midfield. From the start, the United States was in control.In the eighth minute, Weston McKennie headed in an Acosta free kick — the United States’ first set piece goal of this qualifying campaign. It was also only the third time in 11 qualifying matches that the United States had scored in the first half.Then came more goals of that kind: Another free kick by Acosta was knocked in by Walker Zimmerman in the 37th minute and Pulisic scored in the 67th minute off a corner kick by Acosta.After the game, the United States’ attention turned to warming up and its next games in March. Next month, the United States is scheduled for tough road matchups against archrival Mexico (March 24) and Costa Rica (March 30), and will host Panama on March 27. Entering Wednesday, the United States was tied with Mexico, with 18 points, for second place in the qualifying group.Qatar is still very much within the United States’ reach, but not just yet. More

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    Inside Beijing’s Olympic Bubble: Robots, Swabs and a Big Gamble

    There are multiple tests and guards and anxious Olympians as China stages the Games under a “zero Covid” bet. Our correspondent’s journey into the walled-off maze.BEIJING — The strategy is audacious and stifling, and that is very much the point.To Chinese officials, the creation of a vast bubble was their best (and maybe only) hope to stage the Olympic Games safely and preserve the kind of “zero Covid” policy that has been a priority for the government and a point of national pride.Games organizers said they had conducted more than 500,000 tests since Jan. 23 and uncovered at least 232 virus cases, most of them as people arrived at Beijing Capital International Airport. Eleven people have been hospitalized, the authorities said.Here is a journey through 48 hours in the Olympic bubble, starting when Air France Flight 128 from Paris arrived on Monday.Monday, 7:06 a.m.Even before sunlight drenches the airport, all it takes to spot the “closed loop” is a glance out the Boeing 777’s window: The tarmac workers marshaling Games flights as they arrive in Beijing are dressed in protective gear, the crisp white more startling than their illuminated orange batons.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesMore gowned-and-gloved people stand in the jetway. Then more in the cavernous, empty concourse, sealed off to all but those connected to the Games. Still more await in small bays, armed with nasal and throat swabs to check thousands who tested negative just before their flights and are, for the most part, fully vaccinated.After some twists in a nostril and some swirls in the throat, eliciting a bounty of gags, the attendant has specimens that are one of China’s last and best chances to contain the virus.10:34 a.m.The bus driver sits behind a plastic barrier, leaving him and his passengers to communicate by gestures and shrugs.A worker sprays the bus, presumably with disinfectant, as it leaves the airport for a hotel with guards who control a gate that opens only to allow bubble-approved vehicles through.An assistant manager hands over a key to my room, where I will stay until my airport test result is ready. I can, however, order room service during the wait.The doorbell rings. By the time I reach the door, the delivery person is barely in sight down the hall, the neatly packaged food abandoned on a table marked “Contact-free Handover Desk.”At 1:14 p.m., a woman calls with the test result: negative. I can leave my room. Beijing is open, or as open as it will be this trip.2:19 p.m.The repurposed city bus is racing through Beijing. Every block showcases how the serendipity that so often comes during traveling and reporting will be stunted.Outside venues, “Closed Loop Area” signs remind a Chinese public that their views of the Olympics on the ground will be through glimpses past fences and guards. “Please Don’t Cross the Line.”Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesGabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesRestaurants beyond the bubble are, of course, forbidden for Games participants. But the machinery of the state and the Olympics have conjured a city unto itself. The “Main Media Center,” more than 400,000 square feet, can feel like a cross between Epcot and Willy Wonka’s factory, where robots and computers orchestrate cleaning floors, taking temperatures and scanning credentials at checkpoints.I have heard about a robot that will nag anyone not properly masked, and I see machines prepare dumplings, fried rice and broccoli. Saucers sometimes descend from the ceiling with glimmering bowls of hot food. (The dumplings and broccoli were excellent; the rice, though, was a bit dry.)Outside after dusk, the 846-foot Olympic Tower glimmers with red and blue lights as music pulses just ahead of the Lunar New Year. The plazas closest to it, though, are largely empty.Tuesday, 2:49 p.m.I apparently passed the Covid test I took on Monday evening at the hotel, part of the daily ritual of covering these Games. I figure I will breathe easier later, once the threat of infection from the travel to Asia has ebbed.I watch American hockey players and coaches cruise the ice at practice. Kendall Coyne Schofield, appearing in her third Games, beams as she poses for a snapshot in the face-off circle. There is, even in this cloistered world, still joy in sports, still pride that these are the Olympic Games.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesGabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times4:23 p.m.My phone buzzes just before Hilary Knight, a star American forward, plans to chat with reporters.“A person is confirmed positive on Flight AF128 seated in SEAT 53A,” the formulaic email announces.I flew in seat 54A and am now classified as a close contact.I leave the interview room hurriedly, a touch rattled but mostly uncertain of every nuance of the protocols and fearful of inadvertently tripping more trouble. Between emails and calls with Terri Ann Glynn, the Olympics logistics mastermind for The New York Times and our designated Covid liaison officer, I debate whether to text my wife back home, 13 hours behind Beijing. I decide to let her sleep.I take a private car to the media center; the Olympic bus system is not an option for close contacts.I remember enough of the rules to know that the days ahead hinge on whether I am “critical” to the Games. I am surprised to learn that I am, and so the rules are essentially these: For seven days, medical personnel will visit my hotel room twice a day for testing. I must eat alone, and I must stay off the buses.But I can still cover the Games — if I remain negative.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times8:57 p.m.When the doorbell rings this time, the visitor does not flee. Instead, two attendants in blue protective gear are waiting to start the enhanced testing. I think I hear chuckles as I bend so the man can swab my throat. Maybe I am becoming accustomed to it; I barely gag.About 10:15 p.m., a photographer sends a group text: “Ambulance outside the hotel again,” presumably for someone needing treatment for Covid-19 elsewhere. I wonder whether my result is already back.It is not. But a testing team will visit my room again in less than 12 hours.Wednesday, 5:53 a.m.I have no symptoms. I am awake, though, because of jet lag, and I am paranoid about morphing into a case and being cast into an isolation facility. I eat a piece of chocolate to see if I still have a sense of taste. I do, so I again calculate potential incubation periods.But it is an exercise of only so much value. There is nothing that can stop the infection that might be brewing in the bubble. I turn my attention to writing about sports.After all, the Games are still on course to happen, just as China promised. More

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    Canada Beats U.S., Cementing a Soccer Power Shift

    The victory in a World Cup qualifier moved Canada to the cusp of its first World Cup berth since 1986, and reasserted its sudden dominance in North America.HAMILTON, Canada — If it wasn’t already clear which country in North and Central America and the Caribbean had the best soccer team during this World Cup qualifying cycle, Canada provided another resounding argument for its primacy on Sunday.With a 2-0 win over the United States on a frigid afternoon, Canada, without its best player, extended its lead atop the eight-team qualifying group that will determine the region’s berths in this year’s World Cup. Now four points clear of its closest rival with four games remaining, Canada has put itself in pole position for one of the region’s three automatic spots in Qatar in November.And with its hardest tests behind it — Canada went unbeaten in home and away matches against the region’s two traditional heavyweights, the United States (1-0-1) and Mexico (1-0-1) — a generational achievement may be just around the corner: Should Canada qualify, its World Cup trip will be the first for its men’s team since 1986.Canada’s head coach, John Herdman, who is from England, said Sunday’s events made him feel for the first time that he was living in “a football country.” The team bus, for example, was welcomed by cheering fans, confetti and smoke.“This is what we’ve dreamed of,” he added later. “It’s absolutely what we’ve dreamed of to get people excited. And people who have always had to wear an Italian shirt or a Serbian shirt or a Greek shirt, they can put them down. That’s what we want them to do, and pull on their Canadian jersey and now be proud of us.”The defeat, in front of a raucous crowd in Hamilton, was a blow for the United States, but hardly a fatal one. The Americans moved into a tie for second place with Mexico, which tied Costa Rica, 0-0, later on Sunday.“The result hurts but the performance doesn’t,” U.S. Coach Gregg Berhalter said. He insisted he wasn’t making excuses, but noted how a narrow field and “very poor field turf” made it harder for his team to create and process scoring chances. A few injuries in the game also undermined the Americans. Overall, Berhalter noted how the United States dominated possession of the ball but lacked precision at the other end of the field.“When we talked about what we needed to do to win this game, we checked almost all the boxes,” he said.The last — and only previous — time Canada played in the soccer’s showcase tournament, only one player on its current national team roster was alive: defender Atiba Hutchinson, 39. But re-energized by a talented crop of young stars, and Europe-based professionals like Cyle Larin, who scored an early opening goal on Sunday, and Sam Adekugbe, who added the late clincher, Canada has risen from years as an afterthought into a power.With its victory, Canada remained the only unbeaten team in the final round of qualifying in the region, and posted its first victory over the United States in World Cup qualifying in 42 years.“Whenever we went to the U.S., they have 50-, 60,000 people screaming at us, and we’re tired of that not respecting us,” said the Canadian goalkeeper Milan Borjan, adding that he didn’t want his country to be “humiliated” anymore.He added later: “But now, when they come to us or we go there, they’re scared. They’re scared the last four or five matches; they’ve been scared against us.”Canada took advantage of a sloppy start by the United States to snatch an early goal after only seven minutes, and held on the rest of the game even after the Americans began to dominate play. In front of a crowd that braved the wind chill of 18 degrees Fahrenheit at game time, Canada yielded its share of possession at times but little ground, matching the Americans’ pressure with aggressive, physical and at times pugnacious responses.The opening goal came amid a series of U.S. mistakes. Canada won Matt Turner’s short goal kick in the air and then used a quick interchange of passes to transform a turnover into a goal. Larin, after a give-and-go with Jonathan David, got a step on U.S. center back Miles Robinson, who slipped trying to keep up, and blasted a shot past a diving Turner. Canada did this all without Alphonso Davies, the Bayern Munich star who will miss this window’s games while recovering from a Covid-related heart issue.As the first half wore on, the United States slowly gained more control of both the pace and the ball. But the same issue that marked its earlier qualifying missteps returned: It failed to convert its chances.Berhalter has relied on a rotation of players, particularly at forward, as he has tried to balance his players’ fitness and exploit matchups in World Cup qualifying. On Sunday, he started Gyasi Zardes at striker over Jesús Ferreira, the surprise starter in Thursday’s win over El Salvador, and Ricardo Pepi, the teenager whose form may be the key to America’s World Cup hopes. Called upon again by Berhalter on Sunday, Zardes looked overmatched at times, and eventually was replaced in the 67th minute. Pepi offered a spark, but by then Canada had hunkered down to close out its victory.“Defensively,” Borjan said, “we played amazing.”Zardes, though, was not the only American who failed to find the back of the net. In the 36th minute, Christian Pulisic sailed a free kick from just beyond the penalty area over the goal.Tajon Buchanan, right, and Canada frustrated Sergiño Dest and the United States all game.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press, via Associated PressWeston McKennie had a header saved off the crossbar by Borjan just before halftime. And in the 85th minute, Paul Arriola — another late substitution as Berhalter chased a goal — sent a bicycle kick just wide of the goal.When Adekugbe split the defense on a counterattack in injury time and slotted in the second goal, the Canadians on the field, on the bench and in the stands knew victory — and perhaps a World Cup spot — was theirs. It may take another game or two, but for the players, and perhaps for some of their fans, it is starting to feel like the chance of a lifetime.“We’re the only team that is undefeated and we take pride in that,” the Canadian midfielder Jonathan Osorio said. “This is a big win, but it’s just another three points. We want to stay atop of this region.” More

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    Manchester United Drops Mason Greenwood After Abuse Charge

    A woman accused the young English forward of assaulting her in a post on Instagram. The team said he would not play or train “until further notice.”Manchester United said it had suspended its young forward Mason Greenwood and would bar him from playing matches or even training with his teammates after he was accused by a woman on Sunday of assaulting her. The woman made the claim in a post on her personal social media account that included images, video and an audio recording.United issued the first of two statements about Greenwood shortly after the woman’s post became a trending topic on social media. In its statement, the club said it was aware of the allegations against Greenwood but would not comment further until the facts had been established.A few hours later, and after the woman’s claims were removed from her account, the club issued a second statement in which it announced that it was temporarily sidelining Greenwood, a 20-year-old graduate of United’s academy and one of the brightest young English talents in the Premier League, the world’s richest domestic soccer league.“Mason Greenwood will not return to training or play matches until further notice,” the team said.On Sunday evening, the Greater Manchester Police announced that they had been made aware of “online social media images and videos posted by a woman reporting incidents of physical violence,” a description that closely mirrored the public accusations against Greenwood and the swirl of publicity they had caused earlier in the day.The police confirmed that “a man in his 20s has since been arrested on suspicion of rape and assault” and that he remained in custody for questioning. In keeping with British police protocol, it did not name the man who was arrested.The images accusing Greenwood of assault were posted on Instagram on Sunday morning but disappeared, along with the rest of the images on the woman’s account, soon afterward. British and online news media outlets reported on Sunday that the police had visited Greenwood’s home on Sunday.Greenwood, a forward who started his first match for United as a 17-year-old and made his debut for England’s national team a month before his 20th birthday last fall, has been a mainstay on United’s team despite its faltering season, becoming a regular starter ahead of a group of more experienced forwards on the club’s roster. Last week, United announced that Anthony Martial, a French forward, and one of the players displaced by the emergence of Greenwood, had been loaned to Sevilla in Spain for the rest of the season.Greenwood made no public comments on the allegations on Sunday. Nike, one of his personal sponsors, said in a statement that it was “deeply concerned by the disturbing allegations and will continue to closely monitor the situation.” More

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    Newcastle Players, Saudi Jets and Premier League Headaches

    When Newcastle traveled to Saudi Arabia for a midseason training camp, it did so on a plane owned by a company seized by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.Well before Newcastle United’s players and coaches set off for a warm-weather training camp in Saudi Arabia this week, the new owners of the Premier League soccer team were facing the difficult task of persuading the world that the team would not be an asset of the Saudi state.It has not been an easy case to make: 80 percent of Newcastle, after all, now belongs to the Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. The P.I.F.’s chairman is Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler.Even the Premier League has in the past expressed concerns about the connections. It delayed Newcastle’s sale for more than a year until, Premier League officials said, it finally allowed the deal to go through in October after receiving unspecified “legally binding assurances” that the Saudi state would not control the soccer team.Those questions only returned this week, however, when Newcastle’s players and coaching staff shuffled down the steps of their private charter flight in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Monday. Photographs of the team’s arrival showed the plane was operated by a company called Alpha Star, an aviation business whose parent company was seized by Prince Mohammed after a purge of senior royals and business figures shortly after he emerged as the likely heir to the Saudi throne.The identity of the company and its seizure were documented as part of a lawsuit in Canada brought by the Saudi state against a former senior intelligence official. Alpha Star and its sister company, Sky Prime, another aviation supplier whose planes carried the group of assassins who killed and dismembered the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018, were seized and transferred to the $400 billion sovereign wealth fund — on the orders of Prince Mohammed, according to legal filings — in 2017. The documents revealing the link between the aviation companies and the country’s ruler are part of a long running corruption lawsuit brought by a group of Saudi state-owned companies against the former intelligence official Saad Aljabri, a close confidant of Mohammed bin Nayef, a former interior minister whom Prince Mohammed ousted as crown prince in 2017.But the use of planes — owned by a company created and once contracted by the Saudi state to transport extremists and terrorism suspects — also made it harder, again, for Newcastle’s new British-based owners and executives to claim an arm’s length relationship from their Saudi partners in the P.I.F.State ownership of clubs has become one of the more contentious topics in European soccer in recent years as Paris St.-Germain and Manchester City have both used the seemingly bottomless wealth of their Gulf owners to reshape the economics and competitive balance of the sport. Newcastle fans generally have welcomed the arrival of Saudi riches — and the potential of an on-field revival — at their club, even as critics have raised questions about foreign influence and human rights concerns.Before his team left England, Newcastle United’s coach, Eddie Howe, was pressed about the purpose of the team’s weeklong visit to Saudi Arabia. Howe insisted the motivations were purely sporting, an effort to fine tune the team’s preparations in a warm-weather setting ahead of the second half of the season. But the club faced criticism from human rights groups like Amnesty International, which said the trip risked becoming “a glorified P.R. exercise for Mohammed bin Salman’s government.”On Friday, Howe and his players were reported to have met with representatives of the P.I.F., whose board includes a half-dozen senior Saudi government officials.“I think it just shows, No. 1, why the sale was problematic in the first place and not separate from the Saudi state,” Adam Coogle, a deputy director with the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch, said of the trip. “No. 2, it shows they don’t care. They’re just going to flaunt it. They’re not even trying to pretend this isn’t what it is.”A spokesman for P.I.F. declined a request for comment. The Premier League and Newcastle United declined similar requests on Friday.The relationship between Newcastle and Saudi Arabia, though, continues to roil the Premier League. Late last year the league amended its regulations on sponsorships after rivals raised concerns about the prospect of a sudden rush of Saudi Arabian money flowing into the team’s accounts through deals with companies linked to its Gulf ownership.Under a compromise agreement, the league said it would assess all “related party” sponsorships to ensure the agreements were made in line with fair market value.Since the takeover, the Premier League’s chief executive, Richard Masters, has deflected questions about his organization’s ability to ensure that Newcastle did not contravene the assurances about its being separate from the state. When he was asked in November how the league would even know if the local ownership group was following the orders of Prince Mohammed, Masters acknowledged that the league could not know.“In that instance, I don’t think we would know,” he said. “I don’t think it is going to happen. There are legally binding assurances that essentially the state will not be in charge of the club. If we find evidence to the contrary, we can remove the consortium as owners of the club. That is understood.” More