Raphael Stevens

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    Will British-Born Players Help Jamaica Achieve Soccer Greatness?

    Jamaica recruited a crop of British-based players to bolster its World Cup qualifying campaign. The question now: Can it quickly mold them into a team?LONDON — Sometimes, the best explanation is the simplest one. Last month, in the aftermath of Jamaica’s heavy home defeat to Panama — a result that left the Caribbean country winless and, at that stage, pointless in World Cup qualifying — the finger of blame shifted quickly from the team’s coach, Theodore Whitmore, to his boss, Michael Ricketts.As president of the Jamaican Football Federation, Ricketts had spent much of the previous year trying to overhaul Whitmore’s squad in a bid to supercharge Jamaica’s attempts to reach its first World Cup in a quarter century.In March, he revealed a long list of British-born players of Jamaican heritage who, he said, were in the process of switching their international allegiance to the country of their parents’ or grandparents’ birth, immediately — in theory — boosting Jamaica’s chances of making it through the arduous slog of qualification.His targets were ambitious. The most eye-catching name was Michail Antonio, the West Ham forward who had, relatively late in his career, emerged as one of the most effective strikers in the Premier League. But beyond him lay a slew of equally familiar faces.Southampton’s Nathan Redmond, the Everton teammates Mason Holgate and Demarai Gray and Newcastle’s Isaac Hayden were all applying for Jamaican passports, Ricketts said. So too were Ethan Pinnock and Ivan Toney, of Brentford, and Max Aarons of Norwich City, some of the brightest talents in the second-tier Championship, and Kemar Roofe, a forward for the Scottish champion, Rangers.By the time the Panama game arrived, a host of the recruits who had accepted Ricketts’s overtures were in the team. Pinnock and Liam Moore started in central defense. Roofe and Daniel Johnson, of Preston, played in midfield. Antonio made his debut up front, alongside Bobby Decordova-Reid of Fulham.It did not end well. A few days earlier, without the vast majority of his reinforcements, Whitmore’s team had come within a few minutes of claiming a commendable point on the road in Mexico. Against Panama, though, Jamaica collapsed to a 3-0 defeat.From the outside, the suspicion was that Ricketts was at fault. It was suggested on television that he had destabilized the team by instructing Whitmore to make room for the new arrivals. “I must dispel that totally,” Ricketts said at the time. He called it “absolute rubbish,” and insisted that Whitmore would back him up. “All the J.F.F. did was make contact with the players, and provide the opportunity for the players to represent the country,” he said.Roofe, for one, has spent some time ruminating on that defeat. “It left a sour taste in the mouth,” he said. His conclusion, though, was not quite as intriguing as a dark conspiracy about outside interference. The problem, in his mind, was time. Or, rather, the lack of it.Along with the vast majority of the new additions to Jamaica’s squad, Roofe had been prevented from joining his teammates in Mexico. The country was at the time on the British government’s coronavirus so-called red list, meaning anyone who traveled there would have to spend 10 days in quarantine on their return to Britain.To circumvent that, it was decided that most of the British-based players would skip the game and head instead to Jamaica. As Whitmore and his squad were preparing to face Mexico, Roofe and a half dozen others were being greeted by representatives of the J.F.F. in Kingston and undergoing their mandatory Covid tests.Kemar Roofe, left, said he and his new Jamaica teammates had troubling meshing in their first game together, a World Cup qualifier against Panama in September.Collin Reid/Associated Press“It was a strange experience,” Roofe said. “The actual squad was in Mexico, so the rest of us flew to Jamaica, met the staff, got a couple of training sessions under our belts. It was good to meet the other players, but it meant when the rest of the team came back, it was a bit rushed.”Roofe and the others introduced themselves, had a single training session — focusing, he said, on “a bit of shape and set pieces” — and then, the next day, went out to play Jamaica’s first home game on a road that, the country hopes, will end in Qatar late next year.“That is the hardest thing in football, having to adapt quickly,” Roofe said. “You’re playing in a team you don’t know, in a style you don’t know, with a manager and players you haven’t met before, and you have to hit the ground running. You can get lucky, and everything just click, but normally it takes a few games.”Ideally, the first of those would have come almost immediately after the Panama defeat, but Roofe and the rest of the squad’s British-based contingent did not have chance: Costa Rica, Jamaica’s next opponent, was also on the red list. Only one player contracted to an English team, in fact — Anthony Grant, of third-tier Swindon Town — started in San José, where Jamaica earned a 1-1 draw.Grant’s case is a little different from many of his new teammates. “I’ve been waiting for the call for years,” he said. “I’d always wanted to play for Jamaica. My grandmother came from there, and went back when she retired. I go every year. I just didn’t really know how you went about it.”Now 34, after more than a decade establishing himself as a steady but unspectacular presence in England’s lower tiers, he had become a little fatalistic about his international hopes. “I’ve had a good career,” he said. “If this came along, I just saw it as a bonus.”He was not mentioned as a potential recruit by Ricketts, but earlier this year he received a message from the J.F.F. through Twitter. His first call-up was the Mexico game. He missed the humiliation against Panama, but impressed against Costa Rica.The divergence in those results has made Jamaica — which entered Thursday’s game against the United States at the bottom of the region’s eight-team table — difficult to assess. There have, so far, been two Jamaicas: the team bolstered by high-profile players from Europe, which as of Thursday had lost its only game to date, and the one without reinforcements, which emerged from its two engagements with a single point but an abundance of credit.How Jamaica’s qualifying campaign unfurls from here — and how much of a challenge it poses to its forthcoming opponents, the United States and Canada — will depend on how easy it is to forge a coherent whole from those twin strands.Aston Villa’s Leon Bailey is among the British-based players who will miss Jamaica’s current round of qualifiers.Chandan Khanna/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThat challenge has been made more complex by the absence of several of Jamaica’s recently-minted internationals from this week’s fixtures: Pinnock, Moore and Daniel Johnson are all missing through injury, as is Leon Bailey, the Aston Villa forward. Grant will sit out the game against the U.S. because of an issue with his visa. And, most notably, Antonio decided against traveling for this round of games after consulting with his club, West Ham.“It’s tricky if you are not getting a clean run at it,” Roofe said. “You might only need one training session to feel like you belong, but it takes longer to jell fully as a team, to know the intricacies of the players you are playing with.”There is only one way to solve that particular issue, of course, the same problem that Roofe identified at the root of the defeat to Panama: time. Both Grant and Roofe said they were confident that the Jamaica team that undertakes these three games will be more cogent than the one that played the previous three. And both feel that the longer World Cup qualifying runs, the more dangerous Jamaica will be. The question, of course, is whether there is enough time to make that count. More

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    Major Obstacle Removed in Saudi Bid for Newcastle

    The end of a piracy dispute involving the Premier League broadcaster beIN Sports could clear the way for a Saudi-led group to buy Newcastle United.LONDON — Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund moved closer to acquiring a Premier League soccer team after the kingdom reached an agreement that resolved the league’s biggest objection to a proposed sale of Newcastle United.A $400 million deal in which Newcastle’s owner, Mike Ashley, would cede control of the team to an ownership group led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund had been reached more than a year ago. But the sale appeared to collapse over a yearslong dispute between Saudi Arabia and beIN Media Group, the Qatar-based television network that owned the Premier League’s broadcast rights in the Middle East.Saudi Arabia had since 2017 blocked beIN from operating inside its borders amid a diplomatic dispute with Qatar, its tiny but hugely wealthy neighbor. BeIN, the Premier League and other major sports property owners later accused Saudi Arabia of hosting and operating a rogue television network that pirated billions of dollars’ worth of content that had been sold to the Qatari broadcaster.The Newcastle sale was drawn into that dispute last year when beIN officials lobbied Premier League officials and the British government not to approve the takeover. The league never had to make a decision: Facing mounting public pressure and citing “an unforeseen prolonged process,” the Saudi group withdrew its bid.In the past year, though, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and a group of their neighbors have rebuilt diplomatic and economic ties by ending a three-year blockade of Qatar and normalizing diplomatic relations.Under Premier League rules, prospective buyers of league teams are required to be vetted in order to meet a so-called fit-and-proper standard required of new owners. The group involved in the Newcastle takeover, which also includes the British businesswoman Amanda Staveley and two billionaire property-investor brothers, walked away after the league spent months deliberating over the sale.At the time, the most problematic issue for the Premier League was the proposed sale of one of its members to an entity that the league itself had accused of harming the business of an important commercial partner. With an agreement to resolve the beIN piracy dispute in place, there is nothing in the Premier League’s rules to block the sale of a team to an entity that is an arm of a nation state. Manchester City, for example, the reigning Premier League champion, is controlled by a member of the ruling family of the United Arab Emirates.Smoothing the pathway to a sale could be a separate legal issue as well. Infuriated by the collapse of his deal to sell Newcastle, Ashley in May filed a lawsuit against the Premier League, seeking millions of dollars in damages and accusing the league of blocking the sale. The Premier League was not known to have ever previously blocked a sale, and with the Saudi group’s withdrawal, it appeared not to have done so with Newcastle, despite Ashley’s claims.A Saudi takeover would be the latest infusion of sovereign Gulf money into European soccer, joining owners not only at City but also Qatar’s ownership of the French champion Paris St.-Germain. The seemingly bottomless resources of those ownership groups have since built teams that are now firmly established as among the best in Europe, and reshaped the modern soccer economy.Newcastle’s long-suffering fans have been hoping to enjoy the same rapid rise ever since news of the Saudi interest first emerged. Supporters of the club have taken to social media by the thousands to champion the sale, signed petitions and even filed legal action against the Premier League to push the takeover forward.Newcastle’s owner, Mike Ashley, second from right. He sued the Premier League last year, accusing it of blocking him from selling it.Peter Powell/EPA, via ShutterstockNewcastle narrowly missed winning the Premier League title twice in the mid-1990s but has not won a major domestic trophy since the 1955 F.A. Cup. The last of the club’s four English titles came in 1927, and the club’s more recent history has been dominated by fan opposition to Ashley, the retail tycoon who acquired the team in 2007.The Saudi-led investors had proposed spending as much as $320 million over five years to turn Newcastle into a competitive force in the Premier League and to invest in infrastructure around its stadium.While the Premier League’s glamour and global reach have long made it a magnet for the world’s superrich — team owners currently include American billionaires, a Russian oligarch, a Chinese holding company and a Gulf royal — the prospect of a Saudi state buyout has led to scrutiny never seen before.When the agreement was first announced, human rights groups and even the widow of the murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi wrote to the Premier League’s chief executive, Richard Masters, to urge him to block the sale because of the involvement of the Public Investment Fund, which is led by Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.That type of criticism is likely to resurface if Saudi Arabia resurrects, and completes, its deal with Ashley.Buying into a major international soccer league with a global reach would follow similar recent forays into the sports industry by Saudi Arabia. The kingdom has for years made plans to develop its economy beyond oil, and sports and entertainment have emerged as key parts of a broad investment strategy. Millions have been spent so far on attracting boxing, golf and motor sports events to Saudi Arabia, but officials are aware that none carry the appeal of soccer.Earlier this year, the head of the country’s soccer federation called on FIFA to study the possibility of increasing the frequency of the men’s World Cup to every two years instead of every four. Saudi Arabia is working behind the scenes to win the rights to host the event. More

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    For Mediapro and French Soccer, a Crisis With Many Fathers

    When Jaume Roures and Mediapro walked away from a billion-dollar TV contract, Ligue 1 teams felt the squeeze. But he says they have a bigger problem.Sitting alone on a long table inside a committee room deep inside France’s national assembly, the Spanish businessman tried to explain why things had gone wrong, so very wrong.The businessman, Jaume Roures, the founder of a sprawling media company, was the latest figure — and perhaps the most significant — to be quizzed by lawmakers looking to understand why professional soccer in France had been brought to the edge of economic catastrophe by the collapse of a broadcasting contract. The deal, hailed as a financial game-changer when it was signed in 2018, was sold as one that would drastically shift the prospects of France’s top teams, moving them closer to their rivals in Spain and Italy, and perhaps even those in England’s Premier League, the world’s dominant domestic championship.Instead, the $1 billion contract with Mediapro, Roures’s Chinese-backed company, collapsed shortly after it had come into force in 2020. Roures suspended payments, calling for a renegotiation in light of the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The league disagreed, and Roures, unable to agree to new terms, pulled the plug and left France, a country where he once sought sanctuary after fighting against the dictatorship in his native Spain.The impact of the failure — for Roures and his company, for club executives and for French soccer — continues to be felt.Clubs that not so long ago were consumed by giddy thoughts of being able to compete with some of Europe’s best are now consumed with darker worries about how they are going to survive. Clubs offloaded young stars and reliable veterans in the summer transfer market where they could, sometimes for fees below market value as the market itself cratered, to cover for gaps on troubled balance sheets. And an auction this year to select Mediapro’s replacement as the league’s broadcaster ended with Amazon agreeing to pay less than a third of what Roures and Mediapro had once promised.At his hearing in September, the bald and bespectacled Roures looked more like a college professor than a media mogul. Looking down at a sheaf of papers laid out in front of him in Room 6242 of the Palais Bourbon, he began by delivering a meandering soliloquy in Spanish-accented French that touched upon several factors for why, in his view, things unraveled so spectacularly. He was still speaking in a monotone when one of the lawmakers, Cédric Roussel, intervened.“You give the impression that it was everybody else’s fault except Mediapro’s,” Roussel, sitting on a raised dais he shared with other members of the committee, said.Many in France remain furious over Roures’s exit, over how he shuttered a new channel set up to broadcast games, over how he could walk away from his commitments while paying only 100 million euros in compensation and over how his businesses have started to rebound from the pandemic while the futures of French clubs remain shrouded in doubt and uncertainty. “We could have a delayed catastrophe,” said Pierre Maes, a consultant and the author of “Le Business des Droits TV du Foot,” a book on the soccer rights market.Midfielder Eduardo Camavinga was one of the best prospects to leave Ligue 1 over the summer.Jean-Francois Monier/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesCamavinga, 18, was one of France’s best young prospects at Rennes. Now he plays for Real Madrid.Gabriel Bouys/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesRoures, in an interview with The New York Times shortly before his audience with lawmakers, doubled down on his belief that his plan would have worked had the pandemic not changed everything. For it to work, though, Mediapro’s new channel, Telefoot, would have needed to attract three million subscribers, far more than the reported 300,000 it had managed to lure by the time of its collapse.Looking back at how things unfolded, Roures says now, it was the French league that erred in not renegotiating with him. He contends that his new offer — about 580 million euros, or about $675 million — was double the amount the league managed to extract from Amazon; that the government’s failure to tackle piracy also contributed to Mediapro’s hasty exit; and that Canal Plus, France’s top pay-TV operator, tried to abuse its dominant position.That stance may explain why he was unable to negotiate his contract with the league in the fall of 2020. Roures, said a team owner who also sits on the French league’s board, “lost all credibility, and no one wanted to hear about him.”A spokesman for the league did not respond to a request for comment.Meanwhile, Roures, who rose to prominence at the turn of the century when he secured domestic rights to the Spanish giants Barcelona and Real Madrid, lamented the price he had paid. “There has been significant reputational damage for us,” he said in the interview from Mediapro’s headquarters in Barcelona, Spain.Asked if any part of his foray into French soccer kept him up at night, he said no: “I sleep like a baby.”While in his interview Roures attempted to provide various explanations for what happened, he declined to point fingers directly at France’s clubs or its league. But he suggested his new view from the sideline offered him a glimpse of the structural problem that he suggested could leave the French league perpetually in the shadow of its rivals: Teams there, Roures said, are far too reliant on player trading to balance their books.“I would say it’s the only major European league where the role of transfers is fundamental, and that’s a major weakness,” he said. The higher television incomes he had promised, he said, would have allowed clubs, at least in theory, to keep their top stars for at least a little longer.Paris St.-Germain, which this summer added Lionel Messi, left, to a lineup that already boasted Kylian Mbappé and Neymar, is the one French club that seems impervious to economic crisis.Franck Fife/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesYet even amid the crisis, and the red ink splashed across balance sheets from Lille to Marseille, the French league has suddenly found itself more marketable than at any other point in its history. That is because of the presence of Paris St.-Germain, a team largely shielded from the financial turmoil that has engulfed its domestic rivals by the wealth of its owner, the government of Qatar, and strengthened by the summer signing of Lionel Messi.But Messi mania is not likely to be as profitable for the league as much as it will be for Amazon, which secured its cut price contract before the Argentine’s arrival.His arrival in France came shortly after that, and other contracts are locked in. “Amazon has got very lucky,” Roures said. “But the international rights for the championship have been sold up until 2025, and I don’t think it’s going to represent any greater income for the French league.” More

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    Cristiano Ronaldo Is Back and So Is Manchester United

    A star returns with two goals in a resounding victory, restoring a sense of confidence to a club accustomed to sure things.MANCHESTER, England — And just like that, everything was exactly as it used to be, as if nothing had ever changed, as if he had never been away. Cristiano Ronaldo had scored, again. Manchester United was winning, again. The fans were exulting, again. He was home, at last, and so were they.For successive generations of Manchester United fans, Old Trafford was a place of certainty. The vast majority drawn here on Saturday afternoon lived through those days: of crushing dominance and Fergie Time, when a ticket came with a guarantee of satisfaction and seasons ended, reliably, with smiles and glory. Those not quite old enough to remember — a cohort a little larger than the club might like — have been reared on the stories, taught that such was the natural order.Over the last eight years, though, that surety has ebbed away. Most of the managers tasked with emulating Alex Ferguson have had moments of promise, however fleeting they proved eventually. Louis van Gaal and José Mourinho delivered trophies, though not the ones the club craves. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the incumbent, has restored spirit, and belief.But none has quite been able to make Old Trafford, Manchester United at Old Trafford, feel indomitable again. Even in the midst of their highs, when things seemed to be going well and momentum was building, there was a palpable fragility, as if only the finest membrane separated triumph from disaster. There were too many missteps, too many stumbles, too many days when Burnley or Crystal Palace or Sheffield United turned up here and won. Too often, the guarantee was broken.The restoration of Ronaldo erases that at a stroke. There has been a distinct giddiness around Manchester United, ever since those whirlwind 24 hours at the end of August — the frantic calls from former teammates; the decisive intervention of Ferguson, his erstwhile manager and ongoing mentor — when he agreed to return.Peter Powell/EPA, via ShutterstockJon Super/Associated PressThere were 22 players on the field, but most fans had come only to see one.Oli Scarff/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe delirium, at times, has carried with it just a hint of gratitude, as if an institution as grand as United somehow counts itself lucky that Ronaldo has agreed to grace it with his presence.The club has devoted its social media feeds almost exclusively to Ronaldo, and has boasted incorrigibly of the sort of numbers he is capable of generating: 700,000 more Twitter mentions than Lionel Messi’s move to Paris St.-Germain, for a start. It hastily redesigned the giant mural that adorns Old Trafford so that he might be at its center. It rearranged its squad — selling Daniel James, asking Edinson Cavani to change his jersey number — so that Ronaldo might wear the No. 7 on his back again.Perhaps conscious that Ronaldo does not like to have his status questioned — one of his former managers at Real Madrid was once censured by the club for suggesting that Ronaldo was merely among the greatest players of all time — anyone and everyone connected to United has been careful to insist that title is objectively and scientifically his, and not merely a matter of opinion.Before Saturday’s game against Newcastle, Solskjaer suggested that Ronaldo would be the one who ensured high standards among the rest of the squad, that there could be no slacking with him present, something that sounds an awful lot like it should really be a key part of the manager’s job description. On Friday night, before his debut, it was Ronaldo who addressed the team.Ronaldo started against Newcastle in his return to Old Trafford. By halftime, he was already on the scoresheet.Phil Noble/ReutersSome of that, of course, can be attributed to the sheer scale of Ronaldo’s stardom, one that he has earned in an era and a culture in which individuals, increasingly, are the brightest lights of all. He has more followers on Instagram than any other person on the planet. He has more followers, in fact, than any single soccer team.He inspires among a portion of his fan base a loyalty that is sincere and ferocious in equal measure: one that not only brooks no debate about his sporting status, but reacts with fury to any mention of the rape accusation that prompted a self-described feminist group to fly a plane over Old Trafford on Saturday urging fans to “believe Kathryn Mayorga,” the woman who leveled the accusation. Prosecutors in Nevada said in 2019 that Ronaldo would not face charges related to the allegation, though a civil case is ongoing.To United, though, Ronaldo is more than just an idol. He is a link to a glorious past, too, one in which the world was organized much more to the club’s liking, when it was the unquestioned force in English soccer and, at times, the pre-eminent club in Europe, rather than one of two superpowers in its own city.And, most of all, he is a reminder of their old certainty. The 36-year-old Ronaldo has built his career on his inevitability. No matter how dire the circumstance or how stacked the odds or how incoherent the logic, Ronaldo would score and his team would win. His raw numbers — the goals scored and the trophies won and the records broken — do more than just illustrate his greatness. They prove his relentlessness.That is why it is futile to try to impose any sort of sporting rationale on his return. It does not matter that he does not really fit into Solskjaer’s tactical scheme or particularly address the flaws that remain in this team.Ronaldo’s return strengthened a roster already bulging with star power and skill, even if he may not be a perfect fit.Phil Noble/ReutersWhat matters is that, after United had struggled for 45 minutes to break down an obdurate Newcastle team, Ronaldo appeared to tap in the opening goal. What matters is that, after Newcastle had tied the score, Ronaldo peeled off into enough space to pick up a pass from Luke Shaw, burst into the box, and rattle a shot straight through Freddie Woodman, the Newcastle goalkeeper. What matters is that Ronaldo, on his own, makes Old Trafford certain again.With only a few minutes left of his debut, with the game settled — Bruno Fernandes and Jesse Lingard had added a little gloss to the score line — and the sun shining, the Stretford End, home to United’s most ardent fans, started to taunt the traveling Newcastle support. “You’ve only come to see Ronaldo,” they sang.An hour or so after the final whistle, when much of the rest of the stadium had emptied, many of them remained in their places. The post-match media interviews were taking place on the side of the field, just in front of them. Nemanja Matic and Fernandes and Shaw and Solskjaer had all come out to face the cameras, but they were still not satisfied. “We want Ronaldo,” the fans chanted, again and again, until at last he appeared, with a shy grin and a coy wave. They were still here to see him, too, the man who had made this feel like home. More

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    Park Ji-Sung, Former Manchester United Player, Condemns Racist Fan Song

    Park Ji-Sung, who played soccer with the team from 2005 to 2012, said a song stereotyping Koreans was “very uncomfortable to me.”Park Ji-Sung, a fan-favorite former player for Manchester United, asked the soccer club’s fans on Sunday to stop singing a song in his honor that includes the racist stereotype that Koreans eat dog meat.As a decorated midfielder for the team from 2005 to 2012, Park earned the adoration of the team’s fans, who bestowed upon him a common honor in the soccer world: a song or chant, often performed in the stadium, with lyrics intended to praise him.But the reference to dog meat was “very uncomfortable to me,” even though he was proud that fans made a song for him and he understood they did not intend to offend or hurt him, he said on an official team podcast released on Sunday.He thought he had to accept it, he said, having come to Britain from South Korea as a young player who was unfamiliar with the culture. But he heard fans sing the song again in August when Hwang Hee-chan, a South Korean, made his debut for the Wolverhampton Wanderers in a game against Manchester United.“I should probably speak out more loud this time,” Park said on the podcast. Even if fans didn’t mean any offense, he said, “I have to educate for the fans to stop that word, which is these days usually a racial insult to the Korean people.”Manchester United said in a statement that it “fully supports Ji-sung’s comments and urges fans to respect his wishes.”References to dog meat have long been used as an attack on Koreans overseas, a stereotype rooted in the country’s longstanding battle over the ongoing, but diminishing, practice of raising dogs for human consumption. Most Koreans do not eat dog meat now; a September 2020 survey by Nielsen found that 84 percent of Koreans either have never eaten it or do not intend to do so in the future.The culture has “changed enormously” over the decades and even more rapidly in recent years, said Lola Webber, a director of campaigns to end dog meat consumption for Humane Society International. Most younger Koreans are appalled by the thought, she said, though some older Koreans still seek out the meat at specialized restaurants.“It is not part of mainstream culture by any means in South Korea,” she said. “It hasn’t been for a very long time, but especially in the last few years, there’s been a very vocal opposition.”Last week, President Moon Jae-in of South Korea suggested banning the consumption of dog meat, recognizing it as an international embarrassment.The world’s top soccer clubs have consistently wrestled with racist behavior by some of their fans. In 2017, Romelu Lukaku, who is Black, asked Manchester United fans to stop singing a song for him that contained a racial stereotype. Some fans refused, following the song with a new one: “We’re Man United, we’ll sing what we want.” More

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    What We Learned From Week 4 of the N.F.L. Season

    Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott is sitting on top of Jerry’s World, the Giants got an instructive win, and Kirk Cousins reverted to form in the Vikings’ loss.Utterly dismantling a Carolina Panthers defense that has dominated the rest of the N.F.L. this season, Dak Prescott looked like a Super Bowl-caliber quarterback that Jerry Jones doubted he ever would be.After all, it was Jones who had originally preferred Paxton Lynch and Connor Cook to Prescott in the 2016 draft. The Dallas Cowboys owner was apoplectic when the Cowboys failed to trade into the first round for Lynch. That weekend, Prescott was little more than a consolation prize, and there were even members of the Cowboys’ front office who didn’t even view Prescott as a draftable player then.Jerry’s World is a wacky place, indeed.Prescott won — instantly — and was forced to wait six years to get paid.After using the franchise tag on Prescott in 2020, Jones finally gave the quarterback a long-term deal before this 2021 season. Now, Prescott appears ready to reward the Super Bowl-starved Jones. The biggest takeaway from Week 4 in the N.F.L.?Dak Prescott is singularly capable of ending the misery in Dallas.Against a Carolina defense that has been suffocating offenses — No. 1 in sacks, No. 1 in quarterback hits, No. 2 in points allowed through three weeks — Dallas’s new $160-million-dollar man coolly completed 14 of 22 passes for 188 yards with four touchdowns, no interceptions and a 130.3 passer rating in a convincing 36-28 win.Granted, the season is young. There’s still time for either Jones or Mike McCarthy to meddle with what’s working, via a bizarre trade in the middle of the season or mind-boggling clock mismanagement. Both are capable of sabotaging a potential champion, as we’ve seen. But one is in the booth and one is on the sideline. It’s Prescott with the ball in his hands every play and Prescott absolutely gives the Cowboys a real shot at ending a 25-year championship drought.With the score tied, 7-7, at the end of the first quarter, on fourth-and-1 near midfield, the Panthers had all of Dallas’s receivers blanketed. Prescott did not hesitate. He saw a crease and took off for 21 yards to keep the drive alive. Three snaps later, he knifed an 18-yard touchdown to tight end Blake Jarwin.Panthers quarterback Sam Darnold ran in for his second rushing touchdown to push Carolina ahead, 14-13, Carolina missed a field-goal attempt on its first drive of the third quarter and Prescott struck again.With Carolina deploying a single-high safety, Prescott was decisive again.Planting his right foot at the Panthers’ 44-yard line, he rainbowed a beauty to Amari Cooper for a touchdown that put Dallas ahead, 20-14. Few defenses in today’s N.F.L. ever cede a one-on-one opportunity along the boundary like that. Prescott read it and pounced on exactly the sort of throw these Cowboys need to consistently make against elite defenses. Further, the Cowboys’ offensive line did an excellent job picking up the exotic blitz.Dallas never looked back, eventually extending its lead to 36-14.Even in a league full of quarterbacks married to the sport, Prescott’s maniacal work ethic stands out as rare. Since 2016, he has drastically improved every aspect of his game: accuracy, athleticism, arm strength. If he was a caretaker as a rookie, he’s indisputably one of the best playmakers in the N.F.L. today.And the one aspect of his game that never wavered? His leadership. By most accounts, Prescott endeared himself to veterans, rookies and team staffers from Day 1. And his first coordinator in Dallas, Scott Linehan, once told me that even with Tony Romo still roaming the backfield, “When Dak was in the building, you knew he was the face of the franchise.”And now he’s grown into a franchise leader who can engage in a shootout with Matthew Stafford, Aaron Rodgers, and Russell Wilson, if needed.In a season-opening loss to Tampa Bay, Prescott threw for 403 yards on 58 attempts. But since then, the Cowboys have struck a more sustainable formula — they’re leaning on the ground game. With both Ezekiel Elliott and Tony Pollard pounding away, Quinn has been able to retool what was a historically bad defense last year. The Cowboys’ offense is complementing its defense and Sunday provided evidence that the Elliott who was also handed big money has returned.Midway through the third quarter, Elliott hesitated at the line, let a hole develop and hit a top-end speed that Dallas hasn’t seen in ages for a 47-yard carry.Jones made it clear in training camp that he would “do anything known to man” to win a Super Bowl. Honestly, that’s been the case since he bought the team — and has usually resulted in bad decisions.Jerry Jones may never have really wanted Prescott, but Prescott is proving that he’s capable of giving Jones what he has always been after.Stephen Lew/USA Today Sports, via ReutersDaniel Jones and Saquon Barkley are a duo to build around.Through the Giants’ first three losses this season, it has been far too easy to pin all blame on the two players handpicked by General Manager Dave Gettleman to bring the team back to glory. But the truth is that quarterback Daniel Jones was playing perfectly fine — not great, but not horrid, either — and running back Saquon Barkley, meanwhile, looked fine in the early stages of testing his rehabbed right anterior cruciate ligament.In Sunday’s 27-21 comeback win over the New Orleans Saints, both Jones and Barkley were unquestionably special.Their numbers were impressive: Jones threw for a career-high 402 yards and Barkley had 126 yards from scrimmage. But the play that completely changed the complexion of this game in the always-deafening Superdome had to have to supplied the organization real hope that the pair could still be the franchise-carrying talents they were expected to be when they were drafted.Down 21-10, with seven minutes to go, Barkley split wide left and burned Saints cornerback Marshon Lattimore for a 54-yard touchdown catch. Barkley noted afterward that he and Jones had discussed the coverage during the game: Seeing that Lattimore was sitting on an out route, Barkley knew he could simply go deep.Jones ran in the 2-point conversion, and a field goal on the Giants’ next drive tied the game at 21. Barkley’s 6-yard touchdown run in overtime ended the game.The Giants are now 1-3 with renewed confidence right in the teeth of their schedule.The Browns finished with 10 hits on Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins, four by Myles Garrett.Jeffrey Becker/USA Today Sports, via ReutersMinnesota’s third loss was its worst.Blame Kirk Cousins. Blame an anemic offensive line.Either way, the Minnesota Vikings’ 14-7 loss at home to the Cleveland Browns was as demoralizing as it gets for an offense that could do no wrong in September. For three weeks, Cousins tore up three subpar secondaries. He didn’t throw an interception, nor did he show a tick of fear in the face of any pass rush. Statistically, he was playing as well as any quarterback in the N.F.L.Against the best defense he’s faced to date, Cousins again turned back into a pumpkin.That has been the rap on Cousins over his career: Against poor defenses, he’ll throw for 300-plus yards and three touchdowns with ease. But add a stingy pass rush and sprinkle on higher stakes, and be ready to be underwhelmed. Heading into this season, Cousins was 7-35 against teams that finished the season with a winning record.The Vikings want to believe he’s the answer. General Manager Rick Spielman and the front office did salary cap gymnastics to sign Cousins to a contract extension heading into the 2020 season.Unfortunately, this is who he’s been since entering the league nine years ago.The Browns finished with 10 hits on Cousins, four from Myles Garrett alone. Still, this was a 4-point game for three quarters and one big play could have busted things open. Just one. That throw deep to Justin Jefferson or Adam Thielen never developed. After Cleveland kicker Chase McLaughlin hit a 53-yard field goal to put the Browns up, 14-7, with six minutes remaining, Cousins’s deep shot the next possession was easily intercepted by cornerback Greedy Williams. The Vikings got the ball back twice more but fell short on each drive.Cousins gets the Detroit Lions next, but that’ll most likely serve as nothing but a couple of pills of Advil with the Vikings then facing six legitimate contenders in a row.And at some point, the Vikings must ask themselves exactly how far Cousins can take them.Jets receiver Corey Davis, left, caught a 53-yard touchdown pass from Zach Wilson on Sunday.Al Bello/Getty ImagesAround the N.F.L.Cardinals 37, Rams 20: It’s time to stop sleeping on the Cardinals, who smacked around a team that seemed borderline invincible to start the season. Kyler Murray didn’t turn the ball over, Arizona rushed for 216 yards and, now, the Cardinals are in total control of the N.F.C. West. The question now is if Coach Kliff Kingsbury can keep this offense humming and avoid a slide similar to last season’s, when Arizona started 5-2 and went 3-6 the rest of the way.Seahawks 28, 49ers 21: You cannot let Russell Wilson hang around. With every opportunity to bury Seattle early, San Francisco’s offense kept short-circuiting. And as he’s done his whole career, Wilson turned it on when needed, scoring 14 of the Seahawks’ 21 second-half points.Packers 27, Steelers 17: Everything for Pittsburgh turned on an offsides penalty before the half. Officials ruled that cornerback Joe Haden jumped before the snap, negating a blocked field goal-attempt that Minkah Fitzpatrick returned for a touchdown that would have given the Steelers a 17-14 lead. Alas, Ben Roethlisberger was forced to play from behind. As we’ve learned thus far in 2021, that’s not a pretty sight.Ravens 23, Broncos 7: Facing the best defense he’s seen this season, Lamar Jackson finished with 316 yards and a touchdown through the air and ran the ball only seven times to hand Denver its first loss of the season.Washington 34, Falcons 30: One of the biggest shocks of this season is how bad the Washington Football Team’s defense has performed. Of course, it didn’t matter against an equally porous Falcons defense. Running back J.D. McKissic supplied the heroics by going airborne at the goal line with 33 seconds left.Bears 24, Lions 14: Whenever hysteria reaches its fever pitch at Halas Hall, it seems like the Bears always have a get-right game on the schedule. The rebuilding Lions were the perfect medicine, and running back David Montgomery (106 yards, two touchdowns) continued to bludgeon linebackers as one of the best players we don’t talk nearly enough about.Bills 40, Texans 0: One day, there will be a “30 for 30” documentary written solely on how the 2021 Texans managed to win a football game. Not this week, though.Colts 27, Dolphins 17: Jonathan Taylor was a force on the ground (103 yards, touchdown), Carson Wentz was efficient enough on those two bad ankles (24-of-32 passing with two touchdowns) for Indianapolis to get a much-needed win after three emotionally taxing losses.Giants 27, Saints 21 (OT): Lost in the Giants madness this season is the fact that Daniel Jones has taken an obvious step forward. He’s not committing the backbreaking mistakes of 2020 and, on Sunday, he started taking more shots downfield, finishing with 402 yards and two touchdowns.Chiefs 42, Eagles 30: Andy Reid surely knows he needs to clean up his rickety defense. Kansas City again gave up yards and points in chunks. But as long as Patrick Mahomes and Tyreek Hill exist, this Chiefs offense can outscore any team in the league. On 12 targets, Hill caught 11 passes for 186 yards and three touchdowns.Jets 27, Titans 24 (OT): OK, so Titans receivers Julio Jones and A.J. Brown were both sidelined. Jets Coach Robert Saleh still got his first N.F.L. win behind a defense that hit Ryan Tannehill 14 times and a rookie quarterback, Zach Wilson, who played with the swagger the team has been missing. More

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    Tom Brady Sets N.F.L. Career Passing Record in Return to New England

    Brady, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ quarterback, returned to New England for the first time since leaving and surpassed Drew Brees’s mark on a first-quarter play.FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady became the N.F.L.’s career passing leader on Sunday in his first game back in New England to face his former team, the Patriots.In the first quarter, Brady completed a 28-yard pass to receiver Mike Evans to reach 80,359 yards and surpass the record of 80,358 yards set last year by Drew Brees, the New Orleans Saints quarterback who retired at the end of the season.The Patriots flashed the record on the stadium video screen and announced it to the crowd, which cheered, but they did not stop the game for a ceremony. Heading into the game, Brady needed just 68 yards to pass Brees. Brady will likely hold onto the record for several years. Among active players, Ben Roethlisberger of the Pittsburgh Steelers has the second-most career yards, but he trails Brady by about 20,000 yards.Brady’s record-setting throw was just one of many highlights in one of the most anticipated regular season games in years, as the Buccaneers sought to improve on their 2-1 record and the Patriots, at 1-2, struggled to get a foothold in their second season without Brady as their leader.Much of the drama before the game focused on the showdown between Brady and Patriots Coach Bill Belichick, and who was responsible for Brady’s departure after two decades, 249 wins and six Super Bowl championships together.One fan bought a billboard not far from the stadium that all but blamed Belichick for Brady’s decision to move to Tampa. Fans tailgating before the game at Gillette Stadium did not begrudge Brady for leaving.“I’m grateful for everything Tom did, but that’s in the past,” said Randy Greeley, a longtime season ticket holder who wore the jersey of Mac Jones, the team’s new quarterback. “My loyalty is to the Pats.”When the Buccaneers took the field to warm up about 50 minutes before kickoff, fans gave Brady a standing ovation and chanted his name. Before the game, the Patriots played a short video tribute on the stadium scoreboard that showed Brady’s exploits in New England. But when Brady took the field for Tampa’s opening drive, he was booed.Brady has been restrained about his relationship with Belichick and his reasons for moving to Tampa. But his father and trainer, interviewed separately, were more blunt, claiming that Belichick did not value Brady’s input and felt, at 44, that his best days were over.When he was in New England, Brady had said he wanted to play until he was 45. Tampa gave him a two-year contract. Having led the Buccaneers to a Super Bowl title last season, and already off to a fast start this year, Brady has mused about potentially playing until he is 50.Local television stations and national networks like NBC’s “Today” show broadcast from the stadium parking lot days before the game, while one website listed the top 10 sports homecomings in Boston area history before Brady’s return.Brady’s fans greeted the quarterback at the airport in Providence, R.I., when the Buccaneers’ team plane arrived on Saturday. The team now includes cornerback Richard Sherman, the free agent former 49ers corner whom Brady recruited to the Buccaneers despite being mired in legal trouble stemming from an arrest this summer and five misdemeanor charges, including two for domestic violence. The Buccaneers were without tight end Rob Gronkowski, another former Patriots player, who has a rib injury. More

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    Saints Finally Return Home, to a City That Needed Them

    The team evacuated New Orleans on Aug. 28, the day before Hurricane Ida made landfall, and returned to play its first true home game of the season, a 27-21 loss to the Giants.NEW ORLEANS — The locals streamed down Poydras Street toward the Superdome, walking past tree limbs, over downed poles and through intersections where lights blinked only red. Once they were inside together, they released what the jazz trumpeter Kermit Ruffins last week called the most beautiful sound in the world.“Like Mardi Gras and second line and church altogether,” Ruffins said.For nearly two years, that din had been languishing in the larynxes of Saints fans like Danaty Moses, silenced first by a viral scourge and then Hurricane Ida, which ravaged the region, displaced thousands of Louisianans and sent the team to Texas. As soon as the Saints announced their return, having played what amounted to three consecutive road games, Moses spent nearly $700 on eight tickets, and she delighted on Sunday in losing her voice while cheering from Section 635.“They are the glue that keeps the city and state together,” Moses, of Bogalusa, La., said of the Saints. “Day to day here is rough. You wake up like: ‘OK, what’s my next move? What’s my next step?’ That’s six days out of the week and it’s strenuous and it’s bothersome. But that mental break that you have with the Saints is exactly what you need in order to pull through, to get to the next week.”The Saints provided a respite from contractors and insurance adjusters, but the week will still dawn with gloom. No moments from Sunday’s game, a 27-21 overtime loss to the Giants, will be celebrated by a statue outside the Superdome, as was erected as a homage after the Saints’ first game in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The man immortalized for blocking a punt that night 15 years ago, Steve Gleason, watched his former team allow the final 17 points, a spree punctuated by Giants running back Saquon Barkley’s 6-yard score five minutes into overtime.Through four weeks, the Saints (2-2) have alternated wins and losses, as if co-opting the city’s chaotic energy. They evacuated on Aug. 28, the day before Ida made landfall and the day after they were ordered to gather family, pets and essential belongings for an absence of indeterminate length. From afar, they checked in on friends and neighbors, tracked the destruction on social media and reminded themselves of who — and what — they were playing for.“I wouldn’t call it pressure, but we feel that responsibility,” defensive end Cameron Jordan, who has been with the Saints since 2011, said in an interview last week. “And we take pride in that.”After defeating New England last week, players rushed into the locker room chanting, “We’re going home,” and when their flight landed and a voice from the cockpit welcomed them back, the cabin erupted.Deonte Harris of the Saints rushed as Lorenzo Carter and Logan Ryan of the Giants defended.Jonathan Bachman/Getty ImagesPlayers returned to rotten groceries and moldy walls and withered plants. The storm uprooted Jordan’s fence and breached Deonte Harris’s roof. It ruined the steaks in Andrew Dowell’s freezer and swamped Pete Werner’s apartment with an unidentifiable stench. Four hours of scrubbing and some lavender-scented candles later, it was gone.The damage elsewhere transcended mere inconvenience. To Ruffins, Ida evoked Katrina’s little niece, coming back to check on everyone. High winds and floods pummeled areas south and west of New Orleans, like the town of Lafitte, where in the immediate aftermath Owen Belknap, a volunteer with Cajun Navy Relief, patrolled streets in a boat. Belknap grew up with a photo from that first game at the Superdome after Katrina hanging on a wall, and it followed his family across state lines, from home to home, at once a totem and a reminder.“No matter what storm hits us, we’re still going to be a community that cares about and loves one another and watches Saints together,” Belknap, 22, a student at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, said by phone on Saturday. “That tradition is comforting and reassuring. It tells people that things, as bad as they might seem, are going to be OK.”Not too long ago, had one typed “New Orleans Saints” into Google Maps, this is what would have spouted forth: “Religious institution.” The zeal for them is practically ecumenical, with cherished rhythms that endure even after natural disasters. Over FaceTime last week, Moses, 37, shared how after one of her close friends sustained serious damage to her home in Edgard — “everything was completely underwater” — she remarked how she had nowhere to watch the Saints.“No internet, no home, no cars, and people still were looking for a way to watch the Saints,” Moses said. “Everybody that could just opened their homes.”It had been 21 months since the Saints last played before a full Superdome crowd, when Minnesota ousted them from the postseason in January 2020. Drew Brees led New Orleans then, but no longer, succeeded by another quarterback who embraces his role in helping the city recover from devastation. Jameis Winston, a son of the Gulf, promised at his first news conference after being named the team’s starter to represent fans well, and he has donated water and thousands of dollars to aid rebuilding efforts.The Saints play in a stadium that is Louisiana’s most important building, a cultural touchstone that on home football Sundays feels less like a sporting venue than a spiritual revival. The Superdome doubled as a shelter during Katrina and has come to symbolize so many elements of the human condition: suffering, despair, rebirth. Its roof caught fire on Sept. 21 — “At this point, you’re thinking, like, ‘What else?’” Jordan said — and as Ruffins processed the absurdity of it all, he recalled a favorite saying: Only in New Orleans.Perched atop a stool one morning last week at Kermit’s Tremé Mother-in-Law Lounge, where after Ida he passed out free red beans and rice for almost a week, Ruffins mentioned how his parents used to wear paper bags on their heads at Tulane Stadium. His father, Lloyd, whom he said oversaw the cleaning crew at the Superdome when it opened in 1975, allowed him to run onto the Superdome turf, years before he would play “The Star-Spangled Banner.” After Katrina, his first purchase was a big-screen television, lest he miss his Saints.“It’s a day we don’t have to adult,” Ruffins said.Three weeks ago, when the Saints played their home opener not in New Orleans but at a stadium in Jacksonville, Fla., dominated by Packers fans, Allen Keller watched at a bar near the Superdome, and downtown felt empty, eerie and quiet. Knowing it wouldn’t feel that way on Sunday, Keller barely slept Saturday night.“This is a chance for us to reconnect,” Keller, 39, of Prairieville, La., said. He added: “For a few hours you don’t have to worry about the insurance claims or personal issues or anything. When the Saints are playing, that’s the only thing on your mind.”Keller planned to spend the day tailgating from his spot in a lot at Perdido and South Rampart. He did not have tickets, and he did not need them. Just being there was enough. More