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    Joel Embiid Wants the African Diaspora to Flourish Onscreen

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    “I’ve always been passionate about storytelling,” said the N.B.A. star, whose production studio will create a documentary about Memphis Depay’s success on the Dutch soccer team.Joel Embiid knew as early as his rookie season in the National Basketball Association that he eventually wanted to enter the media industry.Seven years later, he is now at the pinnacle of the sport — the league’s reigning most valuable player, Embiid set a Philadelphia 76ers record last week by scoring 70 points in a game — and is ready to take on that new challenge.Embiid, 29, who moved from Cameroon to the United States as a teenager, has created a production studio, Miniature Géant, that he hopes will amplify the culture of his home continent. The studio intends to profile athletes and entertainment figures of African descent, with an initial goal of selling content to streaming services.“We’re dabbling in a lot of different spaces, but the common denominator is Africa and the joys and the quest of African people and the African diaspora,” said Sarah Kazadi-Ndoye, who is the studio’s lead creative executive and was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo.Miniature Géant’s first documentary will explore themes of race and identity as it follows Memphis Depay, a Dutch soccer player who was born to a white mother from the Netherlands and a Ghanaian father. The studio is also having exploratory conversations with the Cameroonian mixed martial arts fighter Francis Ngannou, a former Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight champion. In addition to coverage of athletes, the studio hopes to also explore the entertainment world.Embiid is one of several athletes to enter the world of content creation. The basketball player Giannis Antetokounmpo recently announced the start of a production company with the ESPN analyst Jay Williams. The retired National Football League quarterbacks Tom Brady and Peyton Manning created similar organizations and have released projects with ESPN and Netflix.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Out of Sight, Out of Mind No More

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      The Africa Cup of Nations and the Asian Cup, once seen as poorly timed intrusions by European soccer, may finally be getting the respect they deserve.At last, we appear to be getting somewhere. Late on New Year’s Day, Mohamed Salah’s beaming face appeared on British television screens. Salah always has the slightly ruffled appearance of a man who has not slept desperately well, but he was in distinctly good cheer.His Liverpool team had just dismantled Newcastle United to move three points clear at the top of the Premier League. He had played wonderfully: scoring two goals, creating one and missing a penalty so as to foster the illusion of drama in what was otherwise a hopelessly one-sided sporting contest.There was, though, a bittersweet tinge to the jubilation. That was the last Liverpool will see of Salah — in the flesh, at least — for several weeks. Immediately after the game, he was scheduled to travel to Egypt’s imaginatively-titled New Administrative Capital, just outside Cairo, to join his national team’s preparations for the Africa Cup of Nations, which begins next weekend. He does not plan to return to Liverpool until the middle of February.It is natural, of course, that the focus in Britain — and for those who follow the Premier League in general and Liverpool in particular — should be on how Salah’s absence might affect an unusually tense title race. (Liverpool will be fine, apparently. “Anyone can play where I play,” Salah said, modestly. “Anyone can do what I am doing,” he added, pushing his luck a bit.)In recent years, though, an awareness has seeped in that this approach might be considered just a little parochial.Achraf Hakimi anchors a Morocco team that reached the 2022 World Cup semifinals.Borja Sanchez-Trillo/EPA, via ShutterstockEurope tends to command soccer’s attention, dominating its discourse and setting the parameters of what is considered worthy of attention or praise. Europe, after all, is home to the world’s biggest clubs and the world’s strongest leagues and the world’s best players. Europe is, by pretty much any metric, the main event.The effect of this, of course, is the diminution of anything and everything that does not matter to Europe. The Cup of Nations is not the only example of that phenomenon, but it is likely the best. Every two years or so, it is presented as little more than a hindrance, as though it has been invented purely to test the squad depth of the major teams of the Premier League.There has long been a consistent undercurrent of conversation suggesting that, for the African stars invited to participate, it is somehow optional, in a way that the European Championship and Copa América are most certainly not.Recent years have brought a welcome corrective to that logic. There has, gradually, been a dawning realization that it is not really fair to frame the Cup of Nations purely in relation to its impact on the Premier League. Europeans seem to have accepted that it is not really for them to decide whether players ought to want to play in it, or when it might be held. At times, it has even been possible to believe we are on the cusp of a more profound discovery: that just because something does not matter to you does not mean it does not matter.Guinea forward Serhou Guirassy is the Bundesliga’s second-leading scorer.Thomas Kienzle/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThat process has, admittedly, been a slow one. It is, certainly, hard to imagine that a German player might be asked to explain the importance of the European Championship, or a Brazilian invited to expound on the significance of the Copa América in the way that Salah was asked to elucidate why he wanted to bother going to the Ivory Coast this month, but still: slow progress is progress nonetheless.And yet soccer still cannot quite shake its innate Eurocentrism. There is, this year, another tournament running concurrently with the Cup of Nations. This week, 24 national teams from across Asia have gathered in Qatar — where they had some stadiums lying idle, not sure why — for the Asian Cup.This is, it goes without saying, a tournament just as significant as the Cup of Nations, and by extension the Copa América and the European Championship. It is, the South American equivalent aside, the oldest continental competition in soccer, predating the European Championship by a few years. It will attract hundreds of millions of viewers and, with an admittedly unlikely combination of results, might even capture the hearts and minds of the two most populous nations on the planet.And yet, even compared to the Cup of Nations, the Asian Cup is largely ignored. It is not even afforded the backhanded compliment of being presented as a nuisance. It is instead overlooked almost entirely.Don’t tell host Qatar that the Asian Cup is an afterthought.Karim Jaafar/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThat might, in part, be down to its relative rarity. Though it is typically played at the same time of year as the Africa Cup of Nations — in January and February, in the middle of the European season — the Asian Cup only happens once every four years. It does not intrude quite so frequently on the European consciousness as the biennial Cup of Nations.The most significant reason, though, is its impact on Europe. Salah is hardly an exception when it comes to players leaving Europe’s major teams and traveling to Africa this month. Of the 24 teams in the Cup of Nations, only five — South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, Mauritania and Namibia — have not named any players drawn from Europe’s five major leagues. Many of the major contenders will base their campaigns on familiar faces.The contrast with Asia is stark. Only a couple dozen of the players gathering in Qatar have had to step away from teams in Europe’s most illustrious domestic leagues. Jordan has one, Iran two and South Korea six. Japan alone could name a full team drawn from the game’s highest-profile leagues. (There are larger contingents from the Dutch Eredivisie, the Belgian Pro League and, thanks largely to Celtic, the Scottish Premier League.)Son Heung-min of South Korea is the Asian Cup’s biggest star. But he’s not its only one.Tingshu Wang/ReutersEurope, in other words, is still afforded — or still assumes — the privilege of ordaining what is important and what is not. Perhaps it is not because attitudes have shifted that the Cup of Nations is tolerated; perhaps, instead, it is tolerated because it feels more familiar to Europeans. The teams, after all, are stuffed with players that Europeans recognize, we appreciate, we miss. The tastemakers have not changed to accommodate it. It has changed to better suit the tastemakers.There is, needless to say, a sadness here. There is a wonder in the very unfamiliarity of players and teams, one that has largely been lost in soccer’s digital age. There was a point when heterogeneity was one of the sport’s great pleasures, rather than a tendency that belongs to a distant past.The Asian Cup, with its squads drawn from distant and disparate leagues, has that in abundance. Its difference should be its strength. It would, certainly, be worth watching. CBS Sports has picked up the rights in the United States. In Britain, unfortunately, nobody has deigned to do so.Test of PatienceEddie Howe’s Newcastle has hit a bump in the road.Lee Smith/Action Images, via ReutersIn the two years or so since it acquired Newcastle United, Saudi Arabia — sorry, sorry, the Public Investment Fund, which is absolutely not the Saudi state, and you really must not think it is — has been substantially more restrained than might have been expected.Considerable sums of money have gone into transforming the Newcastle squad, but even the harshest critic of the project would struggle to deny it has been spent shrewdly. Newcastle’s backers have resisted the temptation to chase a quick fix. If anything — thanks, in part, to the Premier League’s financial rules — the club’s growth has almost been cautious.That has not been an issue while everything was working, while the club seemed to be ahead of schedule. It becomes more complex when there is a sense that things have stalled. Newcastle has won only three of its last 13 games. Eddie Howe has now overseen three defeats in a row. It is out of the Champions League. And even the club’s injury troubles do not excuse conceding 34 shots to Liverpool on New Year’s Day.Howe’s work this far should, really, insure him against a threat of firing during the first real downturn of his tenure. He has, as the saying goes, credit in the bank. In ordinary circumstances, doubtless that would be the case.But Newcastle’s is not an ordinary circumstance. It is one bound up with whatever image of itself its primary investor wants to project. Until now, its new ownership has been happy to come across as responsible, patient and understanding. That was easy, when times were good. Now they are not, and it is hard to know whether Saudi Arabia really is happy to take the rough with the smooth, whether it is ready to tolerate underachievement, whether it is really prepared to wait.User-Generated ContentThe people’s choice: Jan Oblak.Pau Barrena/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThankfully, the results are unanimous. The votes have been cast, the suggestions made, the forms processed, the information tabulated, the data crunched and the conclusions extracted and now we can say with some certainty that, if FIFA were to permit a team drawn from those nations outside the top 48 of its rankings to enter the expanded 2026 World Cup, Jan Oblak would be in goal.Pretty much everyone (and there were several dozen of you) who submitted an entry to the festive challenge set by Joe Rizzotti and Dolores Diaz-Vides — they are not married, Dolores wrote to inform me; their sending of joint emails is purely platonic — decided Oblak, Atlético Madrid’s redoubtable Slovene, should be in goal.Elsewhere, the picture was a little more muddied. Central defense was not a problem: There were nominations for Milan Skriniar (Slovakia), Stefan Savic (Montenegro), Evan Ndicka (Ivory Coast) and Edmond Tapsoba (Burkina Faso), among many others. Central midfield, thanks to the likes of Mohammed Kudus (Ghana), Henrikh Mkhitaryan (Armenia) and Yves Bissouma (Mali), was well stocked, too.In attack, the options are fewer in quantity but possibly higher in quality: Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (Georgia) and Leon Bailey (Jamaica) on the wings, perhaps, supplying Edin Dzeko (Bosnia and Herzegovina) or Sébastian Haller (Ivory Coast)? Or maybe a more fluid trident of Miguel Almiron (Paraguay), Iñaki Williams (Ghana) and Benjamin Sesko (Slovenia) would be more modern?At fullback, though, there is a hitch. A hitch sufficiently significant that you could feasibly build a whole theory around it: that the mark of an elite soccer nation is, it would seem, its ability to produce left and right backs. Ivory Coast’s Serge Aurier, currently of Nottingham Forest, and Bosnia’s Sead Kolasinac, now with Atalanta, were the best a slim field could offer.But that does not invalidate the purpose of the exercise. International soccer is always about compromise; it is inevitable, with resources limited by borders and birthrates, that teams should have flaws. It is, in many ways, what makes it special. And there is enough strength elsewhere to generate a side that could likely reach the quarterfinals in 2026. Joe and Dolores, consider me converted. Let’s get a world team to North America. More

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      A Continental Competition, All in One Neighborhood

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

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      Ceuta F.C.: A European Team That Calls Africa Home

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      CEUTA, Spain — From the top of Alfonso Murube Stadium, you can see the peninsula of Ceuta stretching out into the Mediterranean Sea. Out on the water, ferries shuttle back and forth across the narrow Strait of Gibraltar to the coastline of southern Spain, just 30 short minutes away. Walk half an hour in the opposite direction and you get a very different view: two 20-foot fences topped with razor wire that mark the border with Morocco.Ceuta, a sliver of land seven square miles in size, hangs on to the edge of Africa, as thin as a toenail. But it is not part of Africa, not officially. This is Spanish soil. Ceuta and the nearby city of Melilla are the only two cities on the African mainland that are officially part of Europe, a quirk of political geography that also makes them the only land borders between Africa and the European Union. That status is why, every year, thousands of migrants approach Ceuta’s walls and wire fences, and try to scale them or swim around them, in hopes of getting one step closer to Europe itself. Hundreds have died trying.Ceuta’s location, though, is not the only feature that sets it apart. It is a rarity for Spain, too, as a city where the Muslim and Christian populations are of similar size. It has significant Jewish and Hindu minorities. Darija, an Arabic dialect, is widely spoken among its 85,000 residents, and depending on the time of day both the call to prayer and church bells can be heard in the quiet, narrow streets around Murube Stadium.Fences mark the border between Ceuta — and Europe — and Morocco.A.D. Ceuta, the club, has its roots in what is now a Moroccan city, Tétouan.The stands at A.D. Ceuta reflect the diversity of the place the club represents.Except on match days, that is, when those sounds give way to the clamor of the drums, songs and chants of the fans of Agrupación Deportiva Ceuta F.C.A.D. Ceuta is one of only two European soccer teams based in Africa, a distinction that is both a point of civic pride and a unifying force in this complex cultural intersection. “Ceuta is a city where four cultures coexist,” said Adrian Suarez, a leader of Ceuta’s loudest ultra group, Grada Sur. His group includes an equal number of Christians and Muslims, he said before a recent match in Spain’s third tier against Fuenlabrada, from Madrid. But in the bleachers, “No one is more than anyone else, nor anyone less than anyone else.”Ceuta’s team embraces that diversity, playing in jerseys bearing a small row of religious symbols on the chest: the Christian cross, the Islamic crescent, Hinduism’s Om symbol and the Star of David.“Our city only appears in the news for bad things,” said Javier Moreno, a lawyer for the club. “For us to be here is not only football. This club belongs to the people of Ceuta, and is also the image of Ceuta in Spain.”A Legacy ClubAt the start of the 20th century Spain held a long slice of North Africa’s coastline, known then as the Spanish protectorate of Morocco. The territory included Ceuta, known as Sebtah in Arabic, but also Tétouan, a larger port city to its south, and Melilla.When Morocco declared independence from France in 1956, Spain relinquished its protectorate. But it kept Ceuta and Melilla, withdrawing into two, tiny toeholds on the continent. The Spanish administrators of the protectorate’s most successful soccer club decided to hold on to that, too.That team, Atlético de Tetuán, remains the only team from mainland Africa to play in La Liga, Spain’s top division. But in 1956 its officials took much of its history and archive to Ceuta, where the team merged with a local club. A.D. Ceuta F.C. is what remains after years of financial crises, mergers and name changes. For the fans and the city it remains Atlético de Tetuán’s historical heir, even if the Spanish authorities consider it an entirely new club.Boys wearing the uniforms of Moghreb Athlétic de Tétouan, the Moroccan club that arose when Spanish administrators moved the team that became A.D. Ceuta to Spanish territory. More

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      Morocco Win in World Cup Brings Celebration Across Africa and Middle East

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      Arabs and Africans around the world joined in an outpouring of pride and joy over Morocco’s World Cup success after it defeated Spain.Just after Achraf Hakimi dinked a penalty kick into the net in Education City Stadium in Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday evening, capping a major upset that made Morocco the first majority Arab team to qualify for a World Cup quarterfinal, a Moroccan journalist in the press box burst into tears.A Moroccan security guard at the stadium hid his face in his hands. A roar went up in Casablanca, in Cairo, in Gaza City, in Algiers, in Riyadh, in Sana, in Paris, in Turin, and even in Madrid, the capital of the country that was supposed to win not only this match, but maybe even the whole tournament.But it was Morocco that had won instead, sending millions of Moroccans at home and in the global diaspora into a lung-emptying, horn-tooting, flag-waving frenzy. Their joyful yells were amplified by those of Arabs across the Middle East and beyond, whose Pan-Arab solidarity, if sometimes absent or muted when it comes to political matters, has thrived on a series of shock wins by Middle Eastern teams this tournament.Thousands of Moroccans gathered in the capital, Rabat, to celebrate their country’s win over Spain in a World Cup match in Qatar on Tuesday.Mosa’Ab Elshamy/Associated PressFans celebrating in Rabat on Tuesday.Jalal Morchidi/EPA, via ShutterstockMorocco fans were also celebrating on the Champs-Élysées in Paris.Yoan Valat/EPA, via ShutterstockOn Wednesday morning, having partied through the night, Moroccans in Casablanca were still congratulating one another.“Congratulations to us,” they greeted each other, smiling. “Dima Maghreb!” — “Always Morocco,” the rallying cry of Morocco fans. Their Parliament opened its Wednesday session with a rendition of the national anthem.“My joy is indescribable,” said Zoubida Boutaleb, 40, a communications professional in Casablanca and longtime soccer fan. “I’m still on cloud nine!”For certain fans, the Disney-prince-like looks of Yassine “Bono” Bounou, the Moroccan goalkeeper who saved three Spanish penalty kicks at Tuesday’s match, may have contributed to the euphoria.A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

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      Amid Coups and Covid, Africa Focuses on What’s Most Important: Soccer

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

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      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