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      My Rick Pitino Story

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      A basketball coach’s persistence has a newly retired journalist reminiscing about newsgathering in a different era.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.Of all the gym joints in all the towns in all the world, he walks into mine.That’s how I felt last spring, when I learned that Rick Pitino had become the head basketball coach at St. John’s University in Queens, N.Y., which happens to be my alma mater. The mere thought of Mr. Pitino, 70 years old and still strolling the sidelines as I watch basketball at home, newly retired, took me back to the most bizarre moment of my 38-year career at The New York Times.I’m referring to the first time Mr. Pitino and I crossed paths, in May of 1989, under the most unusual circumstances: at the beginning of a new day (2:30 a.m.) and the end of a long, winding driveway. A colleague and I could see Mr. Pitino through a large bay window. Clad in a bright red sweater, he was chatting on the phone, sitting on a sofa in what appeared to be his living room. The sound of car doors slamming behind us was enough to make Mr. Pitino whip his head around and rush out his front door to confront us.“Who the hell are you? What the hell are you doing here?” I remember him asking.To be honest, we were sort of wondering the same thing ourselves. Several hours earlier, I had just finished a long clerical shift in the Sports department at The Times when Bill Brink, the weekend editor, summoned me and a colleague to his desk.It was late, and Bill told us he had just been on the phone with Sam Goldaper, our venerable basketball writer, who told him that Mr. Pitino, then the head coach of the New York Knicks, was about to resign and return to his first love, college basketball. It was rumored that Mr. Pitino had accepted a job offer from the fabled University of Kentucky, where he had always felt that the blue grass was greener.Sam didn’t have Mr. Pitino’s phone number, but had given the Sports desk the address of Mr. Pitino’s home in Mount Kisco, N.Y., in the upper reaches of the Westchester County suburbs. Neither of us had a vehicle, so Bill wrote out a transportation slip, which allowed us to use one of the cars The Times then kept for reporters in the parking lot next door.Before we left, Bill told us to try and get a quote from Mr. Pitino. Even if he wasn’t home, the reader would still know that The Times had tried to contact him.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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mário Zagallo, Longtime Fixture of Brazilian Soccer, Dies at 92

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      The first person to win the World Cup as a player and a coach, he was a link to decades of Brazil’s success and failure on the sport’s biggest stage. Mário Zagallo, who as both a player and coach helped lead Brazil to four World Cup soccer championships, becoming a national hero and one of only three people to lift the tournament’s trophy in both roles, died on Friday in Rio de Janeiro. He was 92.His death was confirmed by his family on his social media channels. Barra D’Or Hospital in Rio de Janeiro, where he had been a patient several times in recent months, said the cause was multiple organ failure.An attack-minded wing as a player and a tactically minded coach known as “the Professor,” Zagallo was part of the Brazil teams that won consecutive World Cup championships in 1958 and 1962 and the head coach of Brazil’s 1970 champions.His 1970 triumph made Zagallo the first person to win the World Cup as both a player and a coach, a feat that has since been matched only by Franz Beckenbauer of Germany and Didier Deschamps of France. But it may have been that team’s style of play as much as its success that cemented a recurring role for Zagallo in Brazilian soccer history.Led by stars like his former teammate Pelé, Jairzinho and Carlos Alberto, Brazil’s 1970 squad is widely considered one of the best soccer teams ever assembled. It was forged in crisis after his popular predecessor fell out with the country’s military government: Zagallo was appointed as head coach less than two months before the tournament’s opening game. Zagallo found himself having to act as the coach of many players who had only recently been his teammates.“It was easy to command, because the players saw and felt that I had the strength of personality to make the changes that I thought were necessary,” Zagallo recalled in a 2011 interview with The Blizzard, a quarterly soccer magazine. “I imposed myself — and this kind of leadership in front of the group is fundamental, even if you’ve participated in this group before as a player.”The team adjusted to Zagallo’s tactical alterations and then danced and shimmied its way into the hearts and minds of fans not only in Brazil but around the globe.Zagallo, second from left, shooting at England’s goal during a World Cup quarterfinals match in Chile in 1962. Brazil won the championship that year.Associated PressUnder Zagallo’s direction, in the first World Cup telecast around the world in color, Brazil’s team, clad in its famed canary-yellow jerseys, refined soccer to high art in its six straight victories in Mexico. Sweeping through the tournament with a highlight reel of memorable goals, the team showcased the fluid, elegant attacking style known as “o jogo bonito” (“the beautiful game”), which became Brazil’s calling card around the world.Returning as head coach, Zagallo led Brazil to a fourth-place finish in 1974. Two decades later, back on the national team’s bench as an assistant to Carlos Alberto Parreira, he helped Brazil collect its fourth championship with a victory over Italy in the 1994 final in Pasadena, Calif.Parreira’s team, a grinding and more results-oriented squad, was less beloved than previous editions of the Seleção, as Brazil’s national team is known. But it was celebrated for delivering the prize the country covets above all others.Four years after that, with Zagallo back in the top job and stars like Ronaldo leading yet another potent attack, Brazil returned to the World Cup final. But its run had come amid criticism from a nation of amateur coaches, who feared that, despite his ties to Brazil’s most mythical teams, Zagallo had surrendered to his pragmatic side.He did little to calm purists when he declared that a victorious end justified any means. “I would rather win playing ugly football than lose playing attractive football,” he said. Brazil, alas, did not: A heavy favorite, it was stunned by host France in the final.In 2002, when the team traveled to South Korea and Japan to pick up the record fifth title that had eluded it in France, Zagallo was serving as a special adviser to the coaching staff of Luiz Felipe Scolari.Zagallo, right, with his former teammate Pelé after his appointment as Brazil’s coach in 1970. They were on Brazil’s World Cup championship teams in 1958 and 1962.Associated PressThat was his last personal connection with a tournament, and a title, that by that point had defined his life for more than a half century.A pivotal moment of his life occurred in 1950, when, as a teenage soldier providing security, Zagallo had watched as Brazil was stunned by Uruguay in the final before a crowd of about 200,000 at the Maracanã stadium in Rio de Janeiro. That defeat, in Brazil’s first trip to the final, was a bitter blow to the nation, and he was among the tens of millions of Brazilians who shed tears of disappointment. “That day has never left my mind,” Zagallo told the BBC in 2013. He went even further speaking to the journalist Andrés Cantor for the book “Goooal: A Celebration Of Soccer” (1996). “From that moment on,” Zagallo recalled about the 1950 World Cup, “I have only soccer memories.”Eight years later, as a player on the national team, he helped rewrite the ending. In the final in Sweden alongside a teenage Pelé, Zagallo scored a goal in a 5-2 victory that delivered Brazil’s first world title. Four years later, he was on the team again when Brazil repeated the feat in Chile.Mário Jorge Lobo Zagallo was born on Aug. 9, 1931, in Atalaia, a city in the eastern Brazilian state of Alagoas. His father, Haroldo Cardoso Zagallo, was a textile executive. His mother, Maria Antonieta Lobo Zagallo, was part of a family that owned a fabric factory. Mário Zagallo said his father had hoped he would become an accountant and work in the family business. Instead, he devoted his life to soccer, spending his professional playing career with two Rio clubs, making his debut with Flamengo in 1951 and retiring from Botafogo in 1965.He married Alcina de Castro, a teacher, in 1955. They had four children: Maria Emilia, Paulo Jorge, Maria Cristina and Mario Cesar. Zagallo’s wife died in 2012. His survivors include his children and several grandchildren.Since the death of Pelé in 2022, Zagallo had been the last surviving member of the first Brazil squad to win the World Cup. He would go on to burnish his legacy in five decades as a coach, assistant and adviser to generations of Brazilian teams.He would eventually lead more than a half-dozen clubs in his native Brazil, as well as the national teams of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. But he was never far from his country, serving four distinct tenures as Brazil’s head coach. And even when he did not hold the post, he remained a fixture, called upon regularly — in success and failure and particularly in times of trouble — as a sage and distinguished link to its greatest teams, and its greatest triumphs.Fans pay tribute to Zagallo in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday.Lucas Figueiredo/Getty ImagesAlex Traub and Tariq Panja contributed reporting. More

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      Spanish Soccer Star Testifies About Unwanted Kiss

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      Jennifer Hermoso, who was kissed on the mouth by Spain’s former soccer boss, Luis Rubiales, gave evidence at a hearing to determine whether Mr. Rubiales will be charged.Jennifer Hermoso, the Spanish soccer star who received an unsolicited kiss on the mouth after her team won the World Cup, gave evidence in Spain’s National Court Tuesday morning against Luis Rubiales, the former Spanish former soccer boss who is being investigated over allegations of sexual assault and coercion in connection with the episode.Ms. Hermoso’s testimony concludes the high-profile criminal inquiry of Mr. Rubiales, which was opened days after the World Cup, which took place in Sydney, Australia, in August.A judge, Francisco de Jorge, must now decide whether to charge Mr. Rubiales or to close the case. If Judge de Jorge concludes there is evidence of wrongdoing, Mr. Rubiales will face trial on a sexual assault charge — punishable with between one and four years in prison. Mr. Rubiales and three executives at the soccer federation, including the former coach, Jorge Vilda, may also face charges of coercion after they were accused of exerting pressure on Ms. Hermoso to show support for Mr. Rubiales.Mr. Rubiales has denied the charges, saying that it was nothing more than a “peck.”On Tuesday morning, Ms. Hermoso was the last in a string of Spanish sporting celebrities to give evidence. The list of witnesses summoned by Judge de Jorge reads like the “Who’s Who” of Spanish soccer, with stars such as Alexia Putellas, the current Best FIFA Women’s Player; Misa Rodríguez, the goalkeeper for Real Madrid; and Irene Paredes, Barcelona’s star defender. Several football association executives have also given their versions of events, as have Mr. Vilda, Ms. Hermoso’s brother and Mr. Rubiales himself.Ms. Hermoso spoke to the press outside Spain’s National Court after her appearance. “All is in the hands of justice,” she said, seemingly at ease.What exactly she or the other witnesses disclosed to Judge de Jorge has not been made public officially as the hearings have been held behind closed doors. But shortly after Ms. Hermoso left court this morning, the Spanish prosecutor’s office issued a statement confirming that she had testified that “the kiss was unexpected and at no point consented.”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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      Megan Rapinoe, Emma Hayes and a Women’s Soccer Crossroads

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      Rapinoe, who helped define U.S. soccer for a decade, is retiring after this week’s N.W.S.L. final. Hayes, the Chelsea coach, will try to put her stamp on it next.Emma Hayes first met Megan Rapinoe before she was Megan Rapinoe. Or, rather, just as she was becoming Megan Rapinoe. She was not yet a winner of two World Cups, not yet an Olympic champion, not yet captain of her country, not yet a powerful and urgent voice away from the field. Rapinoe was not even a professional soccer player back then, not quite.Hayes’s job was to change that. In 2008, she had been appointed head coach and director of soccer operations of the Chicago Red Stars, one of the inaugural franchises in the start-up league Women’s Professional Soccer. Hayes had a blank slate to fill, a team to construct from scratch. Rapinoe was her first call.That, perhaps, is the best measure of how brightly Rapinoe’s talent shone. When coach and player first met, Rapinoe was just a 23-year-old straight out of the University of Portland, but the power dynamic already lay in her favor. She did not need to convince Hayes. Instead, Hayes had to sell her on the team, on the project, on the city.And so she showed Rapinoe, born and raised in California, around Chicago, hoping to persuade her that the move to the banks of Lake Michigan would suit her. It worked. The Red Stars drafted Rapinoe second overall ahead of the league’s first season.The W.P.S. did not last. It survived for just three seasons. By the time it closed down, Hayes had long since departed the Red Stars. Rapinoe, though, was just getting started.Rapinoe will be looking to add a first N.W.S.L. title to her packed trophy case.Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAs much as Hayes was convinced of Rapinoe’s promise, even she would not pretend to have known just how far she would go. This weekend, Rapinoe — 38 now — will finally call time on her career. Her plan is for her exit to be framed by ticker-tape and fireworks: with one last triumph, helping OL Reign to claim victory against Gotham F.C. in the N.W.S.L final, a suitably glorious coda to a glittering career.It is no exaggeration to say that, for more than a decade, Rapinoe has been the defining player in women’s soccer. It is not simply that she was a key part in the United States’ victory in the 2015 World Cup, and the driving force behind its repeat triumph four years later. It is that her activism, her unwillingness to shut up and play, turned the U.S. women’s team into something that transcended sports. As a consequence, she helped set the tone for women’s soccer as a whole.It is fitting that Rapinoe’s curtain call should come just as Hayes, the woman who did so much to launch her career, should return to the United States. Not officially, of course; at this stage, the fact that Hayes will be the next coach of the U.S. women’s team is merely an open secret, a fait accompli that must — for now — remain swaddled by a warm blanket of euphemism.Anonymous sources will go only as far as saying Hayes and U.S. Soccer have been “in talks.” Chelsea, the club Hayes has coached for the last decade to considerable success, will only say that the 47-year-old coach will depart at the end of the current season in order to “pursue a new opportunity” outside of England’s Women’s Super League and the club game. Quite what that opportunity might be is not revealed. Sure, maybe she’ll coach the U.S. Or maybe she wants to be a firefighter. It’s anyone’s guess.Emma Hayes is expected to leave Chelsea next year to coach the United States women’s team.John Sibley/Action Images, via ReutersThere is just one established fact, even if it is by some distance the most salient one. Hayes, winner of six W.S.L. titles and five F.A. Cups and easily the most prominent manager in the women’s game in England, has quit her job. She has told Chelsea she is going. That, more than anything, reveals exactly how far those mysterious talks have progressed.It is not hard to see why the prospect of coaching the United States appeals to Hayes. So rich is the team’s history that it remains the most prestigious job in women’s soccer. Given that she will be given salary parity with Gregg Berhalter, the coach of the U.S. men’s team, it will also be the most lucrative.Hayes will, though, have to earn that money. The last time she took a job in the United States, her task was to help kick-start an era. A decade and a half later, that is in the job description once again. The context, though, is starkly different. This time, before the start, Hayes has to oversee an end.It might be vaguely possible to spin Hayes’s appointment as a return — her early career résumé also includes spells at the Long Island Lady Riders (which we can all agree is not a great name for a team), the Washington Freedom and the Western New York Flash — but she has not been hired because of her familiarity with American soccer’s modern landscape. She has been appointed precisely because she is an outsider to it.Hayes in May, after leading Chelsea to its fourth straight league title.John Sibley/Action Images, via ReutersIt is not simply that Hayes represents a considerable break with tradition. Almost all of her predecessors as national team coach have come from positions on the side of the Atlantic that has been slow to embrace contactless technology. The U.S. job was, in some senses, the reward for success in American soccer.That made perfect sense. For decades, the United States was the driving force of the women’s game. Its professional league, in whatever guise, was the gold standard of the sport. Players from across the world, where domestic competitions were often professional only in name, flocked there. The national team was the pinnacle of that program, and therefore the zenith of the game.This summer, though, made it abundantly clear that had changed. The United States exited the World Cup in the round of 16. Its impact on the tournament was minimal. What happened in Australia and New Zealand illustrated a power shift that had been coming for some time. Two European teams contested the final. Five of the eight quarterfinalists were European.Those nations, including the U.S., who drew large portions of their squads from the N.W.S.L. tended to fall early. It was something that Hayes herself spotted. “There is still a huge amount of talent in this U.S. team,” she wrote in a column for The Daily Telegraph during the World Cup. “But with so many of the squad playing solely in the N.W.S.L., it doesn’t offer enough diversity to their squad in terms of playing against different styles.”She would, she wrote, be “shocked” if young players continued to migrate to the U.S. to play in the college system when professional teams were recruiting — and paying so well — in Europe. In the future, she predicted, it would be “very, very difficult” for the U.S. to regain its primacy without “the right conversations around their model.”This year’s World Cup was a major disappointment for the United States and its stars.Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/ReutersThat it will be Hayes leading those conversations is, of course, a tacit acknowledgment that her assertion was correct. By appointing someone who has built their career and reputation in Europe to overturn the reality that it has fallen behind, U.S. Soccer is effectively accepting the truth of it. One era is at an end, and it is time for another to begin.Perhaps, then, this weekend’s N.W.S.L. final is best thought of as the moment of transition. Rapinoe has never won an N.W.S.L. title. This is her final chance to end her wait, to complete her set, to place a golden bow on her career and all that she has accomplished and represented.That she would have that moment playing for OL Reign — a team controlled, ultimately, by owners in France — would feel appropriate, too, a nod not just to where the game has been, but to where it is going.CorrespondenceLast-place Sheffield United had to wait until November for its first Premier League victory.Marc Atkins/Getty ImagesWe were all too busy learning about the demographic transformation of Spain in the 20th century last week for Ben Coles to make the correspondence cut, but I wanted to return to his note this week, largely because the subject he raised is one I have been contemplating for a while. In a way. From the opposite perspective, in fact.“Is every team from Everton on up in the current Premier League table allowed a little room for complacency this season?” Ben asked, in direct contravention of the mantra that everything is necessarily the best in the best of all possible leagues. “Not because they’ve cracked the code of survival, but because Sheffield United, Burnley, Luton and Bournemouth are so poor? It almost feels like a noncompetition.”It is fair, I think, to suggest that the dimensions of the relegation battle seem to have been drawn unusually early in the Premier League this season. Sheffield United had to be rebuilt on the fly. Burnley and Bournemouth have both gone very — some might say excessively — heavy on young and unproven talent. Luton made no attempt to disguise the fact it was not intending to blow all of the money it made on promotion to the Premier League on the Sisyphean task of trying to stay there.That is not to say relegation for any of them is a foregone conclusion. Things change, and change quickly, in the early part of the season. It is hardly inconceivable that, in a few weeks, Fulham or Everton or Crystal Palace have hit a slump, or that one of those teams that currently looks doomed to a season of struggle has found some form. Luton, in particular, appears to be coming to grips with the exigencies of Premier League soccer at considerable speed, as last week’s (more than merited) draw with Liverpool illustrated.But there is one element working against those four clubs, and that is the quality at the other end of the Premier League table this season. Even allowing for the fact that Manchester City will, in all likelihood, streak to a fourth successive championship, the pool of teams immediately below them is unusually deep.There are eight clubs — Tottenham, Arsenal, Liverpool, Aston Villa, Newcastle, Brighton, Manchester United and Chelsea — that will harbor justifiable ambitions of qualifying not just for Europe but for the Champions League, given that England is likely to have five emissaries in the revamped competition next season.Anthony Gordon and Newcastle are sixth in the Premier League, but only seven points out of first.Peter Powell/EPA, via ShutterstockThe overall quality of the league may well, in fact, be higher than it has ever been. That assertion will, of course, be dismissed as recency bias, or willful exaggeration, or simply deeply ahistoric; such is the power of nostalgia that governs our relationship with sports.There is a potent tendency to assume that what went before was somehow better: We are inclined, after all, simultaneously to remember the good parts of the past (look at that Thierry Henry goal!) and to see only the flaws (Manchester City 6, Bournemouth 1) of the present.But it feels, increasingly, as if the Premier League is starting not only to fulfill the bombast of its own marketing material but its foundational premise: For the first time, a majority of its clubs have found a way to use the great piles of money at their disposal to become genuinely quite good at soccer. That is good for the clubs, and good for the fans, and good for the competition. It is less good for those teams thrown into it with precious little preparation. More

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      Gary Colson, Who Lobbied for 3-Point Shot in College Ball, Dies at 89

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      On a rules committee, he got fellow coaches to vote for the shot that changed the game. In 34 years as a college coach, he won 563 games with four teams.Gary Colson, who successfully lobbied to introduce the 3-point shot to college basketball during a 34-year coaching career that included stops at Fresno State, New Mexico and Pepperdine, died on Friday at his home in Santa Barbara, Calif. He was 89.The cause was complications of lymphoma, said Bob Rose, a friend, who said he had been told of the death by Colson’s wife.Colson, who had a career win-loss record of 563-385, was a member of the N.C.A.A. rules committee in 1986 when he sought a straw vote from the members to see who was in favor of adding the 3-point shot.He said he was discouraged by a number of his fellow coaches from asking for a vote. But he did anyway, and the proposal passed.The rule, which originally awarded three points for baskets made from a distance of 19 feet 9 inches or more, had little effect at first. But the 3-point shot (the current distance is 22 feet 1¾ inches) has since become an important part of the game. It had been adopted by the National Basketball Association in 1979.Colson began his head coaching career at Valdosta State College (now Valdosta State University) in Georgia when he was only 24. He led the team to a 188-69 record from 1958 to 1968 and took it to two appearances in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics’ national tournament.He next coached at Pepperdine, a small Christian school in Malibu, Calif., from 1968 to 1979, leading the team to the 1976 West Coast Athletic Conference title. The Waves went 153-137 and earned two N.C.A.A. tournament berths during his tenure.“Coach Colson put Pepperdine men’s basketball on the national college basketball map,” the school’s current athletic director, Steve Potts, said in a statement.Colson left Pepperdine in 1980 to take over at New Mexico, which was reeling after a gambling scandal that resulted in the firing of the head coach, Norm Ellenberger, and the program’s being placed on N.C.A.A. probation for three years.After probation ended in 1983, the Lobos averaged 21 wins over the next five seasons, qualifying for the National Invitational Tournament each of those years. Colson went 146-106 at New Mexico from 1980 to 1988 and was the Western Athletic Conference coach of the year in 1984.He was 76-73 at Fresno State from 1990 to 1995.Gary Colson was born in Logansport, Ind., on April 30, 1934. He graduated from David Lipscomb College (now Lipscomb University) in Nashville in 1956 and earned a master’s degree in education at Vanderbilt in 1958. He was an all-conference player at Lipscomb and was named the Volunteer State Athletic Conference M.V.P. as a senior.He later worked as assistant to the president of the Memphis Grizzlies.He is survived by wife, Mary Katherine; his sons, Rick and Wade; his daughter, Garianne; four grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. More

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      Jennifer Hermoso Excluded From Spain’s Soccer Team Roster

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      The team’s new coach said she was trying to protect Ms. Hermoso, who was forcibly kissed by the Spanish soccer chief after the World Cup, by not putting her on the roster.Spain unveiled its roster on Monday for the first two matches of the women’s national team since the team’s World Cup win — and a postgame kiss that plunged women’s soccer into turmoil. The list excluded eight of the winning squad’s players. Jennifer Hermoso, who was forcibly kissed by the man who was the country’s top soccer executive at the time, was among those excluded.“We are with Jenni. We believe it’s the best way to protect her,” said the new coach, Montse Tomé, at a Royal Spanish Football Federation news conference, when she was asked why Ms. Hermoso had not been chosen to play in the UEFA Nations League, which is the qualifier for European teams in the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.Earlier this month, Ms. Hermoso filed a criminal complaint of sexual assault against the former soccer chief, Luis Rubiales, after he kissed her during the World Cup medals ceremony in Sydney, Australia.The decision by Ms. Tomé to exclude Ms. Hermoso and seven other world champions, three of whom have injuries and one of whom is now retired, from such an important competition comes amid a high-stakes standoff between Spain’s star players and the national soccer federation.In August, after its World Cup win, the team, including the players who were on Ms. Tomé’s roster on Monday, demanded changes to management and threatened not to play if changes were not made.On Friday, Ms. Hermoso and 20 of the 23 winning team members signed a joint statement with other Spanish players saying “it is time to fight” and reinstating their demands for a restructuring of “the leadership positions of the Royal Spanish Football Federation” to guarantee a “safe place where women are respected.” But they did not explicitly threaten not to play.By Monday night, with their demands as yet unmet, it was not clear if all the players on Ms. Tomé’s roster would agree to play or if they would boycott the matches, against Sweden and Switzerland that begin on Friday, in support of Ms. Hermoso.If they decide not to play, they could face consequences, including fines or temporary bans, according to the National Sports Council.“I trust they are professional world champions and they love their profession,” Ms. Tomé said, adding that she had talked with the players over the last few days.In a statement posted on social media on Monday night, the women’s players’ union, Futpro, said that the joint statement players issued on Friday made clear, “with no room for misinterpretation, our firm wishes not to be called up, for reasons that are justified.”“We regret that our federation puts us in a situation that we would never have wanted,” Monday’s statement said.Minutes later, A.F.E., Spain’s chief players’ union, also issued a statement, declaring its “astonishment at the lack of dialogue by the Royal Spanish Football Association regarding the majority position of the players who have been called up based on arguments that should be respected.”Ivana Andrés, one of the captains of the World Cup team, is currently suffering from a sports injury. She is one of the champions who are not on Ms. Tomé’s roster. In a televised interview on Monday evening, Ms. Andrés said, “The most important thing is that we want to play.”But “we want them to treat us with respect,” she added, referring to the federation.Some Spaniards also expressed dismay at the roster, including a well-known politician. “It’s not a call-up. It’s a threat,” said Gabriel Rufián, a member of Parliament with a pro-Catalan independence party.A Swiss player, Ana-Maria Crnogorčević, who currently plays for the Spanish team Atlético de Madrid, also shared her disbelief on social media. “This is insane,” she said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.Both the players and the federation have a lot to lose if Ms. Tomé cannot rally together a team in time for Friday’s match in Sweden.The sports commentator Guillem Balagué explained that Spain will jeopardize its Olympic ticket if the players boycott the match against Sweden. Only “the two finalists of the Nations League will, together with the French squad, be in Paris 2024,” Mr. Balagué said.Over the last month, the federation has taken some measures to pacify its star players. They urged Mr. Rubiales to resign, which he did. He appeared in court on Friday in connection with the sexual assault allegations filed by Ms. Hermoso. A restraining order was subsequently issued against him, forbidding contact with Ms. Hermoso. Jorge Vilda, the coach of the national team, was fired earlier this month. He had been accused last year of controlling and sexist behavior by team members.On Monday morning, the federation said in a statement that it guarantees a “safe environment for the players” and is committed to making changes within the organization. But it did not specify details of the changes it intends to make or a time frame.Though Ms. Tomé has replaced Mr. Vilda, becoming the first woman to hold the top job in Spain, her appointment is not without controversy. Ms. Tomé came under criticism when she participated in a standing ovation for Mr. Rubiales on Aug. 25, following a defiant speech in which he accused Ms. Hermoso of initiating the kiss and railed against “false feminism.”The statement issued by the players on Friday called for “zero tolerance” toward members of the federation who have “had, incited, hidden or applauded attitudes against the dignity of women.”“I shouldn’t have done it,” Ms. Tomé said of her participation on Monday. More

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      After Rubiales’ Restraining Order, Spain’s Women’s Team Makes Demands

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      The players’ demands came on a day that a restraining order was granted against Luis Rubiales, the former head of the federation, who forcibly kissed a star forward, Jennifer Hermoso.Shortly before the roster was due to be announced for the Spanish women’s first international soccer match since their World Cup victory, the Royal Spanish Football Association postponed the event until further notice.It became clear why five minutes later, when Spain’s star players made public a list of demands for a top-to-bottom reorganization of the federation, Spain’s soccer governing body.The events came the same day as a restraining order was granted against Luis Rubiales, the former head of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, the country’s governing body. Mr. Rubiales, who appeared in court Friday on charges of sexual assault against a star forward, Jennifer Hermoso, whom he forcibly kissed after the team won the World Cup in August, must stay 200 meters, or more than 650 feet, away from the player while the investigation continues.“We believe that it is time to fight to show that there is no place for these situations and practices in our football or our society, and that the structure needs to be changed,” the players’ statement said.The entire Spanish team signed the statement, which called for changes “in the leadership positions of the Royal Spanish Football Federation.” According to the statement, their demands are based on “zero tolerance” toward members of the federation who have “had, incited, hidden or applauded attitudes against the dignity of women.”The team had published an earlier list of demands in August. In that statement the players threatened not to play for Spain unless their demands were met. It was unclear what would happen if the new demands were not met.The high-stakes standoff between Spain’s star players and the national soccer federation comes as the tumult continues over that postgame kiss, which he said was consensual and she said was absolutely not. The kiss also caused widespread indignation and brought to light claims of deeply rooted discrimination and sexism in the Spanish game.Mr. Rubiales resigned on Sunday after weeks of agitation for him to do so. Jorge Vilda, the coach of the national team, was fired last week. He had been accused last year of controlling and sexist behavior by team members. Mr. Vilda has been replaced by Montse Tomé, a player and coach and the first woman to hold the top job in Spain. She is set to make her coaching debut next week in Sweden.Over the last few weeks, complaints of sexual assault and coercion have been filed against Mr. Rubiales by Ms. Hermoso, accusations have emerged of chauvinistic treatment by staff toward players and a strike has been staged by league players over low pay.The federation has taken measures to pacify its star players, who openly demanded changes in management in a statement published by their union on Aug. 25, just days after their World Cup victory against England at a game played in Sydney, Australia.Though Mr. Rubiales resigned, he remains defiant. In his court appearance on Friday, he denied any wrongdoing, according to a statement from public prosecutors.Since the World Cup win, women’s league players have also gained ground and called off their strike. On Thursday morning, after days of “tough” talks, according to league boss Beatriz Álvarez, an agreement was reached with players to raise minimum pay to 21,000 euros, or about $22,400, from 16,000 euros.Despite the raise, female players will still make far less than male players in Spain’s top division. According to A.F.E., the main soccer union in Spain, the minimum salary for first-division male players is 180,000 euros, or $192,000.The national team said it was not persuaded enough had changed, saying the federation still had work to do.Their statement refers to the kiss and the standing ovation given to Mr. Rubiales by members of the federation when he refused to resign, and says that members of the team have attended several meetings with the soccer association, expressing “very clearly” the changes the players believe are necessary “in order to advance and become a structure that does not tolerate or form part of such degrading acts.”On Friday night, the soccer federation posted a statement on its website, apparently in response to the demands published earlier by the women’s team, and reinforcing “its commitment to the world champions, for whom it feels enormous pride.”Describing the recent turn of events as “a particularly atypical scenario,” the interim president, Pedro Rocha, says, “a lot is at stake,” and, “to guarantee the future of Spanish football, it is essential to undertake transformations progressively and recover the dignity and credibility lost after the events of the World Cup.”Both the players and the federation have a lot to lose.If the Spanish team does not show up for the first match of the UEFA Nations League in Sweden next week, all hopes of competing in the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024 will be dashed.The sports commentator Guillem Balagué explained that Spain will blow its chance of an Olympic ticket if the players boycott the match. Only “the two finalists of the Nations League will, together with the French squad, be in Paris 2024,” Mr. Balagué said. More

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      Jorge Vilda, Coach of Spain’s Women’s Soccer Team, Is Fired

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      Players had accused the coach, Jorge Vilda, of outdated methods and controlling behavior. His boss, Luis Rubiales, is still embroiled in scandal over a nonconsensual kiss.The coach of the Spanish national soccer team that won the Women’s World Cup trophy last month was ousted on Tuesday by the country’s soccer federation, after months of complaints from players who accused him of outdated methods and controlling behavior.The firing of the coach, Jorge Vilda, comes as the fate of one of his most ardent supporters, Spain’s soccer federation chief, Luis Rubiales, hangs in the balance. Mr. Rubiales forcibly kissed a member of the national team at a medals ceremony in Australia, setting off a national controversy in Spain and highlighting sexism in the sport.The federation said in a statement that as one of the “first measures of renewal” announced by the interim president, Pedro Rocha, it had decided “to do without the services” of Mr. Vilda as sporting director and national women’s coach, a role which he accepted in 2015.The federation also thanked Mr. Vilda for his work with the national team and the success during his tenure, crowned by the World Cup victory. It said it was highlighting “his impeccable personal and sporting behavior,” which “was a key piece in the notable growth of Spanish women’s football.”The federation has called on Mr. Rubiales to resign, and Spanish prosecutors have opened an investigation into whether he could be charged with committing an act of sexual aggression. Players have said they would not take the field for the national team unless changes were made on a managerial level. And FIFA, soccer’s governing body, has suspended him for 90 days.Mr. Vilda, who was hired in 2015 after one of his predecessors was ousted amid accusations of sexism, had long been the subject of complaints from players regarding unequal pay and what they called his controlling behavior, as well as a general culture of sexism. Last year, 15 star Spanish players staged a protest, refusing to play on the national team unless Mr. Vilda was fired.That rebellion drew a stern rebuke from the Spanish soccer federation, which backed Mr. Vilda. Not only would it not fire him, the federation said, but the players must apologize for their actions before they would be allowed back on the team. The standoff ended with most of the mutinous players returning to the field.Mr. Rubiales backed Mr. Vilda at the time. In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País in October 2022, Mr. Rubiales connected the success of the women’s team to Mr. Vilda’s coaching skills and dismissed the accusations of ill treatment. In a speech last month, he doubled down in his support for the coach, vowing to increase his salary to 500,000 euros ($543,000) after the World Cup win, Spain’s first in the women’s tournament.Mr. Rubiales has been at the center of a maelstrom over sexism in Spanish women’s soccer since he grabbed and kissed Jennifer Hermoso, a member of the national team, during the medals ceremony after Spain beat England, 1-0, in the final in Sydney, Australia.After the forced kiss, players again issued an ultimatum. The entire women’s team and dozens of other players signed a statement saying they would not play for Spain “if the current managers continue.” Alexia Putellas, who is widely recognized as one of the best players in the world, coined the hashtag #seacabo, or “it’s over.” Some people protested in the streets of Spain. On Monday evening, the Spanish men’s team captain, Álvaro Morata, flanked by his teammates issued a joint statement rejecting “the unacceptable behavior of Mr. Rubiales.”Some commentators have described the episode as a watershed moment in Spain’s #MeToo movement, highlighting a divide between the country’s traditions of machismo and more recent progressivism that has put Spain in the European vanguard on issues of feminism and equality.Mr. Rubiales has denied doing anything wrong, arguing that he has been a victim of “social assassination” and even suggesting that Ms. Hermoso had initiated the encounter, which she has strenuously denied. His mother went on a three-day hunger strike in a church in his hometown, Motril, in southern Spain, demanding that Ms. Hermoso “tell the truth.”Ms. Hermoso, for her part, has said that “at no time did I consent to the kiss that he gave me.”As the scandal mushroomed, the federation, known as the Royal Spanish Football Federation, called an emergency meeting. Mr. Vilda was one of the many men in the room who gave Mr. Rubiales a standing ovation.Later, however, Mr. Vilda tried to distance himself from Mr. Rubiales, saying that he regretted his boss’s “inappropriate conduct.” The Spanish men’s coach, Luis de la Fuente, also apologized for applauding. But the damage was done.The firing of Mr. Vilda comes on the same day as the Spanish government published the awarding of a Gold Medal for Sporting Merit of the Royal Order to the entire women’s team, including Mr. Vilda.But with a match against Sweden set for Sept. 22, and with none of Spain’s star players apparently willing to compete, the soccer federation cut Mr. Vilda loose. More