Fans (Persons)

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Soccer

      40,000 Fake Tickets at the Champions League Final? Actually, It Was 2,589.

      by

      The French authorities blamed tens of thousands of counterfeit tickets for the chaos before Saturday’s Champions League final. The official count was far lower.One of the main claims pushed by French officials to explain the chaotic crowd scenes that created a dangerous crush of fans outside last weekend’s Champions League final near Paris has been that tens of thousands of people arrived at the match bearing fake tickets.France’s interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, has claimed as many as 70 percent of tickets presented at the Stade de France in St.-Denis were fake. He told a news conference Monday that the “root cause” of the chaos was roughly 30,000 to 40,000 English fans bearing counterfeit tickets — or no tickets — who jammed the entrances.But according to official numbers reviewed by The New York Times, the exact number of fake tickets intercepted by stewards manning the entrance gates was far lower: 2,589, to be exact.That figure is almost three times the usual number of forgeries at the Champions League final, a game widely considered to be European soccer’s equivalent of the Super Bowl, but significantly lower than the figure used by Darmanin, who had as of Wednesday not provided details of the source of his estimate.Darmanin and France’s sports minister, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, who has made similar claims about fake tickets, have faced growing criticism over the handling of the game. France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, on Wednesday called for “full transparency” in an investigation of the match-day scenes and their causes. At an appearance in front of a committee of the French senate later Wednesday, Darmanin admitted, “Clearly things could have been organized better.”“It is evident,” he added, “that this celebration of sport was ruined.”France’s interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, faced testy questioning from lawmakers on Wednesday.Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn what became a testy appearance in front of the committee, Darmanin and Oudéa-Castéra came under sustained pressure over the organizational failures. In response, they largely repeated the language that has enraged Liverpool, its fans and members of the British government.At one point, Oudéa-Castéra told lawmakers that Liverpool supporters carried a “very specific risk” in the view of the French authorities, without elaborating what she meant.Darmanin, meanwhile, insisted the counterfeit ticket numbers were of an unprecedented scale, claiming at one point there were so many that stadium security guards thought their tools to validate them were faulty.The hearing lasted longer than an hour, ending with little clarity and a doubling down by the officials on their previous claims, again without evidence to support their conclusions.That prompted one lawmaker to ask: “Since Saturday, we have blamed Liverpool fans and the club, striking workers and locals for the chaos. What allows you to make these declarations without a thorough investigation?”Not all attendees had the same experience at the final. While most of Real Madrid’s fans arrived with electronic tickets, Liverpool requested paper ones for its official allocation of 23,000 tickets. Those tickets came embedded with two main security features: one that needed to be confirmed with a chemical pen and a second that was a laser engraving of the Champions League trophy.Those holding tickets without the two security features were to be denied access by stewards at an initial checkpoint far from the stadium’s bar code readers. But that system collapsed under a deluge of fans: To relieve the growing crush of people, officials abandoned those first checks and allowed the crowds to move closer to the stadium.The debacle has led to chorus of criticism of the security at the match, in which Real Madrid defeated Liverpool, 1-0, to claim its record 14th European title. Liverpool police who attended in supporting roles labeled the situation outside the gates “shocking.” The club, its fans and a European supporters group all called for investigations even as the game was underway. And in the days since, British government officials have demanded answers from their French counterparts and European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, for the treatment of thousands of Liverpool supporters.Thousands of fans were trapped for hours in tight crowds before the final, causing a delay to the match’s kickoff. Thomas Coex/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSupporters faced multiple issues, including dangerous crushes, after being corralled into narrow spaces, and the final was delayed more than 30 minutes as the French riot police used tear gas and pepper spray on fans after appearing to lose control of the situation. At the same time, hundreds of local youths tried to force their way into the stadium, either through the turnstiles or by climbing over security fences. Officials estimated as many as 4,000 ticketless people may have succeeded.Part of the explanation into why Liverpool supporters found themselves trapped in such a small space has now turned to transportation problems on the day of the game, including a strike by workers that affected one of the major rail links to the stadium.UEFA and local officials have compared travel data from Saturday’s game to figures from the French Cup final held at the Stade de France on May 7. They found that one of the stations closest to the Stade de France had four times as many fans travel through its gates Saturday than had used the station during the French Cup final. That, they believe, contributed to the dangerous bottleneck of supporters.It may be months before a complete picture of what occurred at the stadium emerges. On Tuesday, UEFA, reeling from chaotic scenes at last year’s European Championship final in London as well as the recent Europa League final in Seville, Spain, appointed a former education minister of Portugal, Tiago Brandão Rodrigues, to lead an independent inquiry into the failures around the Champions League final.The claims made by the French government’s representatives, though, continue to infuriate Liverpool and its ownership. The club’s chairman, Tom Werner, said as much in a caustic letter to Oudéa-Castéra, the French sports minister.He wrote, he said, “out of utter disbelief that a minister of the French government, a position of enormous responsibility and influence, could make a series of unproven pronouncements on a matter of such significance before a proper, formal, independent investigation process has even taken place.”He decried the “loose data and unverified assertions” presented to reporters Monday before an investigation had taken place.“The fact that your public position went against this objective is a concern in itself,” he added. “That you did so without any recourse to ourselves or our supporters is an even greater one. All voices should count in this process, and they should count equally and fairly.”As well as assailing Oudéa-Castéra for her claims, Werner also demanded a public apology. By late Tuesday, Oudéa-Castéra’s tone — though not her claims about fake tickets — had changed.“The issue of the false tickets does not change this: Liverpool is one of the greatest clubs ever,” she wrote on Twitter. “And on Saturday there were supporters with valid tickets that spent a terrible evening or were not able to watch the game. We are sorry for that.”Liverpool continues to be inundated with video evidence shot on cellphones by its supporters. The images, many of which have also been uploaded to social media, are sometimes harrowing, showing children and older fans dealing with the effects of tear gas fired — sometimes indiscriminately — by the riot police.Fans of Real Madrid faced similar problems on their side of the stadium. Since the final, several supporters have come forward to say they were attacked or robbed on their way in and out of the stadium.Amando Sánchez, 51, who traveled to Paris in a group of 14, mainly family members, said his 87-year-old father and an older brother missed the game as a result of chaos at the entry gates. Another brother, Sánchez said, fought off an effort to steal his ticket as he prepared to present it at a stadium turnstile.“Really no one was in charge,” Sánchez said in an interview Wednesday. More

    • 175 Shares179 Views

      in Soccer

      As A.C. Milan and Inter Return to Top, San Siro May Be Coming Down

      by

      As he watched the soccer game playing out on television, the Milanese writer and actor Gianfelice Facchetti felt an emotional tug that he thought might be leading him toward his next book.It was during Italy’s first coronavirus lockdown, and Facchetti’s favorite team, Inter Milan, had been forced to play its matches behind closed doors. The decision left its longtime home, the 80,000-seat Giuseppe Meazza Stadium, more commonly known as the San Siro, devoid of atmosphere, and amid the silence Facchetti’s mind began to drift.He thought back not only to fond memories and tense moments in the arena where his father, Giacinto, had represented Inter and Italy but also to news stories that had been circulating for months describing plans by the teams that share the nearly century-old stadium, Inter and A.C. Milan, to abandon the stadium or, worse, demolish it.The San Siro’s contrast of cylindrical towers and long red trusses has admirers among fans and architects alike.Camilla Ferrari for The New York Times“I was thinking, when I started to write: If you want to destroy this place, this special place, it would be helpful to know the history,” Facchetti said.The book that sprang from that first impulse, “Once Upon a Time in San Siro,” was part history and part coping mechanism, Facchetti admits. He and many Inter fans, like those who support Milan, are still coming to terms with the fact that their “seconda casa,” or “second home,” could one day be no more.On the list of sins that stir the emotions of soccer fans, assaults on tradition surely rank near the top, particularly when maximizing revenue is seen as the motivation. Even minor changes, such as a new shirt design or an alteration of a club crest, can be like grabbing soccer’s third rail. For the same reasons, stadiums hold a special place in the minds of many supporters, serving as a physical embodiment of a lifetime of sporting experiences. A club’s decision to replace one, then, can bring not only monumental costs but also howls of protest.Yet replace them they do.From 2010 to 2020, 153 new stadiums were built across Europe, at a reported cost of more than $20 billion. Madrid got one. So did Stockholm and St. Petersburg. London opened two.Only 1 percent of this investment was made in Italy, though. Most professional teams’ stadiums in the country are both antiquated and publicly owned — only two have opened this century. And a new generation of deep-pocketed foreign owners with American tech, finance and retail fortunes are eager to create new revenue streams that they feel their clubs need to compete with richer rivals in England and elsewhere.Luciano owns a truck selling Inter and A.C. Milan merchandise. The latter held off its city rival to claim the Serie A title on Sunday.Camilla Ferrari for The New York TimesChange, though, is not as simple as drawing up plans and digging a stadium-size hole. When Milan and Inter announced their intention to build a new stadium more than three years ago, the subtext was that the San Siro — one of the largest stadiums in Europe and the site of four European Cup finals and matches in two World Cups — was no longer fit for its job in an age of luxury suites and corporate hospitality. Ever since, a debate about the arena’s future has split not only the teams’ wealthy owners and longtime fans but also politicians, preservationists and architects.“Italy is like an open-air museum: We have a lot of heritage,” said Massimo Roj, a Milanese architect and Inter fan who put forward one of the proposed designs for a new stadium in Milan. “We have to think that the San Siro is an old building. Your memory now is there, but, in 10 years time, we’ll be in another stadium, called San Siro again.”The first iteration of the San Siro opened in 1926 and was revolutionary for Italy because it was English in design, featuring four independent stands that sat square to the playing surface and no running track. It was expanded after the 1934 World Cup and again in the 1950s after Inter became a co-tenant.The most recent alteration came before Italy hosted the 1990 World Cup, when the architects Giancarlo Ragazzi and Enrico Hoffer and the engineer Leo Finzi added what became the stadium’s trademark: 11 cylindrical towers with helical ramps that allowed spectators to reach a new third tier. A roof made of red trusses was placed on top, its lines an angular — and to devotees, iconic — contrast to the circular forms that supported them.Yet in the decades after, the need for further refurbishments became increasingly apparent, fans said, as the Italian industrialists who once bankrolled the Milanese clubs sold their teams and Russian billionaires and Persian Gulf petrodollars rewrote the economics of elite European soccer.Many clubs in Serie A, arguably the world’s richest and most attractive league in the 1990s, now face growing debts and unsustainable budgets. Inter, for example, had to break up last season’s title-winning side just to meet its payroll.“In terms of revenues, we have, both Milan and Inter, revenues of around 35 to 40 million euros a year” — roughly $37 million to $42 million — “from the stadium, while our competitors are about €100 million,” the chairman of Milan, Paolo Scaroni, said in an interview. The San Siro reflected in the window of a tram that stops outside. Plans for a new San Siro nearby, and the destruction of the current one, have divided Milan.Camilla Ferrari for The New York TimesThe teams say they initially considered changes to the current San Siro but quickly concluded logistical issues and delays would be too much to overcome. What they have proposed instead is a 60,000-seat arena to be built next door. Once it is constructed, the current San Siro will come down and make way for public space that may include elements of its iconic towers and ramps, according to the designs by Populous, the American architecture firm whose proposal was chosen.“I think these buildings are containers, and therefore the old buildings have such emotion attached to them that the idea that some of it can remain, if it can be there as a marker of history of what was before, is quite a nice idea,” said Chris Lee, a managing director of Populous. “One has to be careful about trying to transfer too much of that, literally, into new buildings, where it can easily tip into the pastiche of trying to recreate a building.”Opposition is to be expected, Lee said. In Milan, it has emerged in various forms.Milan’s mayor, Beppe Sala, while generally supportive of the project, has warned both clubs that the city-owned San Siro would remain until at least 2026, when it is expected to host the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics.A different group, the Si Meazza committee, has taken a hard-line approach, challenging the mere idea of the demolition of the San Siro, which its most prominent voices — lawyers, concert promoters and former politicians — described as a symbol of Milan known around the world, a stage on which Diego Maradona, Bob Dylan and Beyoncé have performed. Other critics pointed to the ecological impact of tearing down a stadium and highlighted renderings that they argued proved the job could be done for half the cost while saving the original arena.Some fear, though, the die may have been cast: A future without the San Siro received the tacit approval of Italy’s heritage authority in 2020 when it raised no objections to the stadium’s demolition. In November, the project was declared in the public interest (with certain conditions) by city officials.A month later, the clubs chose the Populous design: It features a stadium enveloped by a steel-and-glass galleria, reminiscent of the famed luxury-shopping district in the center of Milan, as the centerpiece of an expansive park on the site.But the legal fight over building any of it may not be over.The stadium has hosted two World Cup and four European Cup finals. Camilla Ferrari for The New York TimesThe next steps for the clubs will be to put their proposals to the public; that is expected to happen this summer. Municipality decisions can be appealed, and other bureaucratic hurdles can take months to resolve, said Scaroni, the Milan chairman. Aware of those potential delays, the clubs have said that they are also considering a Plan B: a site elsewhere in Milan.“More than three years, we are still debating about our master plan,” said Alessandro Antonello, the Inter chief executive. “Unfortunately, yes, we started with a very exciting energy three years ago, and now, after three years, we are still waiting for some answers from the municipality. So, now, for us, the main priority is to build a new stadium, whatever the location.”For opponents like Facchetti, though, the delays are just one more hopeful sign their beloved San Siro might yet be saved. Another good omen, he said, came this spring: His publisher has approved a second printing of his book.“It’s a sign,” Facchetti said. “People still want to speak about the San Siro and its destiny.” More

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      in Basket

      One Final Look at a Nets Season That Fell Short

      by

      Exhaustion had replaced exhilaration by the time the Nets took the court for Monday’s fait accompli playoff game against the surging Boston Celtics.The early-season excitement surrounding the Nets and their glittering roster faded through a season’s worth of head-butting against the Murphy’s law adage that anything that can go wrong usually will.Gone, too, were the packed rows of New York celebrity onlookers, like Mary J. Blige, Spike Lee and Aaron Judge, who attended Game 3 at Barclays Center, perhaps trusting — despite the preponderance of evidence of the contrary — that a quick win on Monday would propel the Nets back into the series.Even Ben Simmons, who had stood out from the sideline earlier in the series because of his kaleidoscope outfits, was not there.Michelle Farsi for The New York TimesMichelle Farsi for The New York TimesThe Nets fans who attended Monday’s game seemed subdued, perhaps drained from one season that felt like many more because of the array of off-court distractions. Celtics fans, who witnessed their team undergo the midseason revitalization that Brooklynites expected of the Nets, arrived ready to pour salt into festering wounds.Boston — too cohesive, too lengthy, too tenacious — simply slammed the door on a Nets season derailed from the start.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesKyrie Irving missed most of the season because he refused to be vaccinated against the coronavirus. Kevin Durant, bothered by a knee injury, missed more than a month.The Nets plummeted with an 11-game losing streak. James Harden forced a trade to Philadelphia that returned, among others, Simmons — the centerpiece of the deal who never took the court.Often alone shouldering the load throughout the season was Durant. During the playoffs, he crafted his best performance of the series on Monday with 39 points.Michelle Farsi for The New York TimesMichelle Farsi for The New York TimesMichelle Farsi for The New York TimesBut Jayson Tatum’s two-way performance throughout the series neutralized Durant. Boston fans serenaded Tatum with chants of “M-V-P” in Brooklyn before he fouled out on Monday with 2 minutes 48 seconds remaining and the Celtics leading by 6 points. Their final lead was just 4 points — just enough for victory. And too much for the Nets.Michelle Farsi for The New York TimesIrving is now in line for a contract extension. Most of the Nets’ veteran rotation players are scheduled for free agency. No one knows when the injured Simmons will play. But the story of this season may not so much be how it ended, but whether the Nets’ stars have been left with enough to find a way to start again.Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Soccer

      The Conference League Is the Best European Tournament You’re Not Watching

      by

      AMSTERDAM — Over the course of the last year, setting out from his home about an hour north of Rotterdam, Remco Ravenhorst has followed his team to the glittering shores of Lake Lucerne and the concrete sprawl of suburban Berlin.He has seen his beloved Feyenoord play in the sleepy Swedish town of Boras and the firecracker hostility of Belgrade, Serbia. He has visited Prague, twice. He traveled all the way to Gjilan, on the far side of Kosovo, even though he knew that pandemic-related regulations meant he would not be allowed to enter the stadium.It has, he admitted, been quite an expensive enterprise. He has leaned heavily on the understanding of his employer, though he did skip a trip to Israel after deeming the two-week quarantine on arrival a little too much to swing. His commitment has been commendable, particularly given that it has all been for a competition even he thought was a joke when it was created.When UEFA, soccer’s European governing body, announced the details of its third continental tournament last summer, Ravenhorst was somewhere between unimpressed and unmoved. The event, the Europa Conference League, seemed to offer a pale imitation of European soccer: all of the games but none of the history, meaning, glamour or appeal.Martin Divisek/EPA, via ShutterstockRitzau Scanpix/Via ReutersThree teams in the last eight of the Conference League (Feyenoord, PSV and Marseille) have a European Cup in their trophy case.Gonzalo Fuentes/ReutersFor fans of Roma, above, and Leicester City, the Conference League offers a welcome detour to places they don’t often go.Ettore Ferrari/EPA, via Shutterstock“I wasn’t convinced,” said Ravenhorst, a former president of the Feyenoord Supporters’ Group. “Together with the idea for the European Super League and the changes to the Champions League, it seemed like it would just increase the gap between the bigger leagues and the smaller ones. It felt like another step toward a Super League in disguise.”He was hardly alone in that sentiment. Though Aleksander Ceferin, the UEFA president, had promised the competition would make European soccer “more inclusive than ever before,” the reception for it was lukewarm at best.Europe’s major leagues saw it as another burden, players’ organizations worried that it would increase the risk of burnout and fan groups grumbled about yet another expense for those who wished to follow their teams. Feyenoord’s first home game — against the Kosovo side Drita — seemed to bear out all of the criticisms. In bright sunshine, De Kuip, the club’s ordinarily crackling stadium in Rotterdam, was barely half full.Nine months later, though, Ravenhorst rather sheepishly acknowledges that his feelings have changed. He is not alone. Last week, when Feyenoord hosted Slavia Prague in the first leg of its Conference League quarterfinal — with the Czech side securing a 3-3 draw with a goal in the 95th minute — De Kuip was packed.“The perception has totally changed,” Ravenhorst said. “There is a real positive energy now. People know we have an actual chance, and that gives you the feeling that you could have these kinds of games more often. It does not just have to be the same four, five or six teams from the same four, five or six leagues.”Before the Conference League’s debut, that is precisely what European soccer had become. Since 2013, only three teams from outside Europe’s major television markets — England, Spain, Italy, France and Germany — have qualified for the quarterfinals of the Champions League: two Portuguese teams, Benfica and F.C. Porto, and, in 2019, Feyenoord’s great Dutch rival Ajax.The Europa League has, traditionally, been a little more diverse, but in recent years that, too, has been increasingly vulnerable to the massive financial advantage enjoyed by teams from Western Europe’s grand leagues. Since 2018, only one side from outside the Big Five leagues — the Ukrainian club Shakhtar Donetsk — has qualified for the semifinals.“There is a very small space for teams outside the top 20 clubs on the continent to reach the knockout rounds of European competitions now,” said Kyriakos Kyriakos, a board member at the Greek team PAOK, which hosts Olympique Marseille in the second leg of its quarterfinal on Thursday in Thessaloniki. “For Greek teams, and for all of the midlevel championships in Europe, the Conference League has provided that opportunity.”Leicester City beat PSV Eindhoven, 2-1, on Thursday in the Netherlands to reach its first European semifinal.Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty ImagesThe lineup for the inaugural quarterfinals illustrated that perfectly. England, France and Italy were represented — through Leicester City, Marseille and Roma — but so too were the Czech Republic, Norway and Greece. The Dutch had two contenders: Feyenoord and PSV Eindhoven.In an era when executives from the most powerful teams and the wealthiest leagues compulsively promote the idea that the key to European soccer’s growth lies in ensuring as many meetings as possible between the continent’s superclubs, the Conference League offers a different paradigm.It has, in many ways, been something of a throwback to European soccer as it was in what might be thought of as the sport’s premodern era, before the advent of group stages and seeded draws and the major leagues’ being granted automatic entry for multiple teams in each competition.To the fans following the Conference League, the relative unfamiliarity of the teams involved has not diminished the tournament. It has enhanced it. Where the Champions League feels like a treadmill running between a handful of cities, year after year, its youngest sibling has an air of adventure. “It is quite expensive, but the destinations are part of the attraction,” Ravenhorst said. What else, he said, would draw him to Boras or Lucerne or Gjilan?The appeal, though, runs deeper than just the opportunity for travel. “The level is high, and the games are between opponents who are more or less equal,” Kyriakos said. “The fans have loved it. The games have all been sold out.”That has not just been the case in Greece. Even in England, generally cynical about any idea perceived to be newfangled, Leicester City sold every single ticket for the visit of PSV last week. PSV had already done the same for Thursday’s return match, though it lost it, 2-1, and was eliminated.Parity has not necessarily come at the expense of quality. As Ravenhorst pointed out, Feyenoord’s group — consisting of Slavia Prague, Union Berlin and Maccabi Haifa — “felt like it could be in the Europa League.”Most important, perhaps, the teams themselves have become invested in the tournament. Roma’s visit to Bodo/Glimt in the first leg of the quarterfinal was marred by an altercation in the tunnel between a member of José Mourinho’s coaching staff and Kjetil Knutsen, the Norwegian team’s manager. Bodo lodged an appeal with UEFA when both were punished for the fight.Kyriakos, meanwhile, was anticipating an “amazing night” at Toumba — PAOK’s ramshackle, boisterous stadium, ranked as one of the most intimidating in Europe — for the return leg with Marseille, even though the Greek team entered needing to win by two goals to ensure its place in the semifinals.PAOK and Olympique Marseille in Thessaloniki, where the pregame filled the sky with smoke. Dimitris Tosidis/EPA, via ShutterstockIt was, he said, a “chance to achieve something monumental in our club’s history.” The fervor of PAOK’s fans, though, could not quite carry the team through: Marseille emerged from Toumba with a 1-0 win.Nobody involved is worried that the Europa Conference League emerged, fully formed, from UEFA’s imagination just a year or so ago. Nobody sees the games as meaningless exhibitions; how could they be, when they have come to mean so much? Nobody is complaining about the lack of history or glamour, not anymore.“I am a little bit biased,” Ravenhorst said last week as he prepared for his second journey to Prague this season, “but of course I like the competition now.” His adventure, like Feyenoord’s, shows no sign of ending. He has already booked his plane tickets to Marseille for the semifinal. He still has to persuade his boss. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Soccer

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

      by

      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

    • 163 Shares129 Views

      in Soccer

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

      by

      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

    • 113 Shares179 Views

      in Soccer

      For Carli Lloyd, Creative Tributes Abound as Retirement Approaches

      by

      DELRAN, N.J. — Chants of “Car-li Loyd! Car-li Loyd! Car-li Loyd!” filled Delran Community Park on Oct. 14, led primarily by the children from Delran F.C., a South Jersey youth soccer club that was Carli Lloyd’s first team.Though some of the cheering fans hadn’t been born when Lloyd scored her famous hat trick at the 2015 World Cup in Canada — all three goals coming within 16 minutes — the magic of seeing her, a hometown hero, seemed exhilarating for everyone at the park.As Lloyd, 39, approaches the end of her brilliant soccer career, which could come as early as Sunday in a National Women’s Soccer League playoff game between her Gotham F.C. and the Chicago Red Stars, the sport and its fans have found particularly personal ways to send her off with gratitude and respect.Only eight days before the gathering in Delran, Gotham F.C. hosted the Washington Spirit at a soccer stadium in Chester, Pa., instead of in its regular home, Red Bull Arena in North Jersey. The Chester stadium is not an N.W.S.L. site, but it was as close to Delran as the team could get. And in Lloyd’s farewell season, playing a tribute game near her hometown outweighed any other consideration.Red Bull Arena would be the site of another tribute game, the regular-season finale last Sunday. During warm-ups at both games, Lloyd’s teammates wore jerseys bearing her name and her No. 10.Carli Lloyd and her Gotham F.C. teammates during warmups before their game in Chester, Pa., on Oct. 6.Players from the Medford Strikers, one of Lloyd’s youth teams in New Jersey, gathered with parents outside the stadium in Chester. Some of the parents were Lloyd’s teammates years ago.Lloyd grew emotional after the tribute game in Chester, which drew many fans from her native South Jersey. On Oct. 26, Lloyd gave a tearful goodbye speech on a field in St. Paul, Minn., where she played her last match as a member of the United States Women’s National Team.“I am signing off,” she said. “You will not see me on the field, but you’d best believe that I will be around helping this game grow.”Lloyd finished with 316 caps, representing each international match she played. Only one other women’s player in the world has earned more — Kristine Lilly of the United States, who retired in 2010 with 354. Lloyd scored 134 goals in global competition, ranking third on the U.S.W.N.T. list behind Abby Wambach (184) and Mia Hamm (158), and she also collected 64 assistsLloyd went to four Olympics and four World Cups, winning twice at each tournament, and she played for a handful of professional club teams, in both the N.W.S.L. and the defunct Women’s Professional Soccer.At Lloyd’s retirement party in Delran, N.J., she chatted with with the mayor, Gary Catrambone, upper right, and it was announced that the soccer field at the park where she grew up playing would be named after her. For Lloyd’s final regular-season home game, fans filled Red Bull Arena. Living up to expectations, she smashed a header into the back of the net in the 53rd minute and received a thunderous ovation from the fans and her teammates. At her postmatch interview, an inscription on her shin pads was plainly visible: “Better Every Day,” which has long been her personal motto.At the Delran celebration, as the fireworks wound down and the final chords of John Mellencamp’s “Small Town” faded out, young players from Delran F.C. sleepily gathered their banners and posters and stumbled home on a school night, exhausted from cheering but knowing they got to see and live in the same town as one of the greatest of all time.Lloyd scored a goal on Oct. 31, in her final regular-season game, a 1-1 tie with Racing Louisville. On Sunday, Gotham will meet the Chicago Red Stars in a playoff game that could be Lloyd’s final match. More

    • 175 Shares189 Views

      in Basket

      The Nets Had a Chance to Win Over New York. Now, They’ll Try Again.

      by

      Right after the final buzzer sounded on Game 7 between the Milwaukee Bucks and the Nets during the N.B.A.’s Eastern Conference semifinals last spring, Giovannie Cruz had to leave his house in Elizabeth, N.J., and go to a nearby park. Cruz, an avowed Nets fan for most of his 39 years, had watched the game with his 4-year-old son and “acted like a lunatic” until the end, when the Nets lost in heartbreaking fashion.“I literally walked around that park for almost an hour from the sheer disappointment,” Cruz said. “I didn’t want my son to see me too animated and use too much colorful language.”Last season was supposed to be the year, the season when the Nets and their fans — both the long suffering and the newcomers — would no longer be an afterthought in the N.B.A. The last time a pro sports team from Brooklyn won a championship, Jackie Robinson was wearing a uniform for the Dodgers in Major League Baseball. It was 1955.But there was more at stake for the Nets last season than simply winning a championship. In a city dominated by Knicks fans, a title could have allowed the Nets to plant a basketball-shaped flag (and raise a banner) in their efforts to shift the balance of power away from Madison Square Garden and put Knicks fans in their place. Just ask one of the Nets’ most prominent backers, the mayor of New York.Giovannie Cruz was so overwhelmed by the Nets’ elimination in the playoffs last season that he left his home in Elizabeth, N.J., to take a walk.Brittainy Newman for The New York Times“I really feel like this is the final act in the renaissance of Brooklyn and giving Brooklyn its rightful place in the world, and that has tremendous importance for the city going forward,” Mayor Bill de Blasio, a longtime Brooklyn resident before his 2014 inauguration, said in an interview before Game 3 of the semifinals series, when the Nets were up 2-0 and a championship run seemed inevitable.The renaissance will have to wait. This summer, the Nets retooled their roster, somehow managing to add talent to one of the best on-paper assemblies in N.B.A. history. With veterans like Patty Mills and Paul Millsap now coming off the bench and healthy versions of Kevin Durant and James Harden ready to take the floor, the expectations for the Nets will be sky high. That’s true even if Kyrie Irving, barred from games until he gets vaccinated, doesn’t play for a while. But if the Nets don’t win at least one ring, this era most likely will be considered one of the biggest flops ever — and the Nets will have blown their best chance to cut into the suddenly resurgent Knicks’ hold on the city.“We don’t want to be just the most popular N.B.A. team in New York City,” John Abbamondi, the chief executive of the Nets, said in an interview at Barclays before that Game 7. “We want to be a global sporting icon on the level of a Real Madrid or Barcelona. That’s our aspiration.”Nine years ago, the Nets played their first season in Brooklyn, after being in New Jersey since 1977 following the merger with the A.B.A. The team had some success with the fast-paced teams of Jason Kidd, Richard Jefferson and Kenyon Martin in the early 2000s, but it spent most of its history in the basketball wilderness, rarely attracting stars or playing in important games.“It was kind of rough at that time,” said Trenton Hassell, a guard who ended his career with the Nets in New Jersey from 2008 to 2010. “We had true fans still coming, but we were doing a lot of losing so that was tough.”The Nets have drawn increasing numbers of fans to home games, helped by the recent addition of three marquee players: Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving.Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York TimesMoving to Brooklyn was a new start on many levels. They had a shiny new arena, new branding and a spotlight-grabbing minority owner in Jay-Z, who was often on the sidelines with his megastar wife, Beyoncé.Old and new Nets fans are blending and forging a new collective identity. The cheers at Barclays Center are often most prominent from 96 or so fans who sit in Section 114. The die-hards there, called the Brooklyn Brigades, are sponsored by the team and are known for their creative chants. That’s a far cry from the early days in Brooklyn, when rival fans often outnumbered those of the Nets and Barclays had middling attendance overall.Richard Bearak has been a Nets fan since the 1970s and was at the championship in 1976. He’s the director of land use for Eric Adams, who is the Brooklyn borough president and the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City. When Barclays first opened to the public, Bearak said, the arena was a “tourist attraction” that drew fans of winning, opposing teams.“A third of the crowd could have been supporting Golden State,” Bearak, 63, said. “At Madison Square Garden, it’s really hard to be a fan of another team and expect to be there in droves.”When the Nets first arrived from the Meadowlands in 2012, they did so as an interloper in some eyes. First, there were the fans in New Jersey who resented losing their team. And in Brooklyn, there were those who believed Barclays, which was part of a $6 billion commercial and residential redevelopment, would do more harm to the area than good — particularly with concerns about gentrification and congestion.A 2014 study by The New York Times based on Facebook data showed that after two seasons in Brooklyn, the Knicks were the more popular team in every New York City ZIP code, except the neighborhoods surrounding Barclays — in part because of the new residents who had moved to the remade downtown area. In response, the Village Voice referred to the Nets as “Gentrification’s Team.”Durant, who wears No. 7 for the Nets, Harden and Irving had three of the top-10 selling jerseys in each half of last season.Brittainy Newman for The New York Times“We didn’t have a fan base for New York or Brooklyn at all,” said Irina Pavlova, then a top executive with the company of the team’s owner at the time, Mikhail Prokhorov. “It was zero. It was starting from scratch, especially in a city like New York, where the Knicks are such an institution.”Pavlova said the franchise focused on using “Brooklyn” as the main calling card to recruit new fans instead of the team name, as other franchises do. The fruits of that marketing effort can still be seen today, when the most common team chant is a drawn out “Broooooklyn!”“That was done to appeal to the residents of the borough since they didn’t have a team to root for,” Pavlova said.The people cheering for the Nets these days can generally be placed in four boxes. 1. Fans since the Nets were in the A.B.A. and playing in Long Island, like Bearak. 2. New Jersey-era fans like Cruz. 3. New, Brooklyn-era fans. 4. Those who root for specific stars, no matter their team.That last group is the hardest to track and may be the most crucial for the future of the Nets in the N.B.A., where star players are more influential than in other team sports. Irving, Durant and Harden brought in an uncertain number of transient fans. In the first and second halves of last season, the A-list trio had three of the league’s 10 highest selling jerseys.Dawn Risueno, 53, a lifelong Brooklyn resident, became a Nets fan in 1990 because her ex-boyfriend preferred them over the Knicks.Nets fans Justin Messier and Dawn Risueno.Brittainy Newman for The New York TimesBrittainy Newman for The New York TimesShe has spent several years following the team across the country as part of an annual road trip. She converted her sports-agnostic husband of 18 years to the cause, and brought along her two children and seven grandchildren.“They didn’t have a choice in the matter,” Risueno said of her children and grandchildren. “Since they came literally out of the womb, I’ve had them in Nets outfits.”Bobby Edemeka, 46, a portfolio manager who was born and raised in Brooklyn, said he used to follow players instead of teams. But the Nets’ relocation to his hometown instilled pride, and Edemeka founded the Brooklyn Brigades group, which was unofficial until the Nets began sponsoring it in 2018. (Edemeka used to buy bundles of tickets and offer them for free to prospective Nets fans.)“You can travel the whole world and you’re not going to find people more proud of where they’re from than New Yorkers, and I think that goes especially so for people from Brooklyn,” Edemeka said.For pre-Brooklyn fans like Cruz, loving the team means “waiting for the bottom to fall out at all times.” Cruz lived through the 2009-10 season, when the team went 12-70. Still, Cruz was upset to see the Nets leave New Jersey two years later. He kept rooting for the team nonetheless. Many New Jerseyans didn’t.For newer fans like Edemeka, their Nets memories are mostly highlights. The team has made the playoffs in six of its nine seasons at Barclays. There have been two playoff series wins. There hasn’t actually been much suffering, all things considered.Judy and Bruce Rezmick — ‘Mr. and Mrs. Whammy’ — try to throw off the Minnesota Timberwolves with hand symbols.Brittainy Newman for The New York Times“I don’t have any of that emotional baggage,” said Edemeka, a season-ticket holder for all of the Nets seasons. “I didn’t live through 12 and 70. I’m unburdened by that legacy.”Old Nets fans and all but the newest Knicks fans know a thing or two about emotional baggage. And yet the relative success of the Nets in Brooklyn, alongside the mostly dreary days at Madison Square Garden during the same period, has not broken the city’s devotion to the Knicks.There is, in theory, a concrete way to close that gap. Fans go further to associate themselves with winners, as documented in a landmark fan behavior study by Robert B. Cialdini in 1976 — a psychological concept known as “basking in reflected glory.” The opposite — disassociating from losing teams — is known as “cutting off reflected failure.” The study found that fans are likely to say “we” in reference to their favorite team’s winning but “they” if the team loses.Rick Burton, a professor of sports management at Syracuse University, said that if the Knicks remained the more inept team, younger generations in the city not yet dug in on team allegiances may precipitate a cultural shift.“The Knicks could rule almost by default,” Burton said of the Knicks before 2012. “But with social media, 500 television channels, a million websites, Brooklyn is not that far from any of the other boroughs, suddenly we have to talk about the fact that the Nets appear to have much more of a cachet than the Knicks.”But the flip side to that is, of course, not winning, which the Nets are intimately familiar with. The promising, but ultimately deflating, semifinal series last season showed that.“It’s always been so hard to be a Nets fan,” Cruz said.Brittainy Newman for The New York Times More