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      In England, a Changed Nation Hopes for a Change in Soccer Fortunes

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      After installing a Labour government for the first time in 14 years, the country is looking to a historical precedent as a presage to a long-awaited sporting success.Whether “football’s coming home” is as unpredictable as ever. But in England, watching this weekend as its men’s national soccer team comes within touching distance of glory, the dreaming and dreading seem less anguished this time around.Three years ago, in the deadly grip of the coronavirus pandemic and the acrid wake of Brexit, England suffered a heartbreaking loss to Italy, on penalty kicks, in the final of the European championships in London.England’s run through that Covid-delayed tournament had lifted a country that badly needed it. The team’s unofficial anthem, “Three Lions,” swelled in pubs and living rooms across the country, offering the hope, however far-fetched, that after five decades of tournament disappointments and 14 months of lockdowns, “football’s coming home,” as the lyrics of the song go.Home looks very different this year.As England prepares to play Spain in the final in Berlin on Sunday, there’s a sense of a country turning the page, on the field and off. Last week, the Labour Party swept out a Conservative Party that had been in government for 14 years, leaving a professed soccer fan, Keir Starmer, as prime minister, and raising a tantalizing historical precedent.England flags in London. As the country prepares to play Spain in the European final in Berlin on Sunday, there’s a sense of a nation turning the page, on the field and off.Andy Rain/EPA, via ShutterstockThe last time England won a major international championship, the World Cup in 1966, it came four months after the Labour Party, led by Prime Minister Harold Wilson, had scored a landslide victory over the Conservatives. The 58 years since then have been a sad litany of missed chances and unfulfilled promise — or as the song pitilessly puts it, “England’s gonna throw it away, gonna blow it way.”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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      This Soccer Player Wanted to Wear Her Hijab on the Field. France Wouldn’t Let Her.

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      Lina Boussaha joined a team in Saudi Arabia so she could wear her head scarf while playing the sport she calls “a part of my soul.”During Ramadan, as her family fasted and prayed, Lina Boussaha, a professional soccer player, eagerly tore open a package in her bedroom in France. Inside were two head scarves she had ordered, labeled Nike, and marketed as a symbol of empowerment for Muslim women in sports.Ms. Boussaha, 25, turned pro when she was 17. Her parents are Algerian, she grew up in one of Paris’s poorest suburbs, and until that Ramadan, in 2022, had never worn a hijab outside prayers. She usually wore her heavy curls in a high ponytail.But she had recently decided she wanted to wear a hijab regularly, even during games. And that decision put her on a journey that eventually took her from France to start her career anew in the Middle East.It also gave her a chance to unite her religious beliefs with her secular pursuit of soccer.“It is with great pride that I announce that I am wearing the veil (hijab),” Ms. Boussaha wrote on her Instagram account that night. “My religion, my inner peace, and my spirituality are my priorities, and these come before my worldly pleasures like football & my career as a professional player. Nothing prevents doing both, even if (here in France), it remains complicated.”As she recalled writing those words, she said in an interview in a cafe near her childhood home in Seine-Saint-Denis, a wave of relief washed over her.“Soccer is not just a game for me,” she said. “It’s a part of my soul.”Ms. Boussaha at a mosque in Khobar. France’s soccer federation has barred players from wearing conspicuous religious symbols or clothing like hijabs during matches.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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      At Euro 2024, France Stars Pivot From Political Fight to a Soccer One

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      Some of the country’s top players had urged voters to reject the far right in a pivotal election. With that battle over, a date with Spain in Euro 2024 offers a more familiar challenge.For once, Didier Deschamps could reflect on a news conference that passed by almost without incident. Given the timing, that had seemed unlikely. On Sunday, French voters had issued a stinging rebuke to their country’s resurgent far right in a seismic legislative election. On Tuesday, the country’s increasingly activist soccer team will face Spain in a European Championship semifinal.Sandwiched between the two was an appearance by Deschamps, the coach of the French national team, in the full megawatt glare of the world’s news media. Although he has always been studiously inscrutable, his players have not. Over the past month, a half dozen members of his squad have made their feelings on the rise of the National Rally perfectly clear.The forward Marcus Thuram called on the French to “fight daily” against the threat of the far right. The defender Jules Koundé expressed his hope that the country would reject those who “seek to take away our freedom.” His teammate Ibrahima Konaté urged that power should not be handed to “certain people who are intent on division.”Deschamps, then, may well have been expecting awkward exchanges on Monday. Instead, he found himself fielding the sort of questions that must have come as blissful relief. How fit was Kylian Mbappé? What does he think of Spain’s midfield?Marcus Thuram, left, and Kylian Mbappé were among the France players who spoke out forcefully before the elections in France.Patricia De Melo Moreira/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThere was only one moment of tension. Deschamps had been asked by a Swedish journalist if it might be fair to characterize his France team as a little, well, boring: It has, after all, managed to reach the semifinals of the tournament without scoring a goal from open play.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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      Before LeBron and Bronny, These Fathers and Sons Made Sports History

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      The Los Angeles Lakers are poised to have the first father-son N.B.A. duo in league history. But other dads and sons have played pro sports together as well.When the Los Angeles Lakers selected Bronny James, 19, in the second round of the N.B.A. draft on Thursday night, the team set up an intriguing story line. Next season, he could play in the same lineup as his father, the 39-year-old superstar LeBron James.While there have been many great parent-child combos in sports history — Bobby and Barry Bonds in baseball; Peter and Kasper Schmeichel in soccer; Pamela, JaVale and Imani McGee in basketball — seldom do they play at the same time, much less on the same team.But at least on a few other occasions, the stars have aligned to make it possible.The Ageless Gordie Howe and SonsGordie Howe retired from hockey at age 43 after an illustrious career. But when his sons Mark and Marty joined the Houston Aeros of the World Hockey Association three seasons later, he could not resist.“They knew my greatest wish has always been to play pro hockey with my sons,” he said, “and when they asked me, ‘Would you be interested?’ I said, ‘Hell, yes.’”His return proved not to be a brief cameo. Astonishingly, he played with his sons for seven seasons, moving on to the New England Whalers, who joined the N.H.L. for the 1979-80 season as the Hartford Whalers. Howe Sr. was skating on major league ice at 51.He played 80 games with the Whalers in his final season, scoring 15 goals before finally hanging up his skates. “I think I have another half-year in me,” he declared at the announcement.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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      Black-Clad Ultras Are a Fixture at Euro 2024

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      Hard-core fan groups, embracing a strong nationalistic streak, have provoked pushback from soccer’s authorities at the European Championship.The instructions were concise and clear.Those hoping to march to the stadium with Hungary’s fans for their soccer team’s first game of the European Championship were expected to report by 10 a.m. sharp, five hours before kickoff.A strict dress code would apply. Some could wear black. Others were to stick with red, white and green, the colors of the country’s flag. Under no circumstances was there to be any flashiness. “Gaudy colors, clown hats and bagpipes” were all prohibited. They were, prospective marchers were reminded, “going to a soccer stadium, not a circus.”The hectoring and slightly priggish tone felt jarring, considering the source of the orders: the official Facebook page of the Carpathian Brigade, a virulently nationalistic faction of hard-core fans — ultras, as such groups are known — that provides the Hungarian national team with its vociferous and volatile backing.The Carpathian Brigade has, in recent years, become perhaps Europe’s most infamous ultra group, its reputation forged by clashing with the police, showering opponents with racist abuse and displaying homophobic banners. In 2021, during the last European Championship, it had to remind members to cover up any Nazi-related tattoos so as not to contravene German law.None of that has stopped its growth. If anything, it has accelerated it. Drawn by the Carpathian Brigade’s voluble Hungarian patriotism and unabashed right-wing values — an ideology that both echoes and trumpets the populist rhetoric of Viktor Orban, the country’s prime minister — the group may now be able to call on as many as 15,000 members.It is also not alone. Black-clad ultras have been a fixture at Euro 2024 this month, with detachments — sometimes numbering a few hundred, sometimes a little larger — visible across Germany and at games involving Albania, Croatia, Romania and Slovakia, among others.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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      ‘Copa 71’ Documentary Shows Hidden History of Women’s World Cup

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      This new documentary unearths footage from a World Cup event that even veteran players didn’t know about. It’s both exhilarating and infuriating.“Copa 71” begins with Brandi Chastain, the two-time Olympic gold medalist and legendary U.S. women’s soccer player, gawking at a screen. “This is unbelievable,” she says, looking at what the filmmaker has just handed her: footage of a stadium filled with people cheering at an old tournament. At first, she thinks it’s a men’s event. Then, as the players file out, she realizes the athletes are women. “Why didn’t I know about this?” Chastain asks in consternation. “It makes me very happy, and quite infuriated.”That’s a neat encapsulation of the effects of watching “Copa 71” (in theaters and on demand), directed by Rachel Ramsay and James Erskine. The film tells the story of the all-but-forgotten 1971 Women’s World Cup, held in Mexico City and Guadalajara, which was recorded beautifully on film that went unseen for half a century.The tournament was actually the second such event organized by the Federation of Independent European Female Football; the first was held a year earlier, in Italy. But those details matter less than the context. At the time, soccer (or football, as most of the film’s participants of course call it) was still considered a sport for men, and women who played it were subject to a rich variety of snide and suspicious comments. Aside from the cultural pressures, FIFA, the governing body for what was only men’s soccer at the time, was on a mission to block women from taking part in international football in any organized fashion. In the film’s view, FIFA’s move was as much about retaining power as about the sport itself.All of this is laid out in “Copa 71,” with the help of a few historians and a number of athletes who played in the international tournaments. Their recollections, juxtaposed with images of a huge arena filled with cheering fans of all ages and genders, make this feel like a sports documentary from an alternate universe — especially because it would take 20 more years for FIFA to finally authorize women’s soccer for international play.The 1970s tournaments took place in a time of increasing worldwide activism for women’s rights. While the tournaments were obviously part of that movement, the players didn’t see themselves necessarily as activists. They just wanted to play. And this confounded observers, often men, who couldn’t conceive of women just wanting to do something regardless of men’s involvement or opinions.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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      Ukraine’s Soldiers Cheer National Soccer Team in Euro 2024

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      Soldiers huddled in a bunker with soft drinks and chips to watch Ukraine face Romania, only to suffer heartbreak.They had won one battle, and then sat to watch a battle of a different kind. Eight Ukrainian National Guard soldiers who had helped stall a Russian offensive in the northern Kharkiv region of Ukraine took the afternoon off on Monday to watch the men’s national soccer team play its first game of the European Championship.“Football unites — it gives adrenaline and motivates,” said Evhen, 34, a soldier in the 13th National Guard Brigade who asked to be identified by only his first name, in accordance with military protocol.The soldiers huddled in a bunker with soft drinks and chips to watch Ukraine play Romania in Munich, only to suffer heartbreak when their team lost by 3-0. But like most Ukrainians, they nonetheless take special pride in their sports team during the war.“We have one team on the field and a million on the front,” said Andriy Shevchenko, a former soccer star who is Ukraine’s most famous player and now heads the national soccer federation. Like all Ukrainians, he said, “soccer players start their day by opening their phones and checking the situation on the battlefield.”For the National Guard soldiers, who have been fighting together for more than a year, soccer became a chance to bond in the safety of a basement and cheer their national team. Huddled underground, they watched Ukraine quickly fall behind against Romania.“At war, we look at things differently,” said a commander who uses the nickname Jackson. “Even now, while watching the game, we understand that at any moment we might have to leave and go into the trenches to fight. We are always ready.”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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      Euro 2024 Shooting: Police in Hamburg Shoot Man With Ax

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      The shooting took place in Hamburg, in an area packed with soccer fans, and hours before the Netherlands and Poland were set to play in the city.A man wielding an ax on a street crowded with soccer fans was shot by the police on Sunday in Hamburg, Germany, only hours before the city was to host a game at the European Championship.The man threatened police officers with “a pickax and an incendiary device,” a police spokesman said on Sunday. When he did not respond to warnings, the police said, he was shot.The man was injured and was being treated, they confirmed. No fans nor police officers were injured.The incident took place in Hamburg’s entertainment district, a section of the city known as the Reeperbahn that is filled with restaurants and bars. At the time, the area was packed with thousands of fans who had arrived to see the Netherlands play Poland on Sunday afternoon.According to a spokeswoman for the Hamburg police and videos of the incident posted online, the man came out of a small restaurant with a small, double-bladed ax and a firebomb and threatened officers nearby.Standing behind a police barrier as fans watched only steps away, the man — dressed all in black — shouted and moved toward a group of about a dozen police officers, several of whom were pointing their weapons at him from either side of the barrier. He held the small ax in one hand and what appeared to be a bottle with a rag in its neck in the other.At the time of the incident, Hamburg’s Reeperbahn area was packed with thousands of fans who had arrived to see the Netherlands play Poland on Sunday afternoon.Lena Mucha for The New York TimesWhen a police officer sprayed pepper spray in the man’s direction, he turned and began running up the street as fans scattered out of his path. Officers moved to surround him a short distance up the narrow street, and soon after, at least four gunshots rang out and the man fell to the ground.The police said that the man had been injured, but they could not give further updates on his condition. He was placed in an ambulance and driven away.The gunshots, captured in several videos that were posted online, were a sudden and jarring intrusion into what had been a festive lunchtime atmosphere. Within minutes, scores of police officers had gathered and set up a cordon around the scene of the shooting, and loudspeaker announcements — and the looming kickoff — cleared the area.The site of the shooting was a 10-minute walk from the city’s official fan zone, which was thronged with many more thousands of fans at the time, and a short train ride from the 57,000-seat Volksparkstadion, where the Netherlands and Poland were to meet in the first of three tournament games set for Sunday.The shooting came on the third day of the monthlong tournament, which brings together the continent’s best 24 teams every four years, and amid a heightened police presence.The German authorities said last week that about 22,000 police officers would be working each day of the tournament, and that they would be supplemented by hundreds more from the participating countries. More