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      Secrets and Systems, Lost in the Video Age

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      Technology democratized scouting and made hidden gems a thing of the past. But innovation is a moving target.Udinese knew about Alexis Sánchez long before he had been called up to play for the Chilean national team. It knew about him before he had played in the Copa Libertadores, before the rest of South America discovered him and before he had caught the acquisitive eyes of Europe’s biggest, richest teams.Quite how much time elapsed between Sánchez’s making his debut — a substitute appearance for Cobreloa, a team based in the mining town of Calama in Chile’s parched, dusty north — and word of his talent spreading all the way from the edge of the Atacama Desert to Italy’s cold, foggy northeast is difficult to establish precisely.A couple of months, possibly. Maybe less. There is a chance that Udinese knew about Sánchez even before, on April 23, 2005, Jawed Karim stood outside the elephant enclosure at the San Diego Zoo, filming himself for a website he had helped to launch.It was not especially compelling content. “The cool thing about these guys,” Karim said, correctly, “is that they have really, really, really long trunks.” It may not have been David Attenborough, but it was the first video uploaded to YouTube. And it would, ultimately, be possibly the most significant event in Udinese’s modern history.A middleweight sort of a club in Serie A, Udinese did not have the luxury of employing a scout on the ground in Chile, one who could attend mid-table Primera División games in the hopes of unearthing a generational talent. Instead, it found out about Sánchez the way it found out about almost all of the dozens of nascent stars it had discovered.Udinese, whose vast scouting network once allowed it to compete for European places, has been a reliably mid-table team for the past decade.Andrea Bressanutti/LaPresse, via Associated PressUnder the auspices of Gino Pozzo, the son of the club’s owner, Udinese had spent years establishing a formidable, informal network of contacts across the globe: coaches, fixers, scouts, agents, journalists.The emphasis was not on countries that were well established as sources of players — Brazil, Argentina, Portugal, the Netherlands — but on those places that were a little more off the beaten track: the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Colombia, Chile. “We look in countries where there is a good balance between the technical level and the financial,” Pozzo told The Times of London in 2015.Under the Pozzos’ setup, if any of Udinese’s informants spotted a player who might be of interest, they would send footage — in the form of videotape, initially, and then DVDs — to the club. In Italy, it would be parsed and analyzed by Udinese’s technical staff. If the recommendation passed muster, the club would dispatch scouts to watch the player in person.For more than a decade, the system worked, and it worked spectacularly. Udinese earned a reputation as masters of the transfer market, the most reliable talent merchants in Italy. Márcio Amoroso, Marek Jankulovski, Sulley Muntari and Oliver Bierhoff all passed through Udine on their way to grander, brighter horizons.So did Sánchez, whose career after Italy took him to Barcelona, Arsenal, Manchester United and — after a brief loan spell with Inter Milan — to Marseille. He was a totem in what may well be the finest national team Chile has known. There is an argument, a convincing one, that he is his country’s greatest player.He was also, though neither he nor the club knew it at the time, the last hurrah of Udinese’s golden era.Alexis Sánchez, the Chile striker found and, more recently, lost.Martin Bernetti/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe way Udinese worked, of course, never wavered. Pozzo’s attempts to expand his empire — he invested in the Spanish team Granada and the English club Watford in an attempt to industrialize Udinese’s recruitment strategy — failed, but he still had his network of contacts around the world. Thousands upon thousands of hours of tape still poured into the club’s viewing center. Udinese did not lose its expertise, its judgment, its way.And yet it rapidly found its edge dulled nonetheless. While Udinese had not changed, the rest of the world had. Both the technology that YouTube pioneered and the principle it represented — that footage of anything could be uploaded and quickly disseminated online — had not taken long to infiltrate soccer.Clubs no longer needed to have a dedicated scout covering a league to find players. Instead, they could track a competition on one of any number of video-sharing platforms that offered game footage for a reasonable monthly fee. The most prominent, Wyscout, became a compulsory subscription for every club. Soon, data providers added video to their packages, too. Now, if it knew what it was looking for, any team could be Udinese.Soccer has a habit of undervaluing these sorts of cultural shifts, and as a result misunderstanding the currents that eddy and swirl around it, invisibly and inexorably shaping its reality. There is a tendency, for example, to berate the sport for its apparent reluctance to embrace data as quickly as baseball and, to some extent, basketball.The charge is that soccer’s inherent conservatism, its aversion to new thinking, conditioned it to resist the benefits of analytics. That is, doubtless, true. But in researching “Expected Goals,” my book on the history of the relationship between soccer and data, it became clear that before 1998, and the invention of the DVD, even attempting any form of analytics was too unwieldy to be practical. One of the pioneers of the field, ProZone, initially used a system that required eight — eight — interconnected VCRs in order to annotate tape.That blindness to the indirect, external factors that explain success is significant. This month, Aston Villa appointed Ramón Rodriguez Verdejo — better known as Monchi — as its president of football operations. It is, doubtless, a coup. Monchi has, in almost two decades at Sevilla, established himself as one of the most admired talent spotters in world soccer.Monchi’s track record is unparalleled. He has discovered so many players — Ivan Rakitic, Carlos Bacca, Jules Koundé, countless others — that the profits from their sales helped transform Sevilla from a financially stricken, second-division team into one that can win the Europa League even when it expressly does not want to win the Europa League.The only note of caution, when Monchi’s appointment by Villa was announced, was that it is not yet clear if his skills are transferable. He left Sevilla once before, for the Italian side Roma, and lasted less than a year. (The reasons behind that premature departure are intensely debated and fervently held.)Perhaps, though, there should be another warning. Monchi’s calling card, his pièce de résistance, was his signing of Dani Alves, two decades ago. The Brazilian fullback, currently awaiting trial in Spain on charges of sexual assault, went on to play for Barcelona, Juventus and Paris St.-Germain. No player has won more honors. He made 126 appearances for Brazil. His signing was the beginning of Monchi’s legend.The story of how Monchi found him, though, is significant. Sevilla spotted Alves at the South American under-20 championship, when he stood out so much that Sevilla’s scout called Monchi immediately, praising this young right back to the skies. The haste was, perhaps, unnecessary. Sevilla was the only European club to have sent a representative to the tournament.That is not to say that Monchi is outdated. He thrived in Seville for two decades. He is no starchy traditionalist. He has been more than willing to innovate and experiment and update his methods. He is impeccably connected, fiercely intelligent, a consummate deal maker: precisely the sort of executive, in other words, that an ambitious team like Villa needs.But it is true that, since returning to Sevilla from Roma in 2019, Monchi’s success rate has been just a little lower. Koundé, now with Barcelona, is the only relatively recent addition to his greatest hits. The others, from Alves to Rakitic to the forwards Luís Fabiano and Júlio Baptista, all now belong to a previous era of the game.Like Udinese, it is not that Monchi has changed. It is not even that he has suffered the fate of so many pioneers, and found his advantage eroded by imitation. It is simply that everyone can now send a scout to the South American under-20 championship. And even if they do not, they can always watch the games on Wyscout or Scout7, or read the data on StatsBomb or Opta Pro or InStat.The world has changed, in other words. It was altered irrevocably by “Me at the zoo,” even if it did not know it at the time. The executives in charge of world soccer know that now, of course. But knowing it, and figuring out how that should influence the decisions you make and the things you believe: Those are two quite different things.Caesar’s WifeAt best, the evidence is circumstantial. It may be nothing more than coincidence.To recap the bare facts of the case, because it is all quite dry and convoluted and also requires an inelegant number of the uses of the word “fund”: Clearlake, the private equity firm that owns Chelsea — alongside the transfer market master strategist Todd Boehly — has received some (it’s not clear how much) investment from the Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.The PIF, as previously discussed in this newsletter, recently took control of four teams in the Saudi Pro League, and has set about hiring a glut of aging, slightly faded stars to populate them. Many of its targets, as it turns out, play for Chelsea: N’Golo Kanté, Hakim Ziyech, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and so on.N’Golo Kanté, safely shuffled off Chelsea’s books with the help of Al-Ittihad’s checkbook.Justin Tallis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAs it happens, Chelsea has spent colossal sums on players since Clearlake and Boehly took over last year. It now finds itself desperately trying to pare down its bloated, expensive squad, both for practical reasons — the players do not all fit in one changing room — and more pressing economic ones: Chelsea needs its books to balance a little more by the end of the month so the club doesn’t run afoul of various financial regulations put in place by the Premier League and European soccer.On the surface, then, it is not hard to understand why people might think this Saudi buying of Chelsea players is all just a little too convenient. Somewhere along the line, the people doing the buying and the people doing the selling have interests that are, let’s say, mutually aligned.There is, of course, an alternative explanation: that Chelsea has a stock of high-profile players it no longer requires, and that the Saudi authorities — working out how to spend the PIF’s money — have spotted an opportunity, in essence, to buy in bulk. Coincidence, in other words. Nothing untoward to see here at all, just the usual mechanics of the market.And that may well be true. Certainly, those involved with Chelsea and the Saudi clubs insist that it is. But that does not mean the perception is not a problem. Saudi Arabia’s bailing Chelsea out of a mess of the club’s own making would compromise soccer’s integrity. Saudi Arabia merely looking as if it is bailing out Chelsea, though, is not a whole lot better.In his trilogy on the Roman orator and politician Cicero, the author Robert Harris depicts the story of Publius Clodius Pulcher, a sociopathic, rabble-rousing politician who slips into Julius Caesar’s home to witness the rites of the Good Goddess, a ceremony only women were permitted to attend.Clodius is caught. A scandal, and a trial, ensue. Caesar insists he did not allow Clodius to enter, and nor did his wife, Pompeia. He maintains her innocence absolutely, in fact. But he is the chief of the official Roman state religion, the pontifex maximus. And so he divorces Pompeia. What matters most of all, he realizes, is not just that his wife — and his family — “are free from guilt, but even from the suspicion of it.”CorrespondenceA great sin was committed in last week’s newsletter, and thankfully — with the unerring precision of a Luis Suárez free kick, or a pod of orcas attacking a boat — Tom Karsay spotted it immediately. In the story of Luciano Spalletti, I did not so much as bury the lede as omit it altogether. “His car,” Tom wrote. “Did he ever get it back?”The answer is, pleasingly, that he got some of it back: Once Spalletti announced that he was leaving Napoli, a delegation of the club’s ultras presented him with the car’s steering wheel, as a goodbye gift. Personally, I am in favor of this becoming a tradition: Departing managers should in perpetuity be presented at Napoli with a steering wheel in gratitude for their service.Mary Irene Katsibas spotted another absence. “Writing about managers walking away before they are fired I wish you had mentioned Zidane,” she pointed out, entirely reasonably. Zinedine Zidane knew when to call it a day at Real Madrid. The first time round, at least. He did kind of spoil it by going back and having to leave again, though.And Eduardo Frias has a response to the question, posed last week, about who will benefit most from Lionel Messi’s arrival in Major League Soccer, outside his new teammates at Inter Miami. “Argentina’s national team,” Eduardo wrote, definitively. “Messi happy, staying in shape, playing in a league where they will not try to break his ankles in every challenge is a huge plus.”That, without question, was part of the motivation behind Messi’s choice: Though he recently hinted otherwise, I think we can probably assume that Messi is intending to defend the World Cup — on what by then will be home soil — in 2026. Now what was that thing about legacy being defined by knowing when to walk away … More

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      Washington Spirit’s Michele Kang Wants to Take Women’s Soccer Clubs Global

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      “Transforming Spaces” is a series about women driving change in sometimes unexpected places.Y. Michele Kang did not expect to be here.As the founder and chief executive of Cognosante, a health care technology company, she had made a name for herself as a “reasonably successful businesswoman,” she said.At this point in her career, she explained, she thought she might start spending more time on her philanthropic work. Instead, she has become an influential figure in the world of professional women’s soccer.“I don’t think I’ve been as passionate about anything as I am now about women’s soccer,” Ms. Kang said.In March 2022, she purchased the Washington Spirit, becoming the first woman of color to own a controlling stake in a National Women’s Soccer League team. The sale came after a long and contentious battle in which players and fans called for Steve Baldwin, the chief executive at the time, to sell the team to Ms. Kang in the wake of allegations of abuse brought against the team’s former coach.Just a year later, she is now set to become the first woman to own and lead a multiteam soccer organization, which will encompass both the Spirit and the French club Olympique Lyonnais. The all-stock deal, which is expected to close in late June, will create a new independent entity under Ms. Kang as majority owner. She is already talking of adding more teams from around the world.As Ms. Kang’s profile has risen, questions remain about how much she can do in a league and a sport where abuse has been rampant and leaders have failed to protect players. Trust in longtime N.W.S.L. coaches and staff members can be on shaky ground. Who knew of abuse and turned the other way? How do you build a new culture from the ground up?Her response lies in equal parts investment and trust. Players and staff had endured a “horrific situation,” she said of abuse allegations, including accusations that the coach of the team she owned had fostered a toxic workplace culture for female employees.“I don’t want to overplay that I’m a woman, or a person of color, therefore I’m the only one who can understand our players,” she said, speaking of members of the Washington Spirit, “but there is a little bit of a sense of trust and comfort and familiarity that I am very glad to provide so that they feel comfortable coming up to me and talking to me about any issues.” She wishes she could say any of this — her purchase of a N.W.S.L. team, her creation of a multiteam organization, her hopes to help transform the culture around women’s soccer — were all part of a grand vision. But that is not the case.A few years ago, she didn’t know much about the sport. So little, in fact, that friends accused her of not knowing Lionel Messi, one of the world’s most famous players.Her retort? “Well, I did know who Pelé was.”Ms. Kang in 2021, as the Spirit’s co-owner, celebrating after the team won the National Women’s Soccer League championship on Nov. 20 in Louisville, Ky.Tim Nwachukwu/Getty ImagesMs. Kang grew up in Seoul in a home where education was prized. Her mother demanded excellence and her father always told her “there is nothing I couldn’t do that the boy next door could,” a sentiment that was more of a rarity growing up in South Korea in the 1960s.As she began to study business and economics in Seoul, she realized her dreams extended beyond her home country. The center of the business world was in America, she said, so with the eventual blessing of her parents, that’s where she decided to go. It was quite a bold move for a young single Korean woman at the time. She earned a degree in economics from the University of Chicago and went on to earn a master’s degree from the Yale School of Management.And so began not a five-year plan but a 30-year plan. The goal was to build enough experience to become the chief executive of a large company. Her work kept her in motion. Ms. Kang estimates she moved between 20 and 30 times.In the midst of the recession of 2008, around the time she expected to join a major company, she started her own. Like many entrepreneurial stories, what would become Cognosante, a multimillion-dollar company, began in a room above her garage in the Washington, D.C., area.“I had a reasonably successful company,” she said of Cognosante, “I thought that was my business career.”That was until 2019, when Ms. Kang, whose business accomplishments were well-known, was invited to join the Spirit’s ownership group after the U.S. women’s national team won the World Cup that year. Ms. Kang didn’t know much about soccer, and she still had her own company to run, she recalled. But she was curious enough to spend six months getting to know the owners and players. She thought about the mentorship she was already doing. Why not this too?She joined the ownership group in late 2020, walking into a league and a team that would face a public reckoning and an extraordinary upheaval.In the spring of 2021, she was made aware of ongoing accusations of verbal and emotional abuse at the hands of Richie Burke, the Spirit’s former head coach. Ms. Kang said multiple people came to her with their concerns. Mr. Burke was fired from the team in September 2021. The accusations were recounted in a series of published reports, and many employees had quit the team amid reports of a toxic workplace culture.Ms. Kang was working to take majority control of the team as players and fans called for Mr. Baldwin, then the chief executive, to sell the Spirit. The transfer of power did not come easily. Spirit players demanded that Ms. Kang be the new owner, but it would be months before Mr. Baldwin stepped down and Ms. Kang was able to acquire the necessary shares.“Let us be clear,” a letter to Mr. Baldwin from the team’s players stated. “The person we trust is Michele. She continuously puts players’ needs and interests first. She listens. She believes that this can be a profitable business and you have always said you intended to hand the team over to female ownership. That moment is now.”The Spirit deal closed on March 30, 2022.Ms. Kang hugs Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury after a May match against San Diego Wave F.C. at Audi Field.Geoff Burke/USA Today Sports, via ReutersMs. Kang’s influence grew quickly in the midst of a wave of new investment, and interest in, the women’s game.In the summer of 2020, an eclectic group of owners including the actors Natalie Portman and Eva Longoria, the soccer legend Mia Hamm and the tennis great Serena Williams announced the creation of a team in Los Angeles, Angel City F.C., which made its debut in 2022, along with another expansion club, the San Diego Wave. An additional club, Racing Louisville F.C., joined the league in 2021, and the Utah Royals were sold and their assets moved to a new franchise in Kansas City, the Current. The Utah Royals will be added back to the N.W.S.L. in the 2024 season, along with another expansion club, Bay F.C. The league, now in its 11th season, is already looking at further expansion.None of this is a surprise to Ms. Kang, who seems dumbfounded if not frustrated by how anyone could undervalue a women’s professional soccer league, or why there has been a lag in investments.“I give full credit to people who carried the teams,” she continued, speaking of past N.W.S.L. owners. “But it was being viewed as a charity or a nonprofit, and business disciplines were not applied from where I stand.”That attitude signals legitimacy in a unique way, said Natalie L. Smith, an associate professor of sports management at East Tennessee State University who studies women’s soccer.If Angel City signaled legitimacy through celebrity, she said, Ms. Kang signals worth through business investment, which sends a message to other potential investors as well.These moves come in the midst of two transitions in the world of soccer, said Stefan Szymanski, an economist at the University of Michigan and the co-author of “Soccernomics.” “One obviously is the rise of women’s soccer, which is long overdue and which seems to be going places quite rapidly in the moment. The second is the transformation of soccer ownership and the management of clubs generally worldwide.”“We don’t feel that women are small men,” said Ms. Kang, at Audi Field. She added that female athletes should be trained with a specific understanding of their physiology and biology.Lexey Swall for The New York TimesMs. Kang, who turns 64 this month, now speaks like a student of the game. She is eager to listen and to learn, and to navigate the complexities of team ownership, ones that in her current purview are not so complex at all. It’s a trait that has made her popular and trusted among the players and staff on her team.“We don’t feel that women are small men,” she said, echoing a sentiment reflected in the lack of studies done specifically on women’s athletics. “We are not going to borrow a manual from the men’s soccer team. We want to understand women’s physiology and biology and train our athletes according to that.”To that effect, Ms. Kang has hired experts to develop programs for how training may, or should, differ during menstrual cycles. It’s a worthwhile place to put funding, she said, and the experience has helped her realize what her footprint could be in the greater soccer world.“There’s no reason I should only do that for the Spirit,” she said, adding: “And frankly, to do that for one team is a real significant investment.”It’s part of what pushed her to think more globally. Ms. Kang looked to Lyon, a dominant European team that has historically recruited top American players including Aly Wagner, Hope Solo, Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan. She spoke excitedly of scouting players internationally, of designing training centers and bigger stadiums, of next steps for expansion.“There is always this push-pull of the greater good when it comes to the women’s football community, which is something that benefits these clubs,” said Ms. Smith, the sports management professor, of Ms. Kang’s expansion. “She does want the game to grow, but she also wants her teams to win.”It will surely not be a straightforward road. There are questions around what could be conflicts of interest in an already dubious labor market. But her biggest test may be with fans outside of the United States.“Americans are little bit docile when it comes to sports and who runs them,” said Mr. Szymanski, the co-author of “Soccernomics.” He added, “In Europe, people just don’t see it like that. They say, ‘This is our sport, not your sport. You may temporarily be here and we’ll give you your due if you put money in, but this is not all about you. This is about the sport.’”Ms. Kang remains undeterred.“It’s not rocket science,” she said with a smile. More

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      U.S. Women’s World Cup Roster Reflects a Team in Transition

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      Form and injuries affected the players available to Coach Vlatko Andonovski as he picked a soccer team facing perhaps the toughest challenge in its history.Here’s a sentence you see every four years: The United States is a favorite to win the Women’s World Cup.Why shouldn’t the public believe the hype this time?The United States’ résumé is top of its class: It is the No. 1-ranked women’s soccer team in the world and the two-time defending world champion. And unlike any other women’s team, it has four tiny golden stars sewn above its jersey crest to show the program’s pedigree of four World Cup titles.The team’s World Cup roster was announced on Wednesday, and the Americans are set to arrive in July at the tournament in Australia and New Zealand with a meticulously curated mix of players with and without experience on soccer’s biggest stage.Nine players on the team have lifted the championship trophy before. For three of those players — forwards Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe and defender Kelley O’Hara — this will be their fourth World Cup. For two other players — goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher and midfielder Julie Ertz — this will be their third. Morgan said she is “just as excited and anxious” for this World Cup as she was for her first one.But knowing what it takes to win and doing it with one of the most inexperienced teams the United States has ever taken to a World Cup are very different things. Of the 23 players named to the team, 14 will be World Cup rookies, including a pair of young forwards, 18-year-old Alyssa Thompson and 21-year-old Trinity Rodman.One of those rookies, midfielder Savannah DeMelo, has never even played for the senior national team before. The last time an uncapped player like DeMelo was on the U.S. Women’s World Cup roster was 20 years ago.Yet Coach Vlatko Andonovski said he was confident that this team had the talent to win a record third straight Women’s World Cup title, saying in a statement that the United States has “a roster with depth and versatility, and that will help us take on all the challenges that will be coming our way.”In a video call with reporters, he added: “We want to do something that has never been done before, and we believe in the quality of the team.”Andonovski, who coached the team to a bronze medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, spent the past few years trying to rebuild his squad as this tournament loomed, easing out veterans and introducing new talent in an effort to construct a roster that he thinks can win this year and succeed into the future.He was faced with a few surprises as he tweaked the roster, which made a hard process even harder. Just last week, he lost his captain, defender Becky Sauerbrunn, who was ruled out with a lingering foot injury. Injuries also cost him the services of Sam Mewis, a midfield fixture of the 2019 World Cup champions, and more recently the presence of two valuable attacking options, Mallory Swanson, who appeared to be peaking at the perfect time, and the Brazilian-born Catarina Macario.Still, Andonovski had a core of stalwarts he could count on, including stars like Morgan and Rapinoe, who bring years of international experience as well as their gravitas as two of the most famous and most outspoken female athletes in the world. He also had midfielder Rose Lavelle, the breakout star of the 2019 tournament after she made scoring look all too easy. Lavelle and Lindsey Horan will offer a familiar combination of grit and flash in midfield.There will be many new stars, including Sophia Smith, 22, who was last year’s most valuable player of the National Women’s Soccer League, and Rodman, the 2021 N.W.S.L. rookie of the year and daughter of Dennis Rodman, the former N.B.A. All-Star.Sophia Smith was the 2022 M.V.P. of the N.W.S.L. for her play with the Portland Thorns.Jeff Curry/USA Today SportsThe Americans’ first game will be July 22 against Vietnam in Auckland, New Zealand — 9 p.m. Eastern time on July 21. That will be followed by the team’s biggest game since the last World Cup: a rematch with the other 2019 finalist, the Netherlands, that will probably leave the winner with a much easier path in the knockout stage.Andonovski might have surprised himself with some of the names he had penciled in. But as with several other top teams, injuries forced him to alter his plans.Sauerbrunn, 38, announced last week that she would miss the World Cup with a foot injury. She was not only a dogged central defender for years, but also a revered role model for her teammates: the team’s Zen master of confidence and calm, not to mention the anchor of its back line as it won the past two World Cups.Her announcement came only weeks after Swanson, who had been Andonovski’s most dangerous forward this year, tore the patellar tendon in her left knee. Other players with World Cup experience, including Mewis, Abby Dahlkemper, Christen Press and Tobin Heath, have been out with injuries or are still coming back from surgeries. Macario, whose international career is on a steep upswing, simply ran out of time to get back up to speed after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in her knee last year while playing in France.There will be, however, many familiar and experienced players when Andonovski and his team gather for a training camp next week in California. Ertz, 10 months after having a baby, has stepped directly back into the team’s midfield. Crystal Dunn, who gave birth to a son 13 months ago, will continue to be a rock on defense, as will Emily Sonnett. A versatile player, Dunn can be moved to other positions, including midfielder. Both Dunn and Sonnett played in the last World Cup.Julie Ertz returned to competition with the national team in April, 10 months after the birth of her son.Dustin Safranek/USA Today SportsCasual fans will have to learn some new names. In her World Cup debut, Naomi Girma, a 23-year-old defender for the San Diego Wave, former Stanford team captain and daughter of Ethiopian immigrants, will be in line to replace Sauerbrunn. DeMelo is having a strong year for her N.W.S.L. team, which is partly why she was given this chance. And three young forwards — Smith, Rodman and Thompson — have what it takes to push Morgan, Rapinoe and Lynn Williams up front.Thompson was called up after Swanson’s injury; she is only the fourth teenager to be named to the United States’ World Cup team and will become the youngest U.S. women’s soccer player at the tournament since 1995. The first draft pick in this year’s N.W.S.L. draft, Thompson has the energy, skill and phenomenal speed to be a generational player. But she is also just out of high school.“We just have such a great group,” Smith said. “I think no matter who you put out there, we’re going to get the job done.”About Thompson, Smith said: “I’m so excited for Alyssa. I think she’s so deserving of this and she’s proven herself. She’s ready for this, and I just can’t wait to kind of go through this with her.”With all the new players mingled with the old, it remains to be seen if the team that shows up in New Zealand will have the swagger of previous ones. The team’s pre-eminence in the women’s game has been under threat from the growing investments, and the growing power, of rivals in Europe. Last fall, the United States lost three games in a row for the first time since 1993.That the defeats came against three European opponents — Germany, England and Spain — was an unmistakable message to outsiders: The United States still ranks among the favorites. But its margin may be finer than ever. More

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      ‘Dear England’ Review: When Soccer Success Becomes a Moral Victory

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      A new James Graham play about the soccer coach Gareth Southgate is a lively romp, but its core message about embracing male vulnerability feels soppy.What makes a good leader? When the unassuming and softly spoken Gareth Southgate was appointed head coach of the England men’s soccer team in 2016, many fans and commentators felt he lacked the kahunas for the role, that he was simply too nice. But in the past seven years he has overseen a remarkable transformation in the England team’s fortunes, making it stronger and more exciting to watch than at any time in recent history.The ups and downs of Southgate’s tenure are portrayed with a blend of playfulness and moral seriousness in “Dear England,” directed by Rupert Goold, which runs at the National Theater, in London, through Aug. 11. It’s a lively, feel-good romp with plenty of irreverent humor, though the narrative borders on hagiography, and its core message about embracing male vulnerability is labored to the point of soppiness.The play chronicles the team’s involvement in three recent major tournaments, starting with its surprise run to the semifinals of the 2018 World Cup in Russia; then comes an agonizing defeat by Italy in the Euro 2020 final, followed by an impressive showing, culminating in an unlucky quarterfinal exit, at last year’s World Cup in Qatar.The on-field action is evoked through dynamic set pieces choreographed by Ellen Kane and Hannes Langolf, in which the players enact key moments in elaborate simulations, complete with slow-motion sequences and freeze-framed goal celebrations. These are kitsch, but mercifully brief, as the bulk of the activity takes place off the pitch: in locker rooms, team meetings and news conferences whose settings are rendered with smart simplicity by the designer Es Devlin.Joseph Fiennes as Gareth Southgate, manager of the England men’s soccer team.Marc BrennerJoseph Fiennes is outstanding as Southgate, who is portrayed as self-effacing but assertive, an approachable father figure to his young charges. Will Close, as England’s captain and star player, Harry Kane, plays up the striker’s famously laconic manner, providing a bathetic counterpoint to the coach’s earnest rhetoric. Adam Hugill is similarly amusing as the defender Harry Maguire, who is portrayed as a lovable simpleton — not the sharpest tool in the box, but solid and dependable. Kel Matsena delivers a spirited performance as Raheem Sterling, who, along with Bukayo Saka (Ebenezer Gyau), speaks out defiantly against racism after England’s Black players are the targets of abuse.The principal female character in this necessarily male-dominated lineup is the sports psychologist Pippa Grange (Gina McKee), hired by Southgate to help the players open up about their feelings and overcome self-doubt. When one unreconstructed member of the coaching staff questions the need for her services, she reminds him that psychology has been at the root of England’s past failures: “This is men, dealing, or not dealing, with fear,” she says.The play’s author, James Graham, is known for political theater, with hits including “Ink” and “Best of Enemies,” and “Dear England” has distinctly activist overtones. Southgate’s mild-mannered disposition, emotional intelligence and leftish politics — he has been supportive of Black Lives Matter and outspoken on mental health issues — are kryptonite to a certain type of reactionary sports jock. So it’s tempting to view his story as a culture-war allegory, pitting touchy-feely liberalism against old-school machismo.From left: Will Close as Harry Kane, Ebenezer Gyau as Bukayo Saka and Kel Matsena as Raheem Sterling.Marc BrennerUnfortunately the play leans into this a little too heavily, with pantomimic cameos from several of Britain’s recent Conservative prime ministers — Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss — pandering to the assumed prejudices of cosmopolitan London theatregoers in a way that comes off as ingratiating and smug. This is ramped up in the second half, which is considerably less funny, and feels rushed: The 2020 and 2022 tournaments are rattled through at speed, in contrast to the more leisurely pacing before the intermission.Southgate’s playing career is best remembered for a decisive miss in a penalty shootout against Germany in the semifinal of the 1996 European Championship, played in London, which resulted in England’s elimination from that tournament. A personal redemption narrative forms a compelling subplot the main story, and it’s a cruel irony that Southgate’s England side also lost the final of Euro 2020 in a penalty shootout on home soil. That Southgate has yet to bag a trophy — the England men’s team still hasn’t won a major tournament since 1966 — remains a powerful trump card for his doubters. And so the play’s celebratory tenor feels a little misplaced.Yet “Dear England” is not so much about sports as it is about culture. The technical and tactical foundations of the England team’s revival are conspicuously underplayed in this telling: The team’s on-field improvement is straightforwardly tethered to a shift in moral values, and we are given to understand that correlation equals causation. You can be fully on board with everything Southgate stands for and still find this cloyingly simplistic.Dear EnglandThrough Aug. 11 at the National Theater, in London; nationaltheatre.org.uk More

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      Proceeds of $3.1 Billion Chelsea Sale Have Not Reached Ukraine War Victims

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      A $3.1 billion fund was established when Roman Abramovich was forced to sell the club, but the fund’s head says a “bureaucratic quagmire” has kept the money frozen.It was the biggest price paid for a soccer team, and for a while the biggest price paid for a sports team anywhere in the world. And the enormous proceeds were to create what would be one of the biggest humanitarian charities ever established.But 13 months after the forced sale of Chelsea F.C. after the British government sanctioned its Russian oligarch owner, Roman Abramovich, the charity has yet to be established and not a cent of the $3.1 billion (2.5 billion pounds) has gone toward its intended purpose: providing aid to victims of the war in Ukraine.The person picked to lead the charity, which is so far behind schedule it has yet to be given a name, has described his efforts as being “stuck in a bureaucratic quagmire.”Months of talks with British government officials have so far failed to yield anything approximating a breakthrough even as the war rages on and the need for support has only grown, said Mike Penrose, former executive director of the U.K. Committee for the United Nations Children’s Fund, who was tapped to lead the charity. The government’s is required before any transfer of the money from a frozen bank account to the charity, to ensure that none of the money is funneled to Russia, or to Abramovich.At the heart of the stalemate is the government’s insistence that any money can be spent only within Ukraine’s borders, an edict that stems from an agreement with the European Union over how funds can be distributed. Abramovich secured Portuguese citizenship in murky circumstances a few years before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Penrose, backed by other nongovernmental organizations, said placing restrictions on spending to victims of the war in Ukraine would not allow the charity to provide support to millions of others affected directly and indirectly by the war, a group as disparate as refugees living in countries bordering Ukraine and those living in Horn of Africa countries like Somalia who were plunged into starvation because of a shortage of Ukrainian grain.“We couldn’t help them under the current conditions,” Penrose said in a telephone interview.British officials have been wary of any of the proceeds of the sale making their way to Russia or back to Abramovich, who shortly after Russia’s invasion was deemed to enjoy a “close relationship” for decades with its president, Vladimir V. Putin. The relationship between the men was not a problem for the British when Abramovich first arrived at Chelsea in 2003, or as he spent the next two decades plowing his vast resources into the team, lifting it to become one of the top soccer clubs in the world.Abramovich had first proposed the charity when he put the club up for sale last year.On May 30, when the government issued a license for the sale of Chelsea to an American-led group, it outlined its determination to “ensure that Roman Abramovich does not benefit from the sale of Chelsea Football Club in any way, and that the proceeds of such a sale are used for humanitarian purposes in Ukraine.”“Furthermore, the Treasury will only issue a license which ensures that such proceeds are used for exclusively humanitarian purposes in Ukraine. The United Kingdom will work closely with the Portuguese Government and the European Commission when considering an application for such a license and the destination of the proceeds.”That position undermines not only the spirit in which the charity was conceived, Penrose said, but also the law.“All it would take is a little bit of bravery and a position from the British government that we’re going to do the right thing and help all victims of the Ukraine war, knowing full well we can’t send it to Russians and Russia or anything that people might worry about,” he said.Publicly, the government has been mostly tight-lipped about the holdup. Pressed on the matter, James Cleverly, the British foreign secretary, said recently: “We want to make sure that the money that is released goes exclusively to the recipients it is aimed at. I need full reassurance that is the case.”At the time of the sale last year, some of the bidders, too, expressed concerns about a stipulation set by Abramovich that the funds go toward setting up the new foundation, which he pledged would be for “all victims” of the Ukraine war.During the months of back and forth, Penrose has communicated with civil servants and not Cleverly, or any other ministers, figures that would, he believes, hold the key to breaking the deadlock in a situation that appears to be as political as it is bureaucratic.“This is one thing that I’m a bit annoyed about,” he said. “We’ve asked for even a telephone call with the ministers in charge repeatedly. And they keep saying, ‘yes, yes, yes,’ and we never get it. And I don’t know if it is priorities or they are avoiding the issue.”A spokesman for the foreign office would only say that the funds remain frozen and a new license would need to be issued to release them to the foundation.It is not only Penrose and staff members linked to the foundation that have been pressing the British government. Potential recipients of the money have, too.“It’s ludicrous that Chelsea can be sold in a matter of weeks but when it comes to releasing desperately needed funds they get stuck in the weeds,” said James Denselow, head of conflict and humanitarian policy at Save the Children in Britain.He supported Penrose’s assessment over where and how the funds should be spent. “The consequences of war in Ukraine don’t stop on its borders,” Denselow said.The comments come during the same week in which London is hosting a high-level international conference to discuss Ukraine’s recovery that will be addressed by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain and will include the U.S. secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken. Penrose said the event could help bring renewed urgency to the release of the stalled foundation’s funds.Denselow warned of the risk that the funds could be subsumed by reconstruction costs rather than the humanitarian needs they were designed for.The global charity Oxfam has also pressed for the impasse to be broken. Pauline Chetcuti, head of policy at Oxfam Britain, suggested the most urgent need was in several African countries reeling from food shortages linked to the conflict in Ukraine.“I really do hope that there are no politics holding up the money voluntarily preventing families in South Sudan or Somalia from buying their next meal,” Chetcuti said. “It would be outrageous and scandalous.” More

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      Lionel Messi, Saudi Arabia and a Contract to Promote the Kingdom

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      A contract between Messi and Saudi Arabia’s tourism authority offers a glimpse at the details of their multimillion-dollar relationship.As the sun set over a seemingly endless expanse of open sea, Lionel Messi took a seat at the edge of a boat, stretched out a leg and posed for the photograph that would announce the beginning of his public partnership with Saudi Arabia.The image, shared with Messi’s 400 million-plus followers on Instagram on May 9, 2022, was accompanied by a dual-language caption that read, “Discovering the Red Sea #VisitSaudi.” Hours earlier, he had been welcomed to the kingdom by Saudi Arabia’s tourism minister, who had boasted on Twitter that while it was Messi’s first visit to the country, “it will not be the last.”Messi, who is regarded perhaps as global soccer’s greatest player, was starting to cash in on the new partnership: His photo-op in the Red Sea likely earned him approximately $2 million, the first step in fulfilling his agreement with the kingdom that is worth millions more.The details of Messi’s role as a well-compensated pitchman for Saudi Arabia are contained in a previously undisclosed version of his contract with the tourism authority that was reviewed by the The New York Times.The contract shows that Messi could receive as much as 22.5 million euros, about $25 million, over three years for little actual work: a few commercial appearances, a handful of social media posts and some all-expenses-paid vacations to the kingdom with his family and children. He is expected to share images of those trips — marked with a Saudi-approved hashtag — with his vast online following.But the document also contains a condition important to Saudi officials: Messi cannot say anything that might “tarnish” Saudi Arabia, a country that has faced widespread criticism for its human rights record.Those details of the arrangement with Messi, who won the World Cup with Argentina in December, offer an inside glimpse of the oil-rich kingdom’s use of its wealth to enlist marquee athletes in its effort to burnish its global image. Saudi Arabia’s critics deride the strategy as sportswashing: using sports and sports figures to whitewash the country’s human rights record, its treatment of women, its killing of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, and other authoritarian actions.For the past few years, Saudi Arabia has spent billions to take big stakes in professional sports: The purchase of a Premier League soccer team. Championship boxing matches. A stop on the Formula 1 auto racing schedule. And, most recently, a brazen incursion into professional golf.The kingdom has offered hundreds of millions of dollars more to lure Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and dozens of other soccer stars to play in the country’s domestic league. Messi recently declined a similar offer, choosing instead to join Inter Miami of Major League Soccer in the United States. But there’s no sign so far that the decision has affected his relationship with the Saudis. Indeed, he has seemed eager to stay in their good graces.In February 2021, just weeks after he signed his contract, Messi wrote a letter to Saudi’s tourism minister, apologizing for being unable to make a scheduled visit. In the previously unreported letter, Messi addressed the tourism minister, Ahmed al-Khateeb, as “Your Excellency” and, in unusually flowery prose, expressed his “deepest regrets” for his absence. Messi was then playing for F.C. Barcelona, and he wrote that as “a sportsman,” he had obligations that were impossible to skip: a league game against Real Betis followed by a match in the Spanish cup.Messi was suspended from Paris St.-Germain after he took a trip to Saudi Arabia that was not authorized by the team.Aurelien Morissard/Associated PressThe Saudis got their visits eventually. The most recent came last month, a year after his first Saudi tourism post on Instagram, when Messi took a quick, midseason vacation to the kingdom — which, like all of his previous visits, would have yielded him a seven-figure payday under the terms of his Saudi tourism contract.By then, Messi had left Barcelona and was playing for the French team Paris St.-Germain. When he returned from his Saudi sojourn, the French club suspended him for what it deemed an unauthorized absence from training. Messi apologized to his team and its fans with an explanation that suggested the trip was not optional: “I couldn’t cancel it.”Until now, the details of Messi’s contract with the tourism authority have been a closely held secret. It is not clear if the contract reviewed by The Times is the current version of the deal. It was shared by someone with direct knowledge of the arrangement between Messi and the Saudis on the condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to divulge details of the deal. The document, dated Jan. 1, 2021, was signed by Messi and his brother Rodrigo, who serves as his business manager, but it is not signed by Saudi officials.The terms outlined in the document are consistent with the way Messi has used his social media accounts to promote the kingdom, and also with the promotional visits he has made to the country.The contract is specific about Messi’s obligations, and about the money to be paid for fulfilling each one:About $2 million, nearly 1.8 million euros, for a minimum of one family vacation annually lasting five days, or alternately two annual vacations of three days each. The travel expenses and five-star accommodations were to be paid by the Saudi government for Messi and up to 20 family members and friends.Another $2 million for promoting Saudi Arabia on his social media accounts 10 times a year, separately from the promotion of his vacations to the kingdom.About $2 million more to participate in an annual tourism campaign. (He and the Saudi authority shared the first campaign, an elaborately shot desert video, in November.)Another $2 million for charitable work and appearances.Few people were willing to discuss the terms of Messi’s deal. Pablo Negre Abello, who is responsible for Messi’s commercial deals, cited confidentiality clauses written into all of Messi’s contracts. Abello suggested that a Times reporter contact the tourism authority. Officials there did not respond to multiple requests for comment.Rayco García Cabrera, a former soccer player who brokered the meeting between Messi’s management and Saudi officials, including the minister of tourism, said the deal was worth “a small amount” compared with the huge salaries the country is paying stars like Ronaldo and Benzema. But, García said, Messi agreed to be a tourism spokesman because “he believes in Saudi and the vision of Saudi.”“I was in the middle of this,” García added, “and I was so surprised when Messi didn’t ask for a huge amount.” García said he did not know the precise terms of the agreement.A review of Messi’s social media postings and travel show him seemingly fulfilling the terms of his contract. His Instagram account — with 470 million followers, it is one of the largest on the platform — has featured a regular stream of Saudi messaging and photographs. On his visit in May, Messi was photographed with his wife and children participating in a variety of family activities: petting horses with his sons, playing games at an arcade and sitting with a craft artist while holding a woven hat.During his recent trip to Saudi Arabia, Messi appeared in photographs with his family.Saudi Ministry of Tourism, via ReutersThe photographs were then distributed to the news media by the tourism ministry.Saudi Ministry of Tourism, via ReutersIn 2021, amid news reports linking Messi and Saudi Arabia, family members of Saudi dissidents urged the player to reject the endorsement offer that he eventually accepted. In an open letter, they pleaded with him by writing, “The Saudi regime wants to use you to launder its reputation.”Saudi officials have rejected that charge. Messi, meanwhile, has made no mention of it. Instead, he has expressed wonder at the natural beauty to be found in Saudi Arabia.One of Messi’s recent posts is a picture of the kingdom’s date palm groves and other natural attractions. The caption reads: “Who thought Saudi has so much green?” More

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      Gregg Berhalter Rehired as USMNT Coach

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      Berhalter was removed from the post after the World Cup, but the results of an investigation cleared the way for his return.The United States men’s soccer team announced Friday that it was rehiring Gregg Berhalter as its head coach for the run-up to the 2026 World Cup.The move capped several whirlwind months for Berhalter, 49, who led the American men’s team to the round of 16 at the World Cup in Qatar but did not have his contract renewed in the aftermath of the tournament.Gregg Berhalter has been chosen to lead the #USMNT to the 2026 FIFA World Cup » https://t.co/ObcP1tCbvH pic.twitter.com/c85nwVS9to— U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team (@USMNT) June 16, 2023
      Instead, the U.S. Soccer Federation announced that it had started an independent investigation into his conduct after accusations made by the parents of one of his players that Berhalter had physically abused his wife, Rosalind, in an incident three decades ago, when they were dating as college students. The Berhalters, who remain married, reconciled shortly after the incident and have talked openly about it after the accusations this year.The investigation was sparked by information from the parents of the United States forward Gio Reyna, who went to U.S. Soccer with details of the incident. Gio Reyna’s mother, Danielle, had been a teammate of Rosalind Berhalter’s at North Carolina at the time, and his father, Claudio, had played with Gregg Berhalter on the national team.Although the families had been close friends for years, the Reynas went to U.S. Soccer only after they became upset about their son’s playing time during the World Cup. The Reynas later confirmed that they had gone to the federation with information about the decades-old incident between Berhalter and his wife.They had become upset after hearing Berhalter’s public comments about an unnamed player at the World Cup who “was clearly not meeting expectations on and off the field” and who the staff considered sending home. Gio Reyna later revealed in an Instagram apology that he was the player in question.The investigation, which concluded in March, cleared Berhalter of any wrongdoing — meaning he did not improperly withhold information from the organization — and opened a path for him to be rehired. It was unclear at that time, though, if that would happen.In recent days, key players on the men’s team, including the star forward Christian Pulisic, had suggested that they supported Berhalter’s return.“I think he’s done a great job,” Pulisic told reporters of Berhalter after a 3-0 victory over Mexico on Thursday night. “I’m glad we can just pick up where we left off,” he added, in comments that suggested the team had prior knowledge of Friday’s announcement that Berhalter had been rehired.Berhalter, who was first hired by the national team in 2019, returns to the team with a 37-11-12 record as head coach. More

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      USMNT Beats Mexico Behind Two Pulisic Goals

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      The NewsIn the first significant match for either team since the World Cup, the United States soccer team dominated a reeling Mexico, 3-0, in the semifinals of a regional championship tournament on Thursday night in Las Vegas. The victory, on the strength of two goals from the American star Christian Pulisic and another from forward Ricardo Pepi, sent the United States to the final of the tournament, the Concacaf Nations League. The Americans won the inaugural edition of the tournament in 2021.John Locher/Associated PressHard Fouls and a Homophobic ChantThe game was ugly on the field — four red cards, shoving, a torn jersey, a bloody nose — and off it. The referee Iván Barton ended the game in the eighth minute of added time, rather than play the full 12 minutes that had been announced, because of a second instance of homophobic chanting from the crowd.Mexico’s soccer federation, its players and officials from Concacaf, the soccer confederation for North and Central America and the Caribbean, have made many efforts over the years to encourage fans to stop shouting the homophobic slur during games. Mexico has been fined more than a dozen times in a failed effort to stamp out homophobic abuse, which remains a feature of games in Central and South America. Several years ago, Mexico even enlisted its star players to try to persuade fans to stop using it.But as Mexico, which struggled in last year’s World Cup, played poorly again, fans became increasingly restless and chanted the word during a contentious second half. Barton stopped play for the first time in the 90th minute amid the chanting, and Concacaf public service announcements were shown throughout the stadium encouraging fans to stop. When it happened again minutes later, he followed the tournament organizers’ protocol and blew the final whistle to end the lopsided match.“I want to make it very clear,” the United States interim coach B.J. Callaghan told reporters afterward, “it has no place in the game.”What’s Next? U.S. vs. Canada in the final.The United States will play Canada in the Nations League final on Sunday night in Las Vegas. Canada defeated Panama, 2-0, in the other semifinal on Thursday behind goals from Jonathan David and Alphonso Davies.But because of the red cards from the Mexico match, the United States will be without two key players. Midfielder Weston McKennie and defender Sergiño Dest were sent off for pushing Mexican players during testy moments.McKennie was sent off in the 70th minute after a foul on Folarin Balogun sparked a fight. McKennie had his shirt ripped in the fracas.In the 86th minute, Gerardo Arteaga and Dest were both issued red cards after exchanging shoves following a tough challenge near the sideline.The Goals: Two for Pulisic and one for Pepi.Blowing past the Mexican defense most of the game, Pulisic scored his first goal in the 37th minute, collecting a rebound near the top of the penalty area and then dribbling and firing a left-footed shot past Mexico goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa. Less than two minutes into the second half, Pulisic doubled the lead by firing home a perfectly placed cross from Tim Weah.Pepi made it 3-0 after coolly turning in a low shot after a brilliant individual effort from Dest, who had carved through the Mexican defense and then threaded a through pass to Pepi.The State of Mexico? It’s crisis.The loss, Mexico’s most lopsided defeat against the United States in 23 years, has the team’s new coach, Diego Cocca, in the hot seat already. Cocca took the job in February, after Mexico’s streak of advancing to the knockout stage in the World Cup ended. But only months into the job, he is already facing questions about his future: One Mexican reporter asked him if he planned to resign after Thursday’s loss.“I dream about a process of three and a half years, not four months,” Cocca told reporters in Spanish after the game. More