Soccer

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in Soccer

      With Recent Loss, Mexico Faces Potential World Cup Elimination

      by

      Entering the World Cup, there were many questions about the Mexican national team. How good was the squad, really? Was its coach making the right calls? Was this all going to end in bitter disappointment again? Two games into the tournament and the answer feels clear.After a 2-0 loss to Argentina on Saturday night, Mexico sits in last place in its four-team group. Its streak of advancing to the knockout stage in seven straight World Cups is dangerously close to ending. In order to keep it going, Mexico will have to beat Saudi Arabia — by a lot — and pray for some help.“We still have some hope and we have faith and we have to work,” forward Hirving Lozano said in Spanish on Saturday night after the loss to Argentina. “Even if there’s a 1 percent chance, we’ll try.”The biggest problem for Mexico so far this tournament has been what it will need the most on Wednesday against Saudi Arabia: goals. Mexico has scored none. In two games, it has attempted 15 shots. Only five have been on target. Against Argentina, Mexico focused more on defense and control, while hoping to get the ball up the field quickly on transition. While the strategy held Argentina and Lionel Messi scoreless in the first half, it unraveled at times in the second half.“Hurt,” forward Henry Martin said of the team’s mood. “We deserved more. We had a great game, in the first half, they didn’t score. The first goal was the only chance they had.”Asked after the game what message he had for fans who might be angry at the team’s performances at the World Cup, Gerardo Martino, Mexico’s Argentine coach, bristled at the question. He said that he knows his team has struggled with consistently on offense. In its scoreless draw with Poland, he pointed out, Mexico mostly dominated the game but couldn’t quite finish its chances near the goal. Against Argentina, he said Mexico tried a different tactic — and didn’t expect many scoring chances — but failed in its final passes when attacking.As for the fans, Martino said to reporters: “It depends on your view. If you have a view of 60 or 30 minutes? If you tell them about 30 minutes, people will stay mad. If you tell them about 60, probably not as much.”Against Saudi Arabia, Martino suggested, there would be more changes to Mexico’s lineup and tactics, because “we need to score at least three goals” in hopes of advancing. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Soccer

      Cheer, Chant, Clean: Japan Takes Out the Trash, and Others Get the Hint

      by

      Japanese fans went viral for cleaning up after a World Cup victory. Fans from other countries are following their example.AL RAYYAN, Qatar — The final whistle blew on Sunday afternoon, and the Japanese fans who had just spent hours bouncing under a blistering midday sun allowed themselves a moment to wallow in the disappointment of their team’s 1-0 loss to Costa Rica.But the moment quickly passed, and out came the blue trash bags.In the return of a postgame ritual that is being met with widespread astonishment at this year’s World Cup, a group of Japanese spectators, who only moments earlier had been deliriously singing for their team, began meticulously cleaning the stands at Ahmed bin Ali Stadium, picking up trash scattered across the rows of seats around them.It hardly mattered what it was — half-empty bottles of soda, orange peels, dirty napkins — or who had left it behind. The fans went across the aisles shuffling the litter into bags before handing them to smiling — and clearly delighted — stadium workers on their way out.“It’s a sign of respect for a place,” said Eiji Hattori, 32, a fan from Tokyo, who had a bag of bottles, ticket stubs and other stadium detritus. “This place is not ours, so we should clean up if we use it. And even if it is not our garbage, it’s still dirty, so we should clean it up.”The image of spectators calmly assuming janitorial duties during the World Cup has charmed observers from other countries, like the United States, where slaloming around sticky soda spills, toppled bags of popcorn and mini mountains of peanut shells is often accepted as part of the normal sports stadium experience.But in Japan, tidiness, particularly in public spaces, is widely accepted as a virtue. Japanese people at the game said such habits were taught at home and reinforced at schools, where students from a young age are expected to clean up their classrooms and school facilities on a regular basis.The cleaning of shared areas, like stadiums, becomes something of an individual responsibility, and there are often not armies of workers hired to do it.A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

    • 75 Shares159 Views

      in Soccer

      Lionel Messi Saves Argentina’s World Cup

      by

      LUSAIL, Qatar — As he wrapped Enzo Fernández tightly in his arms, Lionel Messi could not help it. His Argentina teammates were screaming, full pelt, toward them. At their back, the stands were melting into a writhing, bubbling soup of sky blue and white. Messi saw it all and, for the first time in what has felt like a long time, he smiled.For someone who has spent the better part of two decades delivering moments of rare, soaring pleasure to millions of people on a weekly basis, Messi looks happy surprisingly infrequently. He tends, most of the time, toward the serious. He often looks concentrated, or focused, or intent.Occasionally, he might look pensive, ruminative. More regularly than he might have liked, particularly in the last few years, he has had cause to look disappointed, either in himself or, more usually, a teammate. And then, of course, there is Messi in despair: the Messi with the sagging shoulders and the hollow eyes, watching his world crash down around him.Five days ago, that was the Messi who had departed the field at Lusail, his dreams in tatters. Argentina had been beaten by Saudi Arabia, an ignominy that will haunt the country for some time, a shame that will be spoken of only in whispers for years, and its World Cup — his World Cup — hung by a thread.That ghost has been at Argentina’s shoulder all week. In its immediate aftermath, as Argentina’s disconsolate players headed back by bus to their hotel, Messi demanded that his teammates remain united. He promised the fans that they would not be left “stranded” by a squad in which they have placed so much hope.After Enzo Fernandez scored Argentina’s second goal, Messi was the first player to meet him.Juan Mabromata/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHe knew, though, that the only way to dispatch ghosts was to confront them. Argentina had no choice but to return to Lusail, to face Mexico, and to manifest a different denouement. Defeat would end its involvement in the World Cup after just two games. Even a tie would leave it on the brink of elimination from a tournament it harbored genuine hopes of winning. Already, it had no margin for error.A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

    • 138 Shares159 Views

      in Soccer

      Mexico’s Love-Hate Relationship With Argentina Haunts the Team’s World Cup Matchup

      by

      When Mexico faces Argentina on Saturday, Mexican fans will bear mixed feelings toward the country that should be their ultimate rival on that night.The reason: the lasting mark Argentine coaches have made on Mexican soccer.Many Mexicans credit the Argentine coach Cesar Luis Menotti with revolutionizing Mexican soccer by elevating playing style over strength during his run leading the national team in the 1990s. Even though he stayed less than two years and never coached Mexico in a World Cup, he remains a beloved figure there, even as he now serves as the director of Argentina’s national teams.On his first day in Mexico, Menotti, who had led Argentina to the World Cup title in 1978, told reporters that he planned to probe deep into Mexico’s soul “because the only way you can lead a national team is by understanding how it is inextricably linked to the country’s inner life.”With flowing hair and bushy sideburns, Menotti smoked cigarettes on the sidelines, wore sharp suits, freely quoted literature and brought up politics, an unusual brew for conservative Mexico at the time. During his last interview as Mexico’s coach, he said he now “understood Mexico better than many Mexicans.”Since then, there have been two full time Argentine coaches of the Mexican national team (more than any other non-Mexican nationality). Neither has enjoyed the reverence shown for Menotti.A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Soccer

      Saudi Commuters Descend on Doha for an In-and-Out World Cup

      by

      A victory over Argentina inspired a kingdom’s soccer fans. And when Qatar is just a short flight, you go.DOHA, Qatar — Planes were landing, from all around the world, every few minutes. They came from London and Tokyo, Hong Kong and São Paulo. There would be about 300 scheduled passenger flights landing at Hamad International Airport on Saturday.But among them were dozens of planes that had not come far, sometimes just a few hundred miles from the west and after barely reaching cruising altitude. They came from Saudi Arabia, Qatar’s next-door neighbor, and they carried excited people in green jerseys and with no bags to check.These World Cup commuters would not stay long. Kickoff was at 4 p.m. They would wake up back home on Sunday, a work day, in their own beds.They were soccer fans, and they carried only what they needed: banners, flags and a passport. And they brought a renewed sense of collective expectation as they arrived to cheer Saudi Arabia, the unlikely darling of the tournament, if not the entire Middle East.Beating Argentina will do that. Every game, now, is bigger than the last. After losing to Poland, 2-0, the next, against Mexico on Wednesday, will decide if Saudi Arabia reaches the round of 16. That hope will generate another day like this one.By midmorning, the airport in Doha was spilling out bursts of green. Among them were the brothers Faris and Salman al-Hassan, fresh off a short flight from Riyadh and wearing green jerseys and scarves.They could have come by car, they said — Doha is about six hours from Riyadh — but Qatar, nervous about car traffic, disincentivized that idea for the World Cup. It created a temporary toll of 5,000 Saudi riyal (about $1,330) for those driving across the border during the tournament.An alternative was to park at the border and hop on a bus at the Abu Samra, Qatar, checkpoint, as thousands of others had done over the past week. The no-frills bus ride is little more than an hour, but the bus is not the hard part: Abu Samra is hours from any major Saudi city.So the choice was made by thousands: Commute by air.Get in. Cheer. Get out.“We will go straight to the stadium and come right back,” Salman al-Hassan said.About 20 flights arrived in Doha from Saudi Arabian cities between dawn and 1 p.m. on Saturday, timed just for the afternoon kickoff.A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Soccer

      What We Learned About the U.S. In Its Match Against England

      by

      A feisty 0-0 tie against World Cup contender England gave the U.S. a chance — and perhaps the courage — to advance in the tournament.AL KHOR, Qatar — The chant came from deep in one corner of the stadium, ringing out loud and clear for a few moments before fading back into the general cacophony of the night.“It’s called soc-cer!” the United States fans bellowed at their England counterparts. “It’s called soc-cer!”As the United States has seen its soccer culture develop in recent decades, it has always used the great powers of Europe as a handy measuring stick, a mark of how far it has come and how far it still needs to go. Yet it is England, a country that prefers to call the sport football and definitely believes it is better than the Americans at playing it, that has always served as the reference point that matters most.The evidence is visible across the United States soccer landscape: American fans, old and new, now spend weekend mornings watching matches from England’s Premier League on television. In American soccer stadiums, they borrow liberally from English sports culture, making it their own, refracting it through a U.S. lens, but leaving no question of its DNA. And the best American players still dream of one day going overseas, anywhere at first, but eventually to stardom in Britain’s most storied stadiums.On Friday night, the United States got a rare opportunity to measure the shrinking distance between the countries’ teams, and by most assessments performed admirably, scrapping to a scoreless tie that left the Americans holding their World Cup destiny in their hands.The result — and small moments like the fans’ sassy chant — sent the message that the United States was ascendant and ambitious for more.“There’s a lot of people that obviously thought we were going to get blown out,” said the American midfielder Weston McKennie. “We went into this game, to the outside world, as obvious underdogs. But we didn’t feel like an underdog at all, because we know our capability, we know what we can do, we know what talent and fight and spirit we have.”A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

    • 175 Shares189 Views

      in Soccer

      England Gets a Look at Itself, and Isn’t Sure It Likes What It Sees

      by

      Coach Gareth Southgate was unruffled by a scoreless draw against the United States. But it revealed concerns lurking just below the surface.AL KHOR, Qatar — For four fleeting, glorious days, all was right and all was well in England’s world. Gareth Southgate’s team had cut Iran to ribbons in its first game at the World Cup, a glistening generation of talent dancing and weaving and sparkling on the grandest stage of them all.He should have known it would not last. That was Monday. By Friday, England was being loudly and roundly — and just a little unfairly — booed from the field by its own fans, the players and particularly the coach informed in no uncertain terms that the fans had not traveled all this way to watch their team be held to a scoreless draw by the United States. There are some indignities, after all, that a Bud Zero cannot heal.On an entirely practical level, the significance of the result is minimal for England — nothing more than a bad day at the office, the sort of thing that can be swiftly shaken off and may, in a few weeks’ time, be relegated to a mere footnote.Should England beat Wales in its final group game on Tuesday, it will qualify for the tournament’s next stage at the top of its group, earning (in theory) a kinder draw in the first knockout round. Even a tie against Wales would, at the very least, be enough to ensure progress. It will be an irritation that Southgate cannot rest players for that game, that he cannot manage minutes and reduce burden, but he is hardly short on options. It is nothing terminal.Emotionally, though, in terms of all those airy intangibles that coalesce during a tournament into something real and physical, it is different. England came into the World Cup on the back of a dispiriting year. Southgate’s popularity, once sufficiently high to give the waistcoat an unexpected and thankfully brief comeback, had plummeted.A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

    • 88 Shares179 Views

      in Soccer

      Mexico’s World Cup History: An Unlucky Seven

      by

      El Tri has advanced out of the group stage in seven straight World Cups. It is only then that the problems start.DOHA, Qatar — Of all the soccer playing countries in the world — and there are many — only two can boast of advancing out of the group stage at the last seven World Cups. One of the teams is Brazil. The other may be a tad surprising: Mexico.After their initial success, the two teams’ fortunes have diverged. Having made its way into the knockout round of every World Cup since 1994, Brazil has won two World Cup finals and played in a third.Mexico? Each time it reached the round of 16, it promptly lost the next game and went home.That legacy of fourth-game failure by El Tri, as the national team is known, has created immense pressure and criticism in Mexico, and at times a toxic relationship between the team and the national news media. If any three words haunt Mexican players and fans alike, they are el quinto partido: the fifth game.“There is always that pressure of people always talking about ‘that fifth game, that fifth game,’ and it gets stuck in your head,” Carlos Vela, a forward who represented Mexico at the 2010 and 2018 World Cups, said in Spanish in an interview earlier this year.On the field, Vela said, he didn’t think about that hex. But before World Cup matches, especially leading into the knockout round, he said he would hear comments about “the game we can never get past.”“In everyone’s mind and conversations, it’s always there,” he continued. “I don’t know if it affects us or not, but it’s there and talked about. You go to an interview and it’s always asked.”Mexico’s Hirving Lozano, right, competing against Poland on Tuesday, said winning a knockout stage game is always on his mind.Glyn Kirk/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMexico will hear those familiar rumblings again soon enough in Qatar. It tied its first game, against Poland, but its group is wide open after unheralded Saudi Arabia stunned Argentina on Tuesday. Hopes are high that this year, at last, will be different.“We have everything,” said Raúl Jiménez, a forward who is appearing in his third straight World Cup. He mentioned the Mexican national team coach, Gerardo Martino, known as Tata, who, like every leader of the squad during this span, has come under stinging criticism from outside the team during his tenure.“We’ve been with Tata for four years,” said Jiménez, 31, who plays his club soccer with the Wolverhampton Wanderers in England. “We know him well, his style of play and what he wants from us. All we have to do is put it to work on the field and win the fourth game.”A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More