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      Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini Acquitted of Fraud in Swiss Trial

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      Blatter, the former president of FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, and Platini, his onetime ally, were charged over a $2 million payment that prosecutors had labeled a bribe.Sepp Blatter, the former president of FIFA, and his onetime ally Michel Platini were acquitted of fraud on Friday in the latest attempt by Swiss prosecutors to win a conviction in a sprawling, seven-year investigation into corruption at the highest levels of world soccer.The trial, held in the southern Swiss city of Bellinzona, was related to a $2 million payment arranged in 2011 by Blatter, who led world soccer’s governing body for 17 years, to Platini, a former France player who was at the time the president of European soccer’s governing body and a potential heir to Blatter as the most powerful executive in the sport.Prosecutors had labeled the payment a bribe, saying that it was made around the time Blatter was standing for re-election. Blatter and Platini denied wrongdoing; they have long maintained that the money was owed to Platini for work done over several years.NEW | Ex FIFA supremo Sepp Blatter hails “victory” after being acquitted of fraud here in Switzerland pic.twitter.com/DjtYtARANY— Dan Roan (@danroan) July 8, 2022
      In a statement after the verdict, the court said that while there were “many well-founded suspicions” before the case was brought to trial, the versions presented by Blatter and Platini of what had occurred created “serious doubts” around the case made by prosecutors.And in another embarrassing blow for the Swiss authorities, the court ruled that Blatter and Platini were entitled to payment of about $20,000 for what it described as a moral injury. The court said Platini waived the payment, but that both men also would receive payments for their legal costs.A smiling Blatter was engulfed by news media as he left the courthouse. He raised both arms in the air, reminiscent of a gesture he used frequently during his days as FIFA president, to declare victory.“I am a happy man,” Blatter said, before thanking the judges. “They have analyzed the situation and they have explained why both of us haven’t done anything.”The criminal charges of fraud, criminal mismanagement and forgery against Blatter and Platini came after a multiyear investigation into the $2 million payment, which came to light in 2015 after prosecutors at the U.S. Department of Justice revealed corrupt practices at FIFA dating back at least two decades.The American investigation resulted in the arrest and conviction of dozens of powerful soccer officials and marketing executives on charges that included racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy. Blatter was not among those charged at the time, and while he has for years been the subject of various investigations, the fraud allegations over the payment to Platini marked the first time that he had actually been indicted on criminal charges.The failure to prove the charges against Blatter and Platini, though, shined yet more light on failures by the Swiss justice system to win convictions in cases related to the FIFA scandal. Swiss authorities had with great fanfare raided FIFA’s offices in 2015, shortly after the Justice Department unsealed its sweeping indictment outlining decades of corruption at soccer’s governing body, and Swiss prosecutors claim to have opened dozens of separate investigations into the organization’s activities.So far, however, they have successfully prosecuted only one former FIFA official, a banker and a Greek television executive. None of those defendants have faced prison sentences.The $2 million payment to Platini came as Blatter faced a strong challenge for the FIFA presidency from a Qatari billionaire, Mohamed bin Hammam, who at the time was head of soccer in Asia. Blatter and Platini both said that the money was a belated payment related to work that Platini, the captain of France’s 1984 European Championship-winning team, had done for Blatter after he was elected FIFA president for the first time, in 1998.Michel Platini outside court before the verdict. He said the ruling came “after seven years of lies and manipulation.”Arnd Wiegmann/ReutersDuring the trial, Blatter told the court that the money was part of a “gentlemen’s agreement” that he had made with Platini, who had agreed to advise him in return for about $1 million a year. The payment of the money would come “later,” Blatter said of their agreement.“When Mr. Blatter asked me to be his adviser, he asked me what salary I wanted,” Platini later testified. “I was surprised that he asked me this question and I said to him, ‘I want a million.’”Blatter, 86, and Platini, 67, had faced as much as five years in prison if convicted.Both men were eventually barred from the game by FIFA’s disciplinary system, though their original bans were later reduced on appeal. Those were to have expired in October, but a new suspension, imposed on Blatter on different grounds, took effect when it ended, meaning that he will be barred from the game until 2028, when he will be 92.After the verdict, Platini said that justice had been done “after seven years of lies and manipulation.”He has previously taken aim at the current FIFA management led by his former deputy, Gianni Infantino. Infantino vaulted from a place-holder candidate for FIFA’s presidency to its leader when Platini first faced accusations in 2015 and after Blatter resigned in the wake of the Justice Department investigation and arrests.Platini suggested that he would continue fighting to clear his name; he filed a criminal complaint against Infantino in April. “In this case, there are culprits who did not appear during this trial,” he said. “Let them count on me, we will meet again. Because I will not give up and I will go all the way in my quest for truth.”Blatter may be headed back to court, too. He faces the potential of another trial after the Swiss authorities informed him in June 2020 that he had been labeled an “accused person” in case involving the suspected misuse of funds after loaning $1 million to a soccer official in the Caribbean.That official, Jack Warner, has been fighting extradition to the United States after being named in the Justice Department’s indictment. More

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      Is Euro 2022 the Payoff for England’s Women’s Soccer Play?

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      At least a half-dozen nations will arrive at this summer’s European Championship thinking they can lift the trophy. But the pressure to win might be the highest on the host nation.BURTON-ON-TRENT, England — It was only 13 years ago, England defender Lucy Bronze figures as she scrolls through her memories, when she needed to pack bags in a supermarket to earn the money she needed for her bus fare to Derby, where she and her Sunderland teammates were to play in the Women’s F.A. Cup Final. It was only a couple of years after that when she was still juggling her nascent career at Everton with a job at Domino’s Pizza.Fast forward to 2022. The rapid rise of women’s soccer in England, and in much of western Europe, is such that Bronze and nearly every other top professional waved goodbye to those kinds of side jobs long ago. Today, Bronze is widely recognized as one of the best women’s players in the world: a three-time Champions League winner, Barcelona’s star summer signing and a key member of an England team that harbors ambitions of winning this month’s European Women’s Championship.“Here we are, in 2022, and players get like helicopters to do appearances,” Bronze, 30, said after an England training session in June. “Do you know what I mean? It’s gone so far, so quickly, and I don’t think anyone could have forecast how huge it was going to be.”England’s Beth Mead and Lauren Hemp during a recent rout of the Netherlands in a friendly.Molly Darlington/Action Images Via ReutersThe do-you-know-what-I-mean moments come quickly in women’s soccer these days. Record-setting attendances. Landmark television agreements. Equal-pay milestones. In 2022, a supermarket chain is far more likely to sponsor an England player than to employ one.That makes the start of this summer’s Women’s Euros, a three-and-a-half-week tournament that opens with the host England’s match against Austria on Wednesday night, another pivotal moment for the game experiencing a surge in both interest and investment.At least a half-dozen nations will arrive in England’s stadiums thinking they can lift the trophy after the final on July 31. But the pressure to do so might be the highest on the host nation, which continues to pump millions of dollars into the sport but has yet to win a major women’s trophy.Old Trafford, the home of Manchester United, will host England’s opening match against Austria on Wednesday. The game is sold out.Carl Recine/Action Images Via ReutersThe stakes for England are high: It will roll into the tournament fresh off lopsided victories over three other tournament participants — Belgium (3-0), the Netherlands (5-1) and Switzerland (4-0) — and eager to build on a semifinal run at the last World Cup, with the next one now just a year away. The Lionesses, as England’s team is known, have not lost a match since Sarina Wiegman took over as their coach in September.That means there is no hiding from the expectations. The faces of England players now adorn billboards in shopping centers and packaging on store shelves. The BBC will air every one of the tournament’s games on its channels or (for a few simultaneous kickoffs) its streaming platform. And England’s three group-stage matches are already sold out.More than 500,000 tickets to the tournament have been sold, guaranteeing the tournament’s attendance will more than double that of its last iteration, in 2017 in the Netherlands. The bulk of those who turn out to cheer England will be expecting the host nation to set a new standard.That could be why Wiegman has made an effort to moderate expectations — “I think there are many favorites for this tournament,” she said recently. “We are one of them.” — even as England’s soccer federation as leaned in on “the pride, the responsibility and the privilege” of the team’s cause.Still, her players know the game’s sudden growth, as well as the chance to play a major tournament on home soil, has placed them in a pivotal moment.“I didn’t really have a female role model growing up in terms of football, so I think it’s massive for that,” England midfielder Keira Walsh, 25, who plays for Manchester City, said of having the Euros on home soil. “But not just for young girls — I think for young boys, they can see the women playing in the big stadiums with sellout crowds at a home tournament. I think it’s only going to grow respect for the game in that way as well.”The tournament comes during an exciting time for women’s soccer in Europe. Its 16-team lineup features some of the world’s most talented squads, including Sweden, currently ranked second in the world; the Netherlands, a World Cup finalist three years ago; Germany, an eight-time European champion; and Spain, which boasts a talented team but, now, not Alexia Putellas, the reigning world player of the year, who tore a knee ligament in training on Tuesday). Norway is bolstered by the return of Ada Hegerberg, and France by the core of that country’s dominant club teams, Olympique Lyonnais and Paris St.-Germain.It is England, though, that may face the highest expectations to deliver.Historic investments by the country’s biggest clubs in the Women’s Super League, England’s top domestic competition, have attracted some of the world’s best players, produced new revenue streams and lifted the standard of play for a new generation of England stars. All but one member of England’s 23-player Euro squad played in the W.S.L. last season, including the veterans Bronze and Ellen White and rising talents such as Walsh and Lauren Hemp.”I don’t think anyone could have forecast how huge it was going to be,” England defender Lucy Bronze said of the growth of the women’s game in Europe.Molly Darlington/Action Images Via Reuters“We’ve seen, over the years, how much the women’s game has grown,” said Hemp, 21, who this year was honored as England’s best young women’s player for a record fourth time. “I think having this home tournament is only going to help it grow even more.”For all the gains, though, players, even the best ones, know there is still a long way to go. The investments in the W.S.L. remain a fraction of the money poured into the men’s game in Europe, and the salaries, television deals and prize money — while significantly improved — still qualify as a rounding error when compared with the men’s paydays.UEFA, the governing body for European soccer, has faced criticism over its choices of stadiums in the group stages, with Iceland’s Sara Björk Gunnarsdottir branding the use of Manchester City’s Academy Stadium, with a tournament capacity of 4,700, as “disrespectful.” And a survey of 2,000 male soccer fans in Britain published earlier this year found that two-thirds had “openly misogynistic attitudes” toward women’s sports, irrespective of age.Still, for veterans like Bronze, the tournament shows how far the women’s game has come and presents an opportunity to raise its profile even more. The new crop of young players she sees at training every day, she said, exhibit a fearlessness that she didn’t have at their age and symbolize a future — for themselves and for England — that could be even brighter.“I look at some of the players now, who maybe haven’t been to a tournament, and I think, ‘Oh, God, when I was you, I was panicking a bit more,’” Bronze said. “But they all seem a little bit more calm.” More

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      Chelsea F.C. Shaken by Concerns, Complaints and a Suicide

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      When Chelsea’s new owners paid billions for the Premier League club, they also inherited accusations of a toxic culture inside its offices.LONDON — Month after stressful month, the problems mounted inside Chelsea F.C.Almost a dozen employees of the club’s marketing department said they had come to expect being berated by their boss in front of colleagues. Others said they had faced his wrath in more humiliating ways, ordered to stand up and leave staff meetings on a single man’s word.The pressure took its toll. By last year, multiple Chelsea employees had vanished for weeks, or sometimes months, of medical leave. At least 10 staff members — from a department that employs about 50 people — had left the club altogether, one employee said. Then, in early January, a well-liked former staff member killed himself.While it is unknown whether workplace pressure was to blame, his death stunned the Chelsea employees who had come to consider him a friend and sounding board. During conversations at a memorial service for him earlier this year, their sense of shock and sadness gave way to anger.“It should never have happened,” one employee said.Amid growing internal pressure to address the problems, Chelsea this spring hired a consultancy to conduct what was described as a “cultural review” of the marketing department. But few staff members had confidence in the process: The review of their workplace, they were told, would be overseen by the executive who they felt was to blame for the worst of its problems.Troubled TimesIt is hard to think of a professional sports team whose employees have had to endure the kind of uncertainty that the staff at Chelsea has faced this year.The club’s world was turned upside down in March, when the team’s longtime owner, the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, was sanctioned by the British government just as he announced plans to sell the Premier League club. Until that process was complete, those working for Chelsea — from players and coaches to executives and lower-level staff members — were left to worry about how to do their work; whether they would still be paid for it; and if their jobs would still exist once a new owner was found.Some of that uncertainty disappeared in May, when a group led by the Los Angeles Dodgers co-owner Todd Boehly paid a record price to acquire Chelsea and the most onerous restrictions placed on the team’s business were lifted. But as all that was playing out in the headlines, a more troubling situation was festering behind the scenes.The New York Times interviewed almost a dozen current and former Chelsea employees in reporting this article. Speaking independently, all painted a picture of a dysfunctional workplace environment at Chelsea marked by unhappiness, intimidation and fear. But it was the death by suicide in January of Richard Bignell, the former head of Chelsea TV, that brought to light longstanding concerns about the environment inside the team’s marketing department — a group comprising roughly 50 employees — and the behavior of its leader, Gary Twelvetree.In a statement on Wednesday, two days after The Times contacted the club about the employees’ accusations, Chelsea said its new board had appointed “an external review team to investigate the allegations that have been made under previous ownership.”“The club’s new board believes strongly in a workplace environment and corporate culture that empowers its employees and ensures they feel safe, included, valued and trusted,” the statement said.While the club said “initial steps have been taken by the new owners to instill an environment consistent with our values,” it is unclear if any action has been taken by the new board in response to staff members’ allegations against Twelvetree. The club said he was unavailable for comment.While Bignell’s family chose not to speak with The Times when contacted, almost a dozen current and former Chelsea employees spoke of a toxic workplace culture under Twelvetree that they said left many staff members feeling belittled, bullied and sometimes even fearful of merely attending meetings.The employees spoke on condition of anonymity because some still work at Chelsea, or in soccer, and feared retaliation or damage to their professional reputations by detailing their experiences publicly. But a coroner’s report compiled after Bignell died in January and reviewed by The Times linked his suicide to “despair following the loss of his job.”By March, under pressure after Bignell’s death and amid growing frustration among the colleagues and friends he had left behind, Chelsea hired an outside firm to look into the culture inside the department as well as the accusations of bullying made by several employees against Twelvetree. But to the frustration of some employees, the club made no acknowledgment that the review was related to his death or any specific complaint.One staff member who left the Chelsea marketing department said the experience of working for Twelvetree simply became too much to take; fearing for their mental health, the employee quit the club despite not having lined up other employment. The experience had been so distressing, though, that the former employee detailed it in writing to Chelsea’s chairman, Bruce Buck. Others said they expressed similar concerns in communications with other top executives or in exit interviews with the club’s human resources staff. But little seemed to change beyond a churn of employees that had become so common that it was an open secret among recruiters who sometimes directed candidates toward open positions at Chelsea.Few employees had confidence in the review of the department once they heard it was to be jointly overseen by Twelvetree, the department head, and the outside consultants Chelsea hired.“It was not going to address the concerns, was it?” said a person asked to participate in the review. “How could it be if he is reviewing his own culture?”Staff members said that they have yet to receive any conclusions from the now-completed review, and that there have been no changes to work practices.“I consider myself to be quite a strong person and previously to working with Chelsea I never felt like I had concerns over my mental health,” said one former member of the marketing department. “But quite quickly after joining, I was not sleeping properly and it got worse and worse.”Alastair Grant/Associated PressThat anxiety became visible in Bignell, according to several of his former colleagues. Bignell had been a popular member of the club, heading its television operation, Chelsea TV. The channel had initially been run by the club’s communications department before moving into marketing as part of a new digital strategy implemented by the club’s hierarchy.The switch meant profound changes for Bignell, who had spent a decade running a television channel and was now required to switch his focus to producing digital content for social media, accounts that were under the direction of the team’s marketing staff. Bignell’s relationship with Twelvetree, staff members recalled, was a fraught one; Bignell, like others, struggled to deal with the marketing head’s management style, which could include biting, shouted critiques of their work that, some employees said, sometimes left colleagues in tears.A married father of two young daughters, Bignell largely hid the torment he was feeling from his co-workers, employees said. They described him as having a sunny, positive disposition, a colleague always ready to share a joke or lend an ear. But gradually, according to people who knew him, his physical condition had noticeably deteriorated.“Last time I saw him he was walking around Stamford Bridge and he was a mess,” said a colleague who encountered Bignell in the summer of 2021, around the time he left on medical leave. “He looked ill. He had lost so much weight.”Bignell returned to Chelsea in September and was abruptly fired the next day. In early January, he took his life. The team, in announcing his death on its website, said the “much-loved” Bignell was “a very popular and hugely respected member of the wider football and sports broadcasting family.” The coroner’s report, meanwhile, later linked his state of mind at the time of his death to his firing by Chelsea. “Richard was deeply troubled by anxiety, depression and despair following the loss of his job,” the report said.An Ongoing ExodusEven after Bignell’s death, and after the club’s cultural review, the Chelsea marketing staff has continued to lose employees.Those who have departed say they have now become used to providing emotional support for the colleagues who have stayed on. After attending one recent party marking the departure of multiple employees, for example, a former Chelsea staff member said she had spoken with so many individuals struggling with life at work that she had felt the event had doubled as a therapy session.Chelsea’s new ownership group, meanwhile, said Wednesday that it has reached out to Bignell’s relatives through the family’s lawyer. “Our heart goes out to Richard’s entire family,” the team’s statement said. “His passing has been deeply felt by his colleagues at the club and across the football community.”Senior Chelsea officials already had been speaking with the family, which had raised concerns about the circumstances of his death, and staff members said that they have continued to press internally for changes. But the sale of the club in May has only brought fresh uncertainty.As the new owners take control of the team, the most powerful leaders from Chelsea’s old regime are being replaced. The chief executive Guy Laurence, who runs the club’s day-to-day operations, and Buck, the outgoing chairman, were the most senior leaders whom staff members contacted with their concerns about working conditions.Now both are among those who will leave.If you are having thoughts of suicide, the following organizations can help.In Britain, contact Samaritans at 116-123 or email jo@samaritans.org. Calls are free and confidential. Or call Papyrus at +44 800 068 4141 (9 a.m. to midnight), or message Young Minds: text YM to 85258. You can also find a list of additional resources on Mind.org.uk.In the United States, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK). You can find a list of additional resources at SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources. More

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      U.S. Women Beat Haiti to Open Concacaf W Championship

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      The Americans can qualify for the 2023 Women’s World Cup and the 2024 Olympics by winning a regional championship. Their first step was a win over Haiti.The Women’s World Cup is a year away and the Paris Olympics don’t start for more than two, but both tournaments are the primary focus of the United States women’s national team over the next two weeks.The first goal? Qualify for them. The Americans took their first step on that front Monday night by opening play in the new Concacaf women’s championship with a 3-0 victory over Haiti in Monterrey, Mexico.Alex Morgan scored twice in the first half and Midge Purce added a late clincher in a wild game that involved disallowed goals, a missed penalty and an overturned red card.The revamped eight-team tournament, officially branded the Concacaf W Championship, is serving a dual role — as the qualifying tournament for next summer’s Women’s World Cup and for the 2024 Paris Olympics.Under its new format — a group stage followed by a knockout round — the first task should be a simple one for the Americans: The top two finishers in each four-team group qualify automatically for the Women’s World Cup, where the United States is the two-time defending champion.The latter job may be a little more tricky. Only the champion in Mexico will claim an automatic place in the 2024 Summer Games, while the runner-up and third-place nations will have to contest a Concacaf Olympic playoff in September 2023. That would be a bit more jeopardy than Coach Vlatko Andonovski and his world-beating and well-paid players might want at this current moment in their evolution.Coach Vlatko Andonovski is trying to balance past success with his team’s future.Daniel Becerril/ReutersAndonovski has made no secret that he is managing a team in transition, and that has made these games — every game, really — an important chance for players to impress the coaching staff, and ensure they are in his plans for the next year or more. It is another opportunity for rising players to force their way into the mix, and for veteran players to defend their positions. Not all have succeeded.The future of the U.S. team, regardless of what happens in Mexico, remains a bit of an incomplete picture. Morgan, who scored twice on Monday, and Megan Rapinoe both received their first call-ups to the team since October for the Concacaf event. But Morgan, 33, is already defending her position from rising stars like Catarino Macario, who is currently out with a knee injury. And young forwards like Mallory Pugh, Sophia Smith and Trinity Rodman all play the same position as Rapinoe, who turned 37 on Tuesday.“It’s not easy being a forward in the United States right now,” Andonovski said when he announced his roster for the Concacaf championship. “Obviously, it’s great, but it’s not easy because the competition is getting bigger and bigger.”Similar battles are playing out across the field in every position, in every roster decision, as the United States transitions from a roster that led it to two straight World Cup titles to one that might carry it to a third against regional rivals like Canada, the reigning Olympic gold medalist, and European contenders like Sweden, Germany, Spain, the Netherland and England — among others — who are contending the European championship this month.The Americans’ remaining group-stage schedule includes games against Jamaica (on Thursday) and host Mexico (on Monday). Canada leads Group B, which features Trinidad & Tobago, Costa Rica and Panama. The final is July 18.To get there, Andonovski will rely on a blend of the experience, the talent and the generations at his disposal: Of the 23 players on the U.S. roster, seven are in their 30s but eight are 25 or younger. And for now, he has been making no promises to anyone.“It doesn’t mean that all these players that have done well in the past are just going to come back here in the next camp because they’ve done well a year ago or two years ago,” Andonovski said in February, when an earlier roster also omitted several accomplished veterans.“There’s a reason why we’re not calling Mia Hamm or Julie Foudy in camp, right? So the same goes here: They need to perform.” More

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      Women’s Euros Offer a Soccer Free-for-All

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      England will be expecting to win its first major women’s title on home soil this summer. But the field is deep, and filled with contenders.That old, familiar feeling crackled and fizzed into the warm night air as 20,000 fans streamed out of Elland Road last Friday. England had just dismantled the reigning European champion. A major tournament, on home turf, was only a few days away. The weeks ahead seemed to glisten with promise.England, by now, should know just how dangerous that feeling is. June is nothing but treachery and illusion. It is when July arrives, bringing with it the piercing light of high summer, that all of that faith and hope have an unerring tendency to curdle into disappointment and regret. Those flags, brandished so proudly, invariably fall limp in the heat.There are certainly reasons to believe that this year will be different. An abundance of them. England’s women’s team, without question, arrives at Euro 2022 as a genuine candidate to win its first major international honor.Its strengths are so many and varied that it almost seems disparaging to point out that it has home-field advantage and can expect the backing of raucous, capacity crowds. No player would dare say it, but if England emerges triumphant from the European women’s championship that begins next week, it will not be because of the passion of the public but the talent and experience of the squad.Its Dutch coach, Sarina Wiegman, knows her route to glory; she led her homeland to this title five years ago. It has a team packed with players who feature regularly in the world’s best competitions. It has a recent track record of traveling deep into the final stages of tournaments.“Watching those last 30 minutes, teams will be very worried,” Mark Parsons, the coach of the Netherlands, said after his side was picked apart at Elland Road. “England will be favorites for the tournament.” He is right. There is a convincing argument that Wiegman and her players not only can end the next month triumphant, but that they should.The problem is that the same applies to quite a few of England’s opponents in the tournament. A similarly compelling argument could be made for Spain, a team constructed around the stars of Barcelona’s all-conquering side and one that boasts at its heart Alexia Putellas, widely regarded as the finest female player on the planet.The Netherlands, too, should not be taken lightly, despite its defeat in Leeds. It has been only three years since — under Wiegman’s command — the Dutch were competing in the World Cup final. Vivianne Miedema, Lieke Martens, Danielle van de Donk and the rest have hardly regressed since.It is not quite a year since a Swedish team, bristling with experience, was competing in the Olympic final. Though it missed out on gold against Canada, the manner in which Peter Gerhardsson’s team swatted aside not only Japan, but also Australia and the United States during its run should serve as a warning.France’s coach, Corinne Diacre, raised eyebrows with her squad selections.Franck Fife/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFrance’s aspirations seem to be limited not only by the fallout from what is best referred to diplomatically as the Aminata Diallo affair — it is hard to avoid the suspicion that another Knysna moment lies in wait, though in the rather less glamorous surrounds of Rotherham — but also by the curious decision of its coach, the imposing Corinne Diacre, to omit two of her finest players. Eugénie Le Sommer and Amandine Henry will be notable by their absence.Norway, by contrast, is bolstered by a returning force. The presence of Barcelona’s Caroline Graham Hansen alone would have been enough to make the Norwegians a threat. That she can now call on Ada Hegerberg, the forward seeking to make up for lost time after missing almost two years of her career through injury, may be enough to turn Norway into a contender.Ada Hegerberg is back on Norway’s team.Ntb/Ntb, via ReutersIt is true of all major tournaments — whether contested by women or men — that part of the charm lies in an unpredictability rooted in the comparative rarity of meaningful international soccer.Meetings of established, or expected, powers between finals are infrequent, and so it is difficult to interpret the teams’ merit in relation to one another. Both Argentina and Brazil, for example, will arrive in Qatar later this year among the favorites to deprive Europe of the (men’s) World Cup for the first time since 2002.Both are in rich veins of form. Both have considerable momentum behind them. Yet how much that means, what it is worth, is obscured by the fact that they have faced European teams on only a handful of occasions since 2018, all of them in the vanilla, faintly desensitized surrounds of the exhibition game.That is true of this summer’s Euros, too, of course: England’s 5-1 victory over the Dutch may or may not be a true guide to the sides’ strength, but it seems relevant that the Netherlands rested some of the standout players at Parsons’s disposal — Miedema included — and had enjoyed substantially less training time than the English. Neither of those will apply should the two teams be reunited in the final at Wembley.Lieke Martens and the Netherlands won’t be an easy out at the Euros.Nigel Roddis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe effect of those missing showdowns is magnified, though, by the fact that so little women’s club soccer is broadcast, certainly in comparison to the men’s game. As readers of this column have previously noted, the perception that England’s Women’s Super League is the strongest domestic tournament in Europe has arisen at least in part because there is no broadcast deal for its equivalents in Spain or France or Germany.England’s squad, as Wiegman has observed, is undoubtedly brimming with talent. A clear idea of how that compares with the strength in depth of, say, Spain is both possibly irrelevant — tournaments are not always won by the most gifted team — and somewhat elusive. Even performance data does not necessarily provide a complete picture because players’ statistical output depends entirely on the context in which they are operating.As women’s soccer grows, that should start to change and bring with it multiple material benefits. It would certainly be a shame if the insularity that afflicts the men’s game — mentioning no names, England — was adopted in a sport that has experienced its starburst in a far more connected world.For the time being, though, perhaps it is best just to enjoy its effects: a major tournament that offers the hope of legitimate uncertainty, one that could conceivably be won by almost half of its constituent teams — Denmark: we forgot Denmark — and one that, as tournaments used to do, will not reflect an established hierarchy but serve to define it.Freeways. Pebble Beach. Hollywood. In That Order.Gareth Bale: off to California.Geoff Caddick/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesGareth Bale has won the Champions League five times. He has three Spanish titles to his name and just as many European Super Cups and Club World Cups. He was once the most expensive player in the world, as long as Cristiano Ronaldo wasn’t listening. He has, to his name, either the finest, or the second-finest, goal scored in a Champions League final.He has scored more goals for his country than any player. He has been the central figure in restoring Wales to the ranks of soccer’s elite nations: ending its wait for a place at a major finals in 2016 and then, less than a month ago, qualifying for its first World Cup in more than 60 years. He is still only 32.It is hard to explain, then, why it is that both Bale’s departure from Europe and his arrival in Major League Soccer, with Los Angeles F.C., have been so comparatively low-key. Bale’s stock should be higher than Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s, say, when he landed in North America. He is closer to his prime than Andrea Pirlo was when he came to New York. His résumé is, if anything, better than Frank Lampard’s was when he made the same move.The most obvious explanation is that the last three years of Bale’s decade at Real Madrid have been underwhelming, at least on a personal level. He has been little more than an optional extra at the club since his decisive intervention in the 2018 Champions League final. He has, for reasons that have not always been entirely clear, been cast as a villain by the club itself.It is a shame that dispiriting coda has come to obscure, to some extent, quite how much Bale has achieved, quite how high he has soared. His has had, by any metric or measure, a superstar’s career. He is certainly the greatest coup secured by an M.L.S. team since Ibrahimovic, and possibly since David Beckham. It is tempting to wonder if it will be only after he retires that we come to realize it.A New Idea? Boooooooo.A.C. Milan finished two points above Inter in the Serie A table last season.Roberto Bregani/EPA, via ShutterstockRegular readers will know by now that it is the considered opinion of this newsletter that soccer does not handle change very well. All sports cherish their traditions, the mores and the practices that lend them their lore and their magic, but few are quite so resistant to the relentless march of progress as soccer.It is hardly surprising, then, that the idea — announced this week by the F.I.G.C., Italian soccer’s governing body — of settling the Serie A title not by goal difference or head-to-head records but through a winner-take-all playoff has not exactly won universal acclaim.In truth, it is hardly a sweeping revolution. The new measure will come into force only if the teams that finish first and second end any given season with the same number of points. Yet that has done little to soften the blow of what seems, to many, a wanton break with tradition, a tacky novelty and, worst of all, the unwelcome intrusion of Americanism into the sport.This, some have warned, will prove to be the thin end of the wedge. Before you know it, there will be playoffs for the Champions League places, every game will last three hours and for some reason everyone will stop using contactless card readers and insist on paying for things using a PIN.The thing with traditions, though, is that they have to start somewhere. The last time the two leading teams in Italy could not be separated was in 1964, when Bologna and Inter Milan both ended the season on 54 points. Italian soccer did not have an established tiebreaker, so the game’s authorities had to improvise. Their solution? A winner-take-all playoff. Maybe it was goal difference and head-to-head records that were the intruders all along.CorrespondenceWe start this week with another entry in the ledger marked “two nations, separated by a common language.”“Why do English papers refer to players getting paid however many thousand pounds per week,” Jerome O’Callaghan asks, though he is by no means the first. “An annual amount I could understand, but this weekly thing is very vague. Do I take that weekly amount and multiply it by 52? Why the obsession about weekly paychecks?”This is one of those conventions that I’m happy to admit I’ve never really thought about; it is just the Way Things Are Done. I cannot be entirely certain — and I’d welcome other analyses — but my instinct is that it is an echo of the era in which players were treated like industrial workers.Until the 1960s, their pay was capped at £20 a week; the fact it was measured by the week, I suspect, was because that is how most factory employees were paid. Even after the so-called maximum wage was abolished, the tradition stuck: Players’ salaries, from that point on, were understood as and presented in weekly amounts.“I’m wondering if you have any comment on the serial snubbing of Son Heung-min by the P.F.A. in their award nominations,” Glenn Gale wrote. “I’ve read articles claiming various explanations (he scored many of his goals late in the season and so on). One thing I haven’t seen mentioned is any suspicion of bias against him as an Asian player. Is this the proverbial elephant in the room nobody wants to mention?”Son Heung-min, the star hiding in plain sight.Paul Childs/Action Images Via ReutersI’ve always shared that suspicion, Glenn: It has seemed to me for a while that Son is overlooked a little because of the fact that we ascribe star quality much more easily to players from certain countries than we do others. We wrote about it, in fact, a few years ago. In this case, I wonder if perhaps the more pressing issue is that everyone on the Tottenham team is seen as a supporting actor to Harry Kane; it may be that which prevents Son from getting his due credit.And finally, a succinct one from Shawn Donnelly, presumably prompted by the Bale news. “Does anyone in England watch M.L.S.?” he asked. Some people must — the league has a broadcast deal here — but, like anything that is not the Premier League, the numbers are most likely quite small because England remains a very insular soccer culture. There aren’t vast audiences for Serie A, either, for example.The better news, perhaps, is that in terms of awareness, M.L.S. has made major strides. That can be attributed, in part, to the fleeting presence of the likes of Bale, Ibrahimovic, Wayne Rooney and the rest, but more significant is the (relative) success of players like Miguel Almiron. The medium-term future of M.L.S. is as a league that players come from, after all, rather than a place that, when they hit a certain age, they go to. More

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      Scott Vermillion, Former American Soccer Pro, Had C.T.E.

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      Scott Vermillion’s family members still struggle to articulate the jumble of emotions they felt last November when they received the phone call from the doctors.Vermillion, a former M.L.S. player, had died almost a year earlier, on Christmas Day in 2020, at age 44. The direct cause was acute alcohol and prescription drug poisoning, his family said, a dour coda to a troubled life: A high school and college all-American who played four seasons in M.L.S., Vermillion had spent the last decade of his life withdrawing from his family as he struggled with substance abuse and progressively erratic behavior.Late last year, doctors at Boston University offered another explanation: After examining Vermillion’s brain, the B.U. experts told his family that he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., a degenerative brain disease linked to symptoms like memory loss, depression and aggressive or impulsive behavior.The diagnosis gave Vermillion the grave distinction of being the first American professional soccer player with a public case of C.T.E. It was a solemn milestone, too, for M.L.S., a league that has, even in its young history, seen the consequences of the type of brain injuries more commonly associated with collision sports like football, boxing and hockey.For soccer as a whole, the finding will add another note to a small but growing chorus of concern about the health risks of playing the world’s most popular game.“Soccer is clearly a risk for C.T.E. — not as much as football, but clearly a risk,” said Dr. Ann McKee, the director of the C.T.E. Center at Boston University.A neuropathologist, McKee has found the disease in hundreds of athletes, including Vermillion.For Vermillion’s family, the diagnosis brought a sense of clarity, however small, to a life littered with questions. It did not answer everything — it simply could not, given that C.T.E. can be diagnosed only posthumously. It triggered feelings of doubt, guilt, anger, relief. But it was, at long last, something.David Vermillion at his home in The Villages, Fla., with one of his son’s jerseys.David Lawrence for The New York TimesThe specter of C.T.E. began hovering over the N.F.L. almost two decades ago, when the first cases of the disease were found in the brains of former professional football players. Since then, C.T.E., which is associated with repeated blows to the head, has been discovered in the brains of more than 300 former N.F.L. players.In soccer, though, the research and public conversation around C.T.E. and head injuries are still emerging, even as the confirmed cases mount. An English striker. A Brazilian World Cup winner. An American amateur.The former M.L.S. players Alecko Eskandarian and Taylor Twellman have been vocal about how concussions ended their careers and affected their personal lives. Brandi Chastain, a two-time Women’s World Cup winner, publicly pledged in 2016 to donate her brain for C.T.E. research.“We have to understand the gravity of the situation,” Chastain said. “Talking about concussions in soccer is not just a hot-button topic. It’s a real thing. It needs real attention.”Vermillion signing autographs after a game with the Colorado Rapids in 2000. An ankle injury forced his early retirement after the 2001 season.Rodolfo Ganzales/Allsport, via Getty ImagesLast year, leagues and tournaments around the world, including M.L.S., began experimenting with so-called concussion substitutes, which grant teams additional substitutions to deal with players with potential brain injuries. M.L.S. has joined some other sports leagues in implementing a variety of other protocols, including the use of independent specialists and spotters to assess potential concussions during games.“M.L.S. has comprehensive policies to educate players, coaches, officials and medical staffs about the importance of head injury identification, early reporting, and treatment,” Dr. Margot Putukian, the league’s chief medical officer, said in a statement. “There is always more progress to be made, and M.L.S. is staunchly committed to this important work.”The focus, though, is not only on treating concussions. In a growing effort to prevent head impacts of all kinds, players at every level are seeing more guidelines aimed at limiting headers.Head Injuries and C.T.E. in SportsThe permanent damage caused by brain injuries to athletes can have devastating effects.C.T.E., Explained: What to know about the degenerative brain disease associated with repeated blows to the head.The Dangers of Sledding: Brain injuries in sliding sports — often called “sledhead” — might be connected to a rash of suicides among bobsledders.Warning Signs of C.T.E.: An ex-N.F.L. player was found dead after his former team won the Super Bowl. His widow recounted his decline.A Study of N.F.L. Brains: In 2017, a neuropathologist examined the brains of 111 N.F.L. players. She found C.T.E. in 110.A study in 2019 by researchers in Glasgow showed former professional soccer players were three and a half times more likely than members of the general population to die from neurodegenerative disease (and less likely to die of heart disease and some cancers). Vermillion’s story, then, becomes the latest in a recent string of cautionary tales.“C.T.E. had never even crossed our minds,” said Cami Jones, who was married to Vermillion from 1999 to 2004.Vermillion started playing soccer in Olathe, Kan., when he was 5 years old. He loved the incessant movement of the game, the swashbuckling action, family members said. His coaches in elementary school, in the interest of sportsmanship, often kept him on the bench for long stretches because he would score too many goals, said his father, David Vermillion.His talent eventually earned him places on elite regional club teams and U.S. youth national teams as a teenager. It took him to the University of Virginia, where he was a third-team all-American in his junior year. It carried him to M.L.S., where he joined his local club, the Kansas City Wizards, now known as Sporting Kansas City, in 1998 at age 21.Vermillion was a high school player of the year and a college all-American.Doug Pensinger/Allsport, via Getty ImagesHis talent as a defender earned him places on several U.S. youth national teams.David Lawrence for The New York TimesBut Vermillion, a scrappy defender, never fully blossomed as a pro. He moved on to two other clubs before a nagging ankle injury forced his early retirement after the 2001 season. His career earnings in the fledgling league were meager; his father recalled his son’s salary being around $40,000 a year when he left the game.“It was a big blow,” David Vermillion said. “He spent all of his life climbing that hill, moving up, making himself a good player, and to abruptly have it end was tough.”Scott Vermillion tried to find some footing in his life after soccer. He managed a family store. He coached local youth teams. He pursued a nursing degree. But his relationships were slowly unraveling.Though Vermillion’s behavior would grow most concerning in the decade before his death, Jones said she noticed changes in him even before his career was over: He was often lethargic, which struck her as odd for a professional athlete, and frequently complained of headaches.“When I met Scott, he was a vibrant, outgoing pro athlete, super fun, a jokester,” said Jones, who divorced Vermillion in 2004, three years after his career ended, when their children were 1 and 3. “I watched him change really rapidly, and it was scary.”Over the next decade, Vermillion continued to withdraw from his family. His drinking became extreme and his behavior more erratic, family members said. He married a second time, but that union lasted only about a year. In 2018, he was arrested, accused of aggravated domestic battery after an incident with a girlfriend. He went in and out of rehabilitation programs for alcohol and prescription drugs, emerging only to insist to his family that the programs did not help him, that he was incapable of being helped.His daughter, Ava-Grace, got accustomed to him missing her dance recitals. His son, Braeden, now 22, was devastated when he missed his high school graduation.Vermillion with his children, Ava-Grace and Braeden..David Lawrence for The New York Times“He would promise a lot of things and basically just make excuses and not show up for us,” said Ava-Grace Vermillion, 20.Dr. Stephanie Alessi-LaRosa, a sports neurologist in Hartford, Conn., cautioned against drawing causal links between posthumous C.T.E. diagnoses and patterns of behavior in a person’s lifetime. She said research on the subject was still in its early stages, and that doctors were still trying to understand why some athletes got C.T.E. while others did not.“I have patients who are hesitant to get psychiatric treatment because they think they have C.T.E. and are doomed,” she said. “I think it’s important for patients to get the help they need, and if their family is concerned, get them to a sports neurologist.”Alessi-LaRossa said she thought the benefits of sports outweighed the risks, but echoed the increasingly widespread idea that heading in soccer should be restricted for youth players.In 2015, U.S. Soccer — resolving a lawsuit — announced a ban on heading in games and practices by players under 10 and created guidelines for restricting heading in practice for older players. And last year, English soccer officials released guidelines for heading, recommending professional players limit so-called “higher force headers” to 10 per week in training. (How, exactly, this should be enforced has been less clear.)Vermillion’s mother, Phyllis Lamers, contacted the Boston laboratory about having her son’s brain examined after his death. C.T.E. has four stages, the final stage associated with dementia; Scott Vermillion was found to have Stage 2 C.T.E.Vermillion’s family members said they hoped coming forward with his story could help inform families about the hidden risks of soccer.David Lawrence for The New York TimesHis family said they hoped coming forward with his story, however painful it might be to relive, could help inform families about the hidden risks of soccer. They said they regretted how hard they were on him, how they cut him off at times when his behavior became too difficult to handle. They agonized wondering if they could have done more.Ava-Grace Vermillion recalled texting her father on Dec. 23, 2020, his 44th birthday. She had not seen him in close to a year, she said, and as she prepared to head off to college in California to study dance, she said she felt compelled to break the ice.“I remember the day so specifically,” she said. “I was at work and just thought it was time I reach out to him. I hadn’t talked to him in a while. I sent him a text saying, ‘Hope you’re doing well.’ He called me back, and I didn’t get to answer. And he died two days later.”Ken Belson More

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      An Israeli Soccer Team’s Success Puts Its Arab Village on the Map

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      Established in 2016, Maccabi Bnei Reineh is the talk of Israel’s top division after completing a quick rise. Its founders say its presence represents something far more important.REINEH, Israel — Jamil Bsoul is smiling. The mayor has clearly delivered this line before. But after all that his community’s soccer club has achieved, and in such a short time, that is what makes it fun.“Before the season started, everyone said we have no chance of staying in the second division,” Bsoul said. “They were right. Because we went up.”His community’s soccer team, Maccabi Bnei Reineh, did not exist until six years ago. Less than two years ago, in September 2020, it was still a largely unknown club from a small Arab village of 18,000 people near Nazareth, preparing for yet another season in the Israeli fourth division. Now, after three promotions in quick succession, the name Maccabi Bnei Reineh is on everyone’s lips in Israeli soccer.The team’s success, to the surprise of even the village’s own residents, has put its community firmly on the map. More

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      Once an ‘Easy Way Out’ for Equality, Women’s Soccer Is Now a U.S. Force

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      Brooke Volza and the other girls who play in the top division of high school soccer in Albuquerque know all about the Metro Curse: The team that wins the city’s metro tournament at the start of the season is doomed to end the year without a state championship.So when Cibola High School defied that fate with Volza scoring the only goal in the team’s 1-0 victory against Carlsbad High School before a cheering stadium crowd at the University of New Mexico last year, it was pandemonium. “I started crying. I started hugging everyone,” Volza, 17, said, describing the experience as “times 10 amazing.”Now the ball she used to score that goal sits on a shelf in her bedroom, covered with her teammates’ autographs and jersey numbers. Across it in large capital letters are the words, “2021 STATE CHAMPIONS.”Fifty years ago, Volza’s experience of sprawling and robust competitive high school soccer was effectively unheard-of in the United States. Yet thanks to Title IX, which became law in 1972 and banned sex discrimination in education, generations of girls have had the promise of access to sports and other educational programs.Brooke Volza at Cibola High School in Albuquerque.Adria Malcolm for The New York TimesAsia Lawyer, a rising senior at Centennial High School in Boise, Idaho.Lindsey Wasson for The New York TimesAnd girls’ soccer, perhaps more than any other women’s sport, has grown tremendously in the 50 years since. School administrators quickly saw adding soccer as a cost-effective way to comply with the law, and the rising interest helped youth leagues swell. Talented players from around the globe came to the United States. And as millions of American women and girls benefited, the best of them gave rise to a U.S. women’s national program that has dominated the world stage.“Once Title IX broke down those barriers, and let women and girls play sports, and said they have to be provided with equal opportunities, the girls came rushing through,” said Neena Chaudhry, the general counsel and senior adviser for education at the National Women’s Law Center. “They came through in droves.”A 50-Year Rise Out of NowhereWomen’s participation in high school and college athletics surged after the passage of Title IX in 1972, and no sport has added more players than soccer.

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      Girls’ Participation in High School Sports
      Notes: Top 15 sports shown. Data is not available for all sports in all years, and comparable data is not available prior to the 1978-79 academic year.Source: National Federation of State High School AssociationsBy The New York Times

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      Women’s Participation in N.C.A.A. Divisions I, II and III
      Notes: Top 15 sports shown. Data is not available for all sports in all years, and comparable data is not available prior to the 1981-82 academic year. Some schools were added to the data in 1995-96.Source: N.C.A.A.By The New York TimesBefore Title IX passed, an N.C.A.A. count found only 13 women’s collegiate soccer teams in the 1971-72 season, with 313 players. In 1974, the first year in which a survey by the National Federation of State High School Associations tracked girls’ participation across the United States, it counted 6,446 girls playing soccer in 321 schools in just seven states, mostly in New York. That number climbed to about 394,100 girls playing soccer in high schools across the country during the 2018-19 school year, with schools often carrying multiple teams and states sponsoring as many as five divisions.Mountain View Los Altos stretching during the tournament in Redmond, the Elite Clubs National League playoffs.Lindsey Wasson for The New York TimesIn 2018-19, the most recent season counted because of the coronavirus pandemic, there were 3.4 million girls overall participating in high school sports, compared with 4.5 million boys.Many of those athletes have overcome fears to try out for a team. Some have practiced late into the night, running sprints after goofing off with teammates. Some have found archrivals through competition, and plenty have grappled with the sting of defeat. Numerous girls and women on the soccer pitch have felt the thrill of a goal, and the pride of being part of something bigger than themselves.“We are the heart and soul of soccer at Cibola,” Volza said.Title IX is a broad law, and was not originally intended to encompass sports. Its origins lie in fighting discrimination against women and girls in federally funded academic institutions. But as the regulations were hashed out, they eventually encompassed athletics, and it helped bridge disparities beyond the classroom. Today, Title IX is perhaps best known for its legacy within women’s interscholastic athletics.Despite initial and heavy opposition to the law because of a perceived threat to men’s athletic programs, the N.C.A.A. eventually sponsored women’s sports, including soccer in 1982. Before that, only a handful of teams played one another around the country.The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a dynasty that has won 21 N.C.A.A. championships and produced inimitable players including Mia Hamm, began its run playing against high schoolers.“We didn’t really have anyone to play,” said Anson Dorrance, the head coach of the women’s team since its inception in 1979. He described how he cobbled together a schedule that first season. One travel soccer club, the McLean Grasshoppers, “came down to U.N.C. and beat us like a drum,” he said.Florida Gators Coach Samantha Bohon, left, talking with an assistant coach, Jocie Rix, as they scout players during the Elite Clubs National League playoffs.Lindsey Wasson for The New York TimesThe playoffs are a big showcase for high school players to be seen by top college coaches.Lindsey Wasson for The New York TimesAfter the N.C.A.A. brought women’s soccer into the fold, participation rates went from 1,855 players on 80 teams across all three divisions in 1982 to nearly 28,000 players across 1,026 teams in 2020-21.Now, the N.C.A.A. claims soccer as the most expanded women’s sports program among universities in the last three decades.Current and former athletic directors, sports administrators and coaches attribute the rise of soccer to several factors. Initially, complying with the law was a game of numbers and dollars: Soccer is a relatively large sport, where average roster sizes typically float between 20 and 26 players. The generous roster sizes helped schools meet the requirements of the law to offer similar numbers of opportunities to male and female students.For administrators, soccer was also economical: It needed only a field, a ball and two goals. It was also a relatively easy sport to learn.“At the time schools were interested in, ‘How can I add sports for women that wouldn’t cost me very much?’” said Donna Lopiano, founder and president of Sports Management Resources and a former chief executive of the Women’s Sports Foundation. She added: “Schools were looking for the easy way out.”The shifts did not begin until the late 1980s and early 1990s. College programs increasingly gained varsity status — often pressured by litigation — which created scholarship opportunities and made soccer a pathway to higher education. The game boomed at the high school level, where it became one of the most popular sports, fourth in terms of participation rates for girls for 2018-19, according to the high school federation (the top three girls’ sports were track and field, volleyball and basketball).An under-14 match in Redmond.Lindsey Wasson for The New York TimesA cottage industry of club teams also sprang up around the country, as athletes jockeyed for attention from college coaches. The youth game grew, and university teams became a farm system for the elite world stage, as women struggled to play the sport in many countries outside the United States.The U.S. women’s national team went largely unnoticed when it played its first international match in 1985. It also got little attention in 1991 when it won the first Women’s World Cup, held in Guangdong, China.Then the United States began to feel the power of Title IX. In 1996, women’s soccer debuted at the Olympics in Atlanta, and the United States won gold. During the 1999 Women’s World Cup final, against China, the Americans secured a victory during penalty kicks before a capacity crowd of more than 90,000 people at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.Michelle Akers, the pillar of the U.S.W.N.T. in the ’80s and ’90s who is now an assistant coach for the Orlando Pride women’s professional team, said Title IX was “game-changing.” “I can’t even understand the amount of time and energy and heartache that took to get that pushed through, and not just pushing it through but enforcing it — making it real for people, and making it real for me,” she said.The national team’s success continued, with a record four World Cup titles and four Olympic golds. And this year, after a six-year legal battle, a multimillion-dollar settlement and eventual labor agreement established equal pay for players representing the U.S. men’s and women’s national teams when competing internationally.“It was a historic moment, not just for soccer, but for sport,” Cindy Parlow Cone, U.S. Soccer’s president, said.The U.S. women’s national team celebrating its World Cup win in 2019 after a parade in Manhattan.Calla Kessler/The New York TimesSydney Sharts, left, and her sister Hannah, right, are college players. Their mother, Michelle, was on a club team in the ’90s.Alisha Jucevic for The New York TimesIn 1993, Michele Sharts was part of a club team at U.C.L.A. that threatened to sue the school under Title IX for not sponsoring women’s soccer.Sharts, who was cut from the inaugural varsity squad, now has two daughters playing at large university programs. Hannah, 22, started at U.C.L.A. before transferring to Colorado, where she is a graduate student. Sydney, 20, began at Oklahoma before transferring to Kansas State for the coming season.Hannah Sharts has played in front of as many as 5,000 fans. “Being able to gradually see more and more fans fill up the stands throughout my college experience has been very promising,” Hannah Sharts said. Both Hannah and Sydney have dreams to play professionally.Like the Sharts sisters, Volza, the rising senior in New Mexico, plans to play in college. She is looking at Division II and III schools with strong engineering programs.But first, she has her final year of high school ahead. Volza said she wanted to be a leader for the younger players.“I want to motivate them and teach them what it’s like to play varsity soccer for a state-winning championship team,” Volza said.And Volza wants to make history again in her own corner of America, by leading her team to win the Metro tournament and state championship in back-to-back years.Members of the De Anza Force celebrating a win over World Class F.C. in Redmond.Lindsey Wasson for The New York Times More