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      Chile Loses Bid to Replace Ecuador at World Cup in Byron Castillo Case

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      Chile’s soccer federation had argued Ecuador should be ejected from the tournament for using an ineligible player in qualifying. FIFA disagreed.Chile’s bid to have its South American rival Ecuador thrown out of soccer’s World Cup failed on Friday when a disciplinary panel at soccer’s global governing body rejected a claim that Ecuador had fielded an ineligible player in several qualification matches.The case involved the defender Byron Castillo, who Chile contended was not only born in Colombia but also three years older than is stated on the documents used to identify him as Ecuadorean. Chile’s soccer federation produced registry documents, including birth certificates, that it said supported its claim.Under the rules of the governing body, FIFA, fielding an ineligible player could result in a forfeit of any match in which an ineligible player took part.Ecuador finished fourth in the continent’s qualifying competition, claiming one of South America’s four automatic places in the World Cup. But Chile had demanded that Ecuador forfeit the eight qualification games in which Castillo appeared, and that its opponents in those matches be granted three points per game. That outcome, Chilean officials had calculated, would rearrange the qualifying results in South America and lift Chile into the World Cup at Ecuador’s expense.FIFA said its officials had analyzed submissions from all the parties involved in the case — which also involved Peru, which will compete in an intercontinental playoff next week for its own place in Qatar — before concluding that Ecuador had no case to answer.Chile said it would appeal the ruling.“We are dismayed with the decision,” said Eduardo Carlezzo, a lawyer representing the Chilean federation. “The amount of evidence is huge, both from Colombia and Ecuador, proving without any reasonable doubt that the player was born in Colombia. Therefore, we will appeal and we hope that those evidences shall be full considered.”Ecuador’s soccer federation released a statement after Chile filed its claim in May in which it rejected what it called “false rumors” about Castillo, who it said was an Ecuadorean citizen in a legal and sporting sense.“We categorically reject any attempt by those who seek to avoid our participation in the World Cup in Qatar, which was legitimately obtained on the field,” the federation said at the time.Castillo’s background has been shrouded in questions for several years after a wider investigation into player registrations in Ecuador looked into hundreds of cases and resulted in punishments for at least 75 youth players found to have falsified records. Wary of a mistake that might jeopardize Ecuador’s World Cup hopes this year, officials from its national soccer federation had held off selecting Castillo for the senior national team until this year.Two years ago, in fact, the president of a special investigation commission convened by the federation appeared to suggest Castillo was Colombian, something that Chilean officials continued to argue they had substantiated. More

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      US Men’s National Team Draws With Uruguay in a Friendly

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      The young American team came away with a scoreless draw against the 13th-ranked team in the world as it continues to tinker with its roster and tactics ahead of the World Cup.KANSAS CITY, Kan. — For the United States men’s national soccer team, a string of four games this month against a diverse set of opponents presents any number of productive opportunities.There are moments to workshop collective tactics, moments to evaluate individual players, moments to strengthen the interpersonal bonds that make up the group’s general character.And then there are moments like Sunday, when the team could face an elite opponent, pull out a measuring stick and plainly take stock of its own quality in the middle of its monthslong preparations for this year’s World Cup.Providing the test was Uruguay, the 13th-ranked team in the world, and the Americans were reasonably satisfied with the result: a hard fought, 0-0 draw in an exhibition played before a crowd of 19,569 fans in Kansas City, Kan.Gregg Berhalter, the U.S. coach, said he had told his players to embrace the challenge and enjoy the game. “It’s not often you get to play against guys of that quality,” Berhalter said after the match, sounding upbeat about the outcome and praising his players for an “A-plus effort.”The testing and inquisition and self-reflection will continue in the months to come, though before the game, there did emerge at least one bit of certainty: Wales will be the United States’ first opponent at the World Cup in Qatar after beating Ukraine, 1-0, in a scintillating play-in game earlier in the day in Cardiff, Wales.The inclusion of Wales completed Group B, which along with the United States includes England and Iran. “Now we finally know our opponents, and we can finally set our sights on that group, and how we get out of it,” said Walker Zimmerman, who along with his teammates tried to follow the play-in match as they sat in meetings and ate lunch before their game. Also before the start of the game, the team announced it would be sending a letter to Congress calling for stronger gun laws in the wake of a spate of high-profile mass shootings in the country this spring. The players on Sunday also wore orange arm bands in support of Wear Orange, a movement to raise awareness about gun violence in America. “People can say it’s not the guns, it’s the people, but we have to start somewhere,” forward Christian Pulisic said about the letter. By Sunday evening, the players’ attention was fully on Uruguay. In Kansas City, Diego Alonso, the Uruguay coach, rotated his lineup somewhat from the team’s previous game against Mexico. Big names like Federico Valverde and Edinson Cavani (who misfired on an open net in the waning moments of the game), for instance, played only the final 30 minutes or so. But La Celeste, as the team is known, still presented a stern, star-studded task for the U.S.In its traditional sky blue shirt, Uruguay controlled play early, dissecting the American defense with purposeful passing, resulting in a number of nervy, narrow misses. But the U.S. gradually gained a foothold after withstanding that early pressure, threatening Uruguay with a sequence of chances, with right winger Tim Weah in particular providing repeated spurts of danger and creativity in the first half.“A lot of us are young, and we’re still getting that experience against these high-level teams,” Weah said before the game. “So I feel like playing a team like Uruguay that has a lot of stars is amazing.”Berhalter afterward singled out a number of players for praise, including the reserve defender Joe Scally, who he said persisted gamely despite a couple of early mistakes; goalkeeper Sean Johnson, who made a crucial second-half save to preserve the draw; and midfielder Tyler Adams, who Berhalter said “had an extra gear, and extra spark, and was all over the place.” The 15th-ranked United States began its training camp this month with a game against Morocco, ranked 24th. And the team’s next two games this month represent a bit of a drop-off in overall quality: Grenada (170th) on Friday in Austin, Texas, and El Salvador (74th) on the road on June 14.So the match on Sunday and the Americans’ solid performance — that they emerged from a sparring session with a top team mostly unscathed — will represent an optimistic development for a young team trying to mold itself into a contender.“The idea is to play quality teams,” Berhalter said, “and the reason why is because you want to go into the World Cup with confidence you can beat anyone on any given day.” More

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      How to Watch the Ukraine-Wales World Cup Playoff Game

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      A European playoff on Sunday is a winner-take-all affair for Ukraine, a nation at war, and Wales, which hasn’t been the tournament since 1958.For months after Russia invaded their country in February, the members of Ukraine’s national soccer team were unable to hold so much as a practice together, let alone play a game.On Sunday, they will play for a place in the World Cup.That game, once unthinkable for Ukraine’s team, and by far the least of its concerns, will be against Wales at Cardiff City Stadium, a modest arena about 1,500 miles from Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, and a world away from the horrors and traumas and worries of war.Here’s what you need to know.How can I watch?The game is being broadcast in the United States by ESPN and streamed on its ESPN Plus service. (Warning: You may see listings saying the match is on ESPN2; it was, until Friday, when the network reassessed the interest in the game and moved it to ESPN.)Broadcast coverage on ESPN begins at 11:30 a.m. Eastern. The game kicks off at noon.What’s at stake?Sunday’s match is, in the strictest sense, a winner-take-all affair. The victor on Sunday will claim one of the final three places in the World Cup in Qatar when it kicks off in November. The loser can try again in four years.Ukraine hasn’t qualified for the World Cup since 2006, its only previous trip to the tournament.But Wales has waited even longer: Its last — and only — World Cup appearance was in 1958, and the team is eager to end that drought, even if it means ending Ukraine’s dreams at the same time.“It’s still missing,” said the Wales captain, Gareth Bale, who has five Champions League titles on his résumé but not a single minute in the World Cup. “We have a game tomorrow to put that to bed and qualify. Everyone wants to play at a World Cup. It’s no different for me.”Gareth Bale, the Wales captain, at training on Saturday.Mike Egerton/Press Association, via Associated PressHow did the teams get here?Sunday’s game is the final match of a four-team playoff — two semifinals and a final — that didn’t go as anyone expected. The games were originally scheduled for March, but Ukraine’s semifinal against Scotland was postponed soon after Russia’s invasion, even as Wales went ahead with a game against Austria, winning by 2-1.In April, FIFA, soccer’s global governing body and the organizer of the World Cup, announced the Ukraine-Scotland match had been rescheduled for June 1, with the final — already set for Wales — to be held a few days later.Read More on the World CupAmbitious Goals: FIFA has given up on a plan to hold the World Cup every two years. But its president’s plans for the future are bold.Female Referees: Following the selection of three women among the World Cup’s 36 referees, the event in Qatar may be the first edition of the men’s tournament in which a game is refereed by a woman.Golden Sunset: This year’s World Cup will likely be the last for stars like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo — and a profound watershed for soccer.Senegalese Pride: Aliou Cissé, one of the best soccer coaches in Africa, has given Senegal a new sense of patriotism. Next up: the World Cup.On Wednesday, Ukraine beat Scotland, 3-1, in a game charged with emotion at Hampden Park in Glasgow. It was the Ukrainians’ first official game since November.Was Ukraine expected to be here?Until the Scotland game, it was hard to know what to expect from Ukraine. Rescheduling its World Cup playoff was one thing. Preparing for the game was another matter.Like most of Europe’s national teams, Ukraine has players who are scattered across the continent: Oleksandr Zinchenko just won a Premier League title with Manchester City, and Andriy Yarmolenko (West Ham), Ruslan Malinovskyi (Atalanta) and Roman Yaremchuk (Benfica) all play for big European clubs. That meant the core of the team was getting regular training and games, even if their minds were constantly distracted by the war back home.But the Ukrainian league shut down as soon as Russia invaded, leaving the bulk of Ukraine’s players with no place to play. The top clubs Shakhtar Donetsk and Dynamo Kyiv managed to get their players out of the country and set up camps abroad and a series of exhibition matches so their players could train.At the same time, Ukraine’s coach, Oleksandr Petrakov, set up a training camp in Slovenia for his team, and cycled in members of the squad as they became available. All the while, messages poured in from Ukraine: from soldiers, from family members, from friends fighting to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty from Russian troops.“They make only one demand,” the veteran midfielder Taras Stepanenko told The Guardian of the messages he and his teammates receive. “‘Please do everything you can to go to the World Cup.’”What are they saying?Ukraine Coach Oleksandr Petrakov: “We have a very difficult situation in the country. Not everyone watches football. We have grief, people are dying …”“We don’t think about it. We are thinking about how to make our fans happy, our armed forces, and focused on the game.”Wales captain Gareth Bale: “We’ll be the most popular team in the stadium, that’s the main thing. We understand the awful things going on in Ukraine. Our hearts go out to the kids, families and people of Ukraine. We’ve all felt awful during this time and not been able to do too much. But come tomorrow, it’s a game of football. We want to win.”Ukraine defender Oleksandr Karavayev: “We understand that the most important game in our lives is ahead.”What’s next for the winner?Since the World Cup draw took place in the window between the original dates of the playoff in March and Sunday’s playoff final, the winner of the game in Cardiff will know its World Cup path immediately.It will land in a group with England, Iran and the United States and open the World Cup on its first day, Nov. 21, against the Americans. More

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      At Champions League Final, the Fans Weren’t the Danger

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      Preconceptions about Liverpool supporters and policing decisions that didn’t prioritize their safety led to the chaos at the Champions League final. That’s dangerous for every fan.It can be hard, at times like these, to know exactly who to believe. On one side, there are the thousands of witness accounts, the contemporaneous reports from much of the world’s news media, the countless videos and an apparently bottomless reserve of high resolution photographs, all telling one story about last Saturday’s Champions League final.And on the other side, there are the claims of the politicians and administrators and law enforcement officials who were responsible for the staging of European soccer’s showpiece event and who would, ultimately, be held accountable if it was found that they had overseen a complete and colossal organizational failure. It is just so hard to know which side is more likely to be telling the truth.Not that it matters, of course, because the damage is done. Around 20 minutes before the game was scheduled to start, UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, announced to the Stade de France and to the watching world that the game would have to be delayed because of the “late arrival” of fans to the stadium.It was not relevant, it seemed, that images had been floating around online for more than two hours of huge lines not only at the stadium’s gates, but at its perimeter, too, or that it had been blindingly obvious for some time that there were impossible bottlenecks to get close to the ground, or that several journalists had informed UEFA of the problems.Thomas Coex/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNo, all of that was put to one side, and UEFA blamed the fans. It did so either without full knowledge of the situation at its own event — an unforgivable ignorance — or knowing that its statement was at best misleading or, at worst, an outright and pernicious lie.And that was all it took. As soon as UEFA decided that the real problem with this sporting event was all the people who wanted to watch it, the — let’s keep the lawyers happy — misinformation spread and disseminated and infected everything it touched. From that point on, Liverpool’s fans were presumed guilty until proven innocent, not least by considerable portions of the people who should, really, have been their allies: other soccer fans.Still, UEFA can take some solace from the fact that — even with that head start — it has not been the worst actor in the sorry story that has played out over the last week or so, a time that should have been dedicated to celebrating the marvel that is this ageless Real Madrid team.No, that dubious honor goes to various elements of the French state. Not just the body-armor-clad riot police — who sprayed tear gas at fans waiting patiently to attend a sporting event, who tried to funnel thousands of people through two narrow gaps under a highway overpass, who shuttered entry points without explanation for hours as the crowd gathered and swelled, and who then locked down the stadium during the game to pen fans inside — but their champions: the country’s interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, and to his counterpart for sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra.For almost a week now, Darmanin and Oudéa-Castéra have blamed Liverpool’s fans on Twitter, in comments to the news media and in front of a rapidly-convened Senate hearing.France’s sports minister, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, and the country’s interior minister, Gérald Darmanin.Thomas Coex/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThey have blamed Liverpool fans despite all of those pictures of large, patient crowds. They have blamed Liverpool fans despite seeing videos of children being lifted from the ground to prevent them from being crushed. They have blamed Liverpool fans despite seeing footage of their own police officers squirting pepper spray and firing tear gas at people trying, quietly, to scan tickets.They have continued to blame Liverpool fans even as their own story keeps changing, even as the number of “fake tickets” presented at the Stade de France that evening has diminished from “30,000 to 40,000” to a fraction of that. They have stuck with their line even when it veered into baseless slurs, when it involved Oudéa-Castéra saying that Liverpool fans — maybe just English fans — posed a “very specific risk” to public safety.They have done so even though it does not take into account the problems that Real Madrid’s fans faced, or the footage and photographs of local residents forcing their way in, or the corroborated accounts of large-scale gang activity both before and after the game.They have done so even when it leaves more questions than answers: Where, precisely, did the 40,000 bearers of pretend tickets go, and why were they not captured wandering the streets of Saint-Denis? Were they ghosts? Other excuses have drifted into the realm of dystopian fantasy: Darmanin, at one point, claimed the police had to act because of the risk of a “pitch invasion.”This might all have the ring of a cover-up — and not even an especially good one, given how often the French authorities have had to contradict themselves — but there exists the possibility that it is not. Maybe it is not a series of outrageous and egregious lies. Maybe they have not seen all of those images, heard all of that testimony. Maybe it is just two politicians relying in good faith on poor, premature information. Maybe.It is hard, though, not to read into the persistence with which Darmanin and Oudéa-Castéra have peddled their accusations a certain calculation.Despite the fact that their interpretation of last Saturday evening is demonstrably, provably untrue, they have stood by it because the alternative is unpalatable: Admitting that the French security services got this one wrong would mean admitting that they have also got their approach to policing French domestic soccer wrong and that they are probably going to get next year’s Rugby World Cup and the 2024 Paris Olympics wrong, too.Most of all, they have stood by it because, deep down, they know it will work. They know, at least, that it might create the illusion of an alternative set of facts. They know, too, that much of the heavy lifting will be done by prejudice, by those who would point out, archly, that this does seem to happen to Liverpool fans or England fans or just soccer fans as a whole an awful lot.They know that while social media allowed all of those images and videos and firsthand accounts to be surfaced and to be spread, citizen journalism is a much less potent force online than deep-rooted partisanship. They know that the latter will overpower the former at some point, at least enough to muddy the waters, to obscure not only this specific truth but also the idea of truth, to ensure that some blame is apportioned elsewhere.Plenty, certainly, have seized on the opportunity to assume that Liverpool fans, or English fans, or even a certain stripe of soccer fans as a whole must be at fault. Plenty have decided that this must be the first time that anyone has ever tried to gain access to an event by using a fake ticket, without wondering whether perhaps some of those people were victims, rather than perpetrators, of a crime, without asking if perhaps that is the sort of thing the authorities should be prepared to encounter.And yet the temptation to side with the authorities, in the aftermath of an event like this, rather than those who are different from you only in terms of the team they support is a dangerous one.Thomas Coex/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWhat was proved at the Stade de France on Saturday evening was that soccer — in France, at least — is still an industry content with having tear gas fired on its customers, on families and on children. That it finds it acceptable to put them in a position where they have reason to fear for their lives, to risk them being crushed to death, to assume all of them are equally guilty and then, rather than to ask how this might have been avoided, to have the temerity, in the face of all available evidence, to blame them for it.And that has ramifications for everyone. For any soccer fan, for any sports fan, for any participant in French democracy. The Stade de France is not the first time a UEFA final has descended into chaos. Last summer’s European Championship final, in London, prompted a governmental review. Last month’s Europa League final, in Seville, drew a letter of complaint from both clubs about the way their fans were treated.Increasingly, it appears that UEFA is no longer capable of staging these games. More troublingly, in France in particular, it would seem that nobody in any position of power is interested in discovering how to police events of this scale to make sure they are not only safe and secure but enjoyable, too. Nobody wants to accept responsibility. Nobody wants to learn lessons.What happened at the Stade de France, and the smear campaign unleashed in its aftermath, has ramifications far beyond the reputation of Liverpool’s fans. Allowing the allegations of Darmanin and Oudéa-Castéra to take root is to allow this to happen again, to guarantee that there is a repeat, that another set of fans will be funneled and kettled and trapped and gassed and told — by those in power, by those responsible, by those who are supposed to have them in their care — that it is their fault.At times like this, it should not be hard to choose which side to believe, to know who is very obviously telling the truth.That Didn’t Work. Let’s Do It Again.Hold you applause for Barcelona, please.Dan Himbrechts/EPA, via ShutterstockThere was a time, a little while ago, when it was possible to feel quite encouraged by Barcelona. Xavi Hernández had made a bright start as manager, steering the club back into the Champions League. In Gavi and Pedri and Ansu Fati and Ronald Áraujo, the young and gifted core of a new team was starting to emerge.Even the club’s transfer activity seemed quite smart. Ferran Torres and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang had given the team a lift in January. Franck Kessié, the Ivorian midfielder at A.C. Milan, had been secured on a free transfer for the summer, giving the team a dynamism it has missed for some time.True, the debts are still enormous, but the club seemed to have acquiesced to cold reality. It was cutting its cloth, balancing its books, adapting to its new strictures. It was even trying to rehabilitate its relationship with Ousmane Dembélé, an admirable but somewhat quixotic attempt to recognize that salvaging a distressed asset is cheaper than acquiring a new one.And then it emerged that it might be considering the idea of selling Frenkie De Jong to Manchester United. Now, on the surface, that felt like an unfortunate necessity: At 25, De Jong is the sort of player who might generate a fee with which to rebuild a team. Sometimes, those kinds of difficult decisions have to be made.But then it turned out that Barcelona was planning on using at least a portion of the money it might receive — most likely from Manchester United — for De Jong to buy Marcos Alonso and César Azpilicueta.Both are fine players, of course. Azpilicueta, certainly, would be an asset both on and off the field to Barcelona. But they are hardly spring chickens: Alonso is 31 and Azpilicueta 32. Alonso excels in a position, wing back, that Barcelona does not even use. This is not the work of a club that has learned its lessons. Not in the slightest.You Cannot All Be LeBronAll will be revealed, then, on June 17. In less than two weeks, humanity will finally discover the answer to the most burning question of the age: Which team will get to have endless, heated discussions about whether Paul Pogba is playing sufficiently well next season? And it will do so in the most apposite medium imaginable: through watching his own, personal documentary.Just a little of the sting from The Pogmentary — no, really — was drawn earlier this week, when Manchester United confirmed that Pogba would be leaving the club, six years on from his $100 million arrival, at the end of his contract. The “huge decision” that sits at the center of much of the promotional spiel of the documentary, it turns out, was not entirely his.Oli Scarff/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPogba is not the first player to go down this road, of course. His French teammate, Antoine Griezmann, announced his move to Barcelona in the form of what might as well broadly be called a documentary, too. That Griezmann, like Pogba, is a devoted N.B.A. fan is probably not irrelevant here. These are both transparent homages to The Decision, LeBron James’s great gift to the documentarian’s art.The problem, of course, is that LeBron James is one of the greatest players ever to grace a basketball court, a status that is probably just a little beyond both Pogba and Griezmann. If James’s announcement was full of hubris and self-importance — the phrase “I’ll be taking my talents” should always, always be laced with irony — then it is easy to feel there is something just a little more tawdry about soccer’s ersatz versions, something slightly, well, desperate.To the players, though, that is a price worth paying. Pogba’s time at Manchester United has, by almost any measure, been anti-climactic. The peak years of his career, at least at club level, have been spent seeing his status slowly fade, leaving a player once regarded as one of the finest midfielders in the world now widely regarded as an expensive luxury.The bombast and the faint pomposity of a glossy documentary, an announcement about his future — spoiler alert: He will probably return to Juventus — is, at its heart, a way of asserting that he is still a star, that he can still command attention, that he can still dictate his own terms. It is a message tailored, in part, to whichever club (again: Juventus) he joins. More than that, though, it has the air of a message to himself.CorrespondenceA couple of thoughts from readers on the final day of the Premier League season, which as far as I can tell happened several years ago. “Seeing how Serie A settles a points tie by looking at a comparable win/loss, why can’t the Premier League do something similar?” asked Erich Almasy. “Watching Manchester City run up the scores to get a higher goal difference is embarrassing and clearly hurts clubs fighting relegation.”(A brief translation for readers unfamiliar with league table math: Serie A separates teams that are level on points by head-to-head record. The Premier League does it on goal difference.)I will confess to being slightly torn on this one. Head-to-head seems slightly fairer to me — though not in this Premier League season, when it would have been no use at all if Liverpool and Manchester City had finished level on points, given both games between the two of them ended 2-2 — and I do believe that seeing teams run up the score is not especially compelling sporting entertainment.But what is the alternative? That City (and Liverpool) just take the last 30 minutes of games off? Goal difference is also, to my eye, more dramatic. A.C. Milan’s better head-to-head record against Inter Milan this year meant it effectively had an extra point; in England, there is at least the possibility of a team overturning a disadvantage in goal difference on the final day.Pep Guardiola left the final day as he entered it: confident Manchester City would bring him the Premier League title.Hannah Mckay/ReutersI am more inclined to agree with Chuck Massoud-Tastor. “How does the Premier League defend the idea of starting all games simultaneously on the final day? Would they not garner more viewership and excitement with staggered starts? Am I just being a provincial American?”Yes, Chuck, you are, but that doesn’t mean you’re not right. It would be possible to stagger at least some of the games on the final day, at least in some scenarios, as long as all of the games pertaining to relegation or Europe or the title happened simultaneously.I’m not sure any drama would be lost. In a way, it might even serve to allow each story line a little time to breathe. That said, the issue is in the logistics. You do not know which games will be significant for which prize until relatively late, and rearranging games on short notice would only inconvenience fans. More

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      Nigeria Adds Up the Costs of Missing the World Cup

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      Failure to qualify for Qatar has condemned Nigeria to a humbling summer instead of months of World Cup hype. Then there’s the fate of its famous jersey.In those initial moments of agony in March after Nigeria was eliminated from qualification for this year’s World Cup, the most immediate thoughts of Amaju Pinnick, the president of Nigeria’s soccer federation, were of the disappointment being felt by his 200 million countrymen in Africa’s most populous nation.He needed only to look down on the scenes unfolding inside Moshood Abiola National Stadium in Abuja, Nigeria, to see what it meant. Thousands of angry supporters had poured onto the field after the final whistle to vent their anger, knocking over the advertising boards, chasing the players from the field and clashing with security officers. “My first thought,” Pinnick said, “was to resign immediately.”But his mind quickly drifted elsewhere, too. In those first days after Nigeria’s elimination in a home-and-home playoff against Ghana, Pinnick said he would wake up in the middle of the night thinking about another group feeling the sting of the team’s failure.“Oh what have we done,” he said, “to Nike.”For any country accustomed to attending the World Cup, the consequences of missing the tournament are substantial. The United States Soccer Federation stumbled through just such a soccer catastrophe in 2017, and Italy has now done it in two World Cup cycles in a row.For Nigeria, a leading light of African soccer that until this year had failed to qualify for the World Cup only once since 1994, the emotional and financial cost of elimination may be best told through the demise of a single deal: the carefully calibrated plan, worth millions of dollars and priceless publicity, linked to the release of a new national team jersey made by Nike.Nigeria’s jersey for the 2018 World Cup had been a breakout star, creating a frenzy and the type of buzz more expected from an appearance by one of the game’s star players than the arrival of a piece of apparel. Brightly colored and featuring a design that set it apart from the more staid, conservative offerings of most of the other teams at the tournament in Russia, Nigeria’s jersey became a must-have that summer, selling out almost immediately.Nigeria national soccer gear in London in 2018. It didn’t stay in stores for long.Frank Augstein/Associated PressNike received at least three million orders for the $90 shirt even before it went on sale. Lines formed at the company’s flagship stores in London and other cities on the day of its release. When it was finally made available online, it sold out in three minutes.Four years later, Nike and Nigeria — whose federation officials have sought to take full advantage of their brand through their relationship with the company — were hoping to build on that success with a new design this summer.“Nike has been very religious about us,” Pinnick said. “I feel very, very bad — I feel like crying when you mention Nike. They went all the way to bringing out what would have been the best jersey again in this tournament.”The World Cup is a major sales moment for Nike, which outfits some of the tournament’s most prominent teams, including the current champion, France, but also the United States, England and Brazil, which has won more titles than any other nation.Designing and manufacturing World Cup jerseys is not a short process, either; it typically takes about two years before the products appear in stores. Pinnick’s reaction, then, was understandable: Nigeria’s failure to qualify will mean a colossal loss in what the soccer federation could have expected to reap from its share of sales, he said. (Fans of the shirt will still get a chance to own one: The shirt will be released, presumably amid much less excitement, in September.)Pinnick estimated that as many as five million jerseys might have been sold after qualification, though it is unclear how many jerseys Nike was planning to produce; the company declined multiple requests to comment for this article.Joe Aribo and Nigeria lost to Ecuador, 1-0, in a friendly on Thursday in New Jersey. It was the team’s second defeat in a week on its United States tour.Tim Nwachukwu/Getty ImagesThrough its contract with Nike, Nigeria was entitled to a royalty of about 8 percent of each sale, Pinnick suggested. It would also have received a further $1 million in bonus fees from the company for making the World Cup. Those payouts, as well as additional eight-figure paydays from FIFA just for playing in the tournament, most likely would have meant a doubling of the Nigerian federation’s annual revenues of $20 million — a figure that was less than a tenth of what the biggest national soccer associations in South America and Europe generate.Shehu Dikko, the vice president of the federation, said a significant amount of the money earned through qualification would have been allocated before the tournament, on items like player bonuses, tuneup matches and training camps. (The team is currently in North America: It lost to Mexico on Saturday in Texas and again to Ecuador at Red Bull Arena in New Jersey on Thursday night.) “It is a huge financial blow for us,” he said, “and we have to recover.”There is another element of Nigeria’s failure, though, that is much harder to quantify. Over the decades, the Nigeria men’s soccer team, particularly when it is performing at major tournaments, has become a rallying point like no other for a population cleaved by social, ethnic and religious differences.“Football in Nigeria is life — it’s more than anybody can explain with words,” Dikko said. “You have to feel it. Nigeria has over 500 tribes, so many traditions, but football is the only activity that breaks through all of our fault lines. Once there is a football, everybody is a Nigerian. Nobody cares who you are, what you do or what language you speak. So football is more than just a game for us. It’s what binds this country together.”“Football is more than just a game for us,” one Nigerian official said of the sport and the national team. “It’s what binds this country together.”Afolabi Sotunde/ReutersThat level of interest and passion, though, means there also is a sharper focus on the performance of the federation.Under Pinnick, who assumed the role in 2014 and is the longest-serving soccer president in Nigeria’s history and who is also a member of FIFA’s governing council, Nigeria has had a mixed record. While he claims credit for modernizing the federation and attracting new sponsors, his tenure has failed to yield any major titles. A round of 16 elimination in the most recent edition of the Africa Cup of Nations — months before the team’s World Cup ouster — was its worst performance in that event since 1984. That came after a third-place finish in the previous edition and two consecutive catastrophic qualification campaigns in which Nigeria missed the competition in 2015 and 2017.Despite his initial impulse to resign in March, Pinnick now says he will stay on through the end of his term later this year. Not everyone supports the decision.Days after its World Cup exit, with Pinnick at his lowest, dozens of placard-holding protesters gathered outside the Nigerian headquarters in Abuja, calling for his ouster. Pinnick said the protest was not what it seemed; he suggested the crowd had been assembled — and paid — by opponents who have been trying to stymie his efforts since the day he first stepped into office.“They are professional placard carriers — you employ them, you rent them,” Pinnick said of the group that called for his ouster. “If you ask the guy why they are carrying the placards, they say they don’t know. They rent them for as low as 10 cents, 20 cents. People are hungry.”A few days later, there was another demonstration, more placards. This time the messages were different. They called on Pinnick to stay on. More

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

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

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      Ukraine Is One Game Away From the World Cup

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      Competing for a place in a World Cup already comes with pressure, but Ukraine’s players have not shied away from what getting there would mean to a country under siege. They’re one game away.The emotion, in anticipation, had been so raw that, at times, it was easy to worry that it might prove overwhelming. Oleksandr Zinchenko, a Ukrainian midfielder, had talked about pride, about freedom, about proving to the world that his country would “never give up.” He had welled up with tears as he spoke.His coach, Oleksandr Petrakov, had admitted that many of his players were consumed by thoughts of family members trapped back home, haunted by the air-raid sirens and menaced by the fighting, and still picking up the pieces of lives shattered by a brutal, senseless invasion.As they prepared for the first of two playoff games that could, in the end, deliver them and their nation to the men’s World Cup, Ukraine’s players faced a daunting physical challenge.A handful of the players at Petrakov’s disposal compete in the leagues of Western Europe; they had been able, in some superficial, professional sense, to continue as normal these last three months. Their minds might have been elsewhere, of course, but their bodies were training and playing.For the rest, though, there had been no competitive soccer for months. Those players attached to Ukraine’s two most famous clubs — Shakhtar Donetsk and Dynamo Kyiv, both now in exile from their homeland — have featured in a smattering of charity games in Poland and Croatia, staged to raise money for the many millions fleeing Russia’s invasion.The players each had a Ukrainian flag draped around their shoulders when they took the field.Robert Perry/EPA, via ShutterstockPetrakov was able to call his squad together last month for a training camp in Slovenia, the monotony broken only by the occasional tuneup match against club opposition. There had, though, been nothing comparable to the intensity of meaningful action; quite whether his team would have the physical capacity to match the first opponent blocking its path to the World Cup remained open to question.Read More on the World CupAmbitious Goals: FIFA has given up on a plan to hold the World Cup every two years. But its president’s plans for the future are bold.Female Referees: Following the selection of three women among the World Cup’s 36 referees, the event in Qatar may be the first edition of the men’s tournament in which a game is refereed by a woman.Golden Sunset: This year’s World Cup will likely be the last for stars like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo — and a profound watershed for soccer.Senegalese Pride: Aliou Cissé, one of the best soccer coaches in Africa, has given Senegal a new sense of patriotism. Next up: the World Cup.More pressing still, though, was the psychological hurdle. Ukraine’s players have not shied away from what winning a place at the World Cup would mean to the country. They have not tried to downplay how important something as trivial as soccer can be, even when it seems to be very trivial indeed.Several players are in regular contact with those fighting on the front line; they had come to understand that qualifying for just the second World Cup in the country’s history would have a significant effect on national morale. “We want to go to the World Cup, to give these incredible emotions to the people,” Zinchenko said. “Ukrainians deserve it so much at this moment.”As the players emerged into a sunlit Glasgow evening, each one with the country’s flag draped around his shoulders, it was impossible not to wonder if perhaps it might all prove too much. The pressure of playing to reach a World Cup can be inhibiting; the pressure of playing to reach a World Cup on behalf of a country at war, a country fighting for its existence, could be asphyxiating.And yet, what stood out about Ukraine, almost immediately, was a coolness, a composure, a detachment from the significance of the country’s first competitive game since the invasion. It shone through not simply in the three goals it scored to beat Scotland, 3-1 — a delicate lob from Andriy Yarmolenko, a precise header from Roman Yaremchuk and an emphatic finish late from Artem Dovbyk — or in the welter of other chances it created.Ukraine played with a coolness against Scotland.Mark Runnacles/Getty ImagesIt was also in dozens of little things. Ukraine passed neatly, incisively, with plenty of speed but a distinct absence of haste. Zinchenko, so affected by his sense of “mission,” as he put it, played with intricacy, verve and assurance. Yarmolenko was indefatigable. In defense, Ilya Zabarnyi and Taras Stepanenko were imposing, unruffled.Rather than being overwhelmed by emotion, Ukraine seemed to be unshackled from it, once the anticipation had ended and the moment itself had arrived. For the first time in a long time, the players were doing what they had always done, what they had been trained to do, and they reveled in it.It was not pride — a sense of purpose, a desire to make the people happy — that carried them through to a final playoff, against Wales in Cardiff on Sunday, in a game that will determine whether Ukraine’s story will end with a World Cup appearance in November. Instead, as soon as the whistle blew, they found freedom, and that had been more than enough. More

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      For USMNT and Others, World Cup Run Starts With a Sprint

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      The schedule for Qatar is set, but rosters are not. For players in the United States and elsewhere, a few weeks in a camp and a handful of matches could change everything.CINCINNATI — Until a few days ago, Malik Tillman, a 20-year-old midfielder from Nuremberg, Germany, had never stepped foot on American soil.Five and a half months from now, if things go the way he hopes they do, he will be representing the United States at the World Cup in Qatar.As the international soccer world enters a supposedly quiet summer period, with the European season over and most players on an all-too-brief break from their clubs, Tillman’s story offers a compelling counterpoint to any notion that teams will merely hover in holding patterns until the tournament begins in late November.National teams, after all, have only two chances left to gather before departing for the World Cup — a few games this month and a second window of matches in September — and there is a lot to be done. Squads must be assembled. Tactics must be fine-tuned. Players’ dreams will be realized or deferred. Lives will be changed.One of them could be Tillman’s. This week, he completed the switch of his soccer allegiance to the United States, the home country of his father, from Germany, the nation where he was born and where he is a rising prospect at Bayern Munich. His first appearance for the United States could come this week, in a friendly against Morocco (Wednesday) or Uruguay (Sunday).“It took me a lot of time to make the decision, but in the end, I listened to what my heart told me,” said Tillman, who started getting to know his new American teammates at their training camp this week in Cincinnati. “I hope it’s the right decision. I’m happy to be here.”Malik Tillman played for Germany’s youth national teams before announcing plans to switch to the United States last month. His move was approved on Tuesday.Tibor Illyes/EPA, via ShutterstockFor national team coaches around the world, the remaining training camp windows, and the handful of exhibition matches played in them, represent valuable time to implement new ideas and refine the ones that got them to this point.For individual players — like Tillman and others who are on the fringe of their national squads — they are opportunities to make a positive impression, to catch a coach’s eye, to earn his trust.For the teams and their fans, the games may present one final moment, perhaps, to pause and dream. The nerve-racking struggle of qualification is over. The daunting crucible of the World Cup looms. Until November, anything seems possible.Read More on the World CupAmbitious Goals: FIFA has given up on a plan to hold the World Cup every two years. But its president’s plans for the future are bold.Female Referees: Following the selection of three women among the World Cup’s 36 referees, the event in Qatar may be the first edition of the men’s tournament in which a game is refereed by a woman.Golden Sunset: This year’s World Cup will likely be the last for stars like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo — and a profound watershed for soccer.Senegalese Pride: Aliou Cissé, one of the best soccer coaches in Africa, has given Senegal a new sense of patriotism. Next up: the World Cup.“We don’t want to go into the World Cup thinking we just want to participate,” U.S. midfielder Weston McKennie said. “A good World Cup for anyone is going as far as you can, making it out of the group stage. A perfect World Cup is winning it.“A lot of people say it’s far-fetched for us, but it’s the mentality that we have. We want to compete. We want to win. And we want to get as far as we can.”For Tillman, who played on several of Germany’s youth national teams, the past week has been a whirlwind. He arrived in the United States late Friday night. The next day, in front of his new teammates, he was presented with a cake for his 20th birthday.Gregg Berhalter, the coach of the U.S. men’s national team, who secured Tillman’s commitment only a couple weeks ago, delivered the cake to the player.“Malik’s coming in with a bang, baby,” Berhalter said. “Happy birthday, buddy!”On Tuesday, Christian Pulisic, the team’s best player, was tasked with announcing to the group that Tillman’s switch had been officially approved by FIFA. That sparked another boisterous round of applause from the group.Asked this week for his first impressions of the United States, Tillman smiled.“It’s huge,” he said, drawing laughter from a roomful of reporters. “Germany is kind of small.” Noting the sprawling streets he had seen in Cincinnati, he added: “It’s crazy.”Amid all the extracurricular activity, there were actual training sessions on the field, where Tillman has already impressed his coaches and teammates.“He’s shown a lot of quality in training, very good understanding of the game, very good first touch and awareness around the penalty box,” Berhalter said. “So that’s been great.”Coaches at the club level have tried using Tillman as a striker, and while he has not pushed back too much against their experimentation, he sees himself as a midfielder in the mold of his favorite player, the Manchester United and France star Paul Pogba: confident, fluid, versatile.“In my mind, I’m more of a 10 than a striker because I would say my strength is my vision, and as a striker, you don’t need that in your game because the goal is almost all the time at the back of your body,” Tillman said. “I like to attack the goal, to see the goal in front of me.”Tillman said Berhalter has told him he, too, envisions him as a No. 10, a more creative role currently occupied by the likes of Pulisic, the Americans’ actual No. 10. That was one of the points that persuaded him to switch to the United States, Tillman said.The biggest selling point from Berhalter, though, was telling Tillman he could potentially make a World Cup roster this year — something that would have been impossible with Germany.Of course, outside of a small core of players like Pulisic, McKennie and Tyler Adams, no American player’s place in Qatar is guaranteed. Anything can happen as they fight for spots. Tillman knows that. So do his teammates.On many players’ minds, for instance, was the plight of defender Miles Robinson, who was largely viewed as a lock for the World Cup roster until last month, when he ruptured his left Achilles’ tendon while playing for his club, Atlanta United.Robinson’s injury was a sudden reminder to the American players of their own fragility. Defender Walker Zimmerman said he found himself allowing anxieties about injuries to seep into his mind.“When you’re looking at your goals that are right in front of you, and you’re just always a little bit more hesitant, it’s hard to fight that, but you have to,” Zimmerman said.Aside from worries about injury, players this week also expressed concerns about optimizing their situations with their clubs. For those who have signed, or could sign, with new clubs in the current European off-season, there has been a need to weigh long-term goals against the short-term practicalities of earning immediate playing time in the run-up to the World Cup.Consider Brenden Aaronson, who achieved a personal dream of signing for a Premier League team when he joined Leeds United in May. The move, he acknowledged, means he will have to fight all over again for playing time in a potentially more competitive situation. Sitting on the bench does not augur well for a player’s form.“It’s definitely a risk,” he said, “but it’s a risk I was willing to take.”All three U.S. goalkeepers — Matt Turner, Zack Steffen and Ethan Horvath — could struggle for playing time at their clubs this fall. Turner, above, is moving to Arsenal.Julio Cortez/Associated PressFor now, there are spots to be won up and down the American depth chart.Berhalter, for instance, has no go-to striker. He has not named a starting goalkeeper. And he has said he does not know who his backup left back will be.“I’m not sure the question needs to be answered right now, and the reason why is we have time,” Berhalter said when asked about the goalkeeper position. “I think it’s time to just let all this play out, and that’s the beauty of time in this case.”Players like Tillman and others, though, know the clock is ticking. More