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      Champions League Repeats Its Draw After a ‘Technical Problem’

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      A buzzed-about round of 16 matchup between Manchester United and Paris St.-Germain was the result of a mistake. P.S.G. will face Real Madrid instead.They drew the Champions League round of 16 on Monday, and set up a mouthwatering match between Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.Then they drew it again, and that match was gone.A “technical problem” meant that the Champions League was redrawn, leading to mostly new matchups — easier for some, harder for others — and shattering fans’ dreams of Paris St.-Germain vs. Manchester United.After the initial draw, fans and teams began posting on social media hyping the matchups. But in the end, only one of those games will happen. Three hours later, officials reconvened to draw the teams again.In the initial draw, Manchester United was matched with Villarreal. But those teams had met in the group stage, so a new name was pulled, giving Villarreal a match against Manchester City instead.At that point, the ball with United’s name in it should have been put back in the bowl. That did not appear to happen, so United did not have a chance to be drawn against the next team, Atlético Madrid. The rest of the names were pulled, and the draw appeared to be concluded.But as a result of the slip-up, UEFA, the European governing body, decided the fairest course was to pull all 16 teams again.UEFA was happy to try to shift the blame for the goof, saying: “Following a technical problem with the software of an external service provider that instructs the officials as to which teams are eligible to play each other, a material error occurred in the draw for the UEFA Champions League round of 16.”After the redraw, Chelsea wound up drawn against Lille, just as they had in the first draw. The other seven matchups were different however: Salzberg-Bayern, Sporting Lisbon-Manchester City, Benfica-Ajax, Atlético Madrid-Manchester United, Villarreal-Juventus, Inter Milan-Liverpool, and P.S.G.-Real Madrid.The team that might be unhappiest with the new draw is Real Madrid, which started with a very winnable match against Benfica, and wound up playing the star-studded lineup of P.S.G. Still, Real leads the Spanish league comfortably and would seem to have every chance to come away with a win.Pep Guardiola, the Manchester City manager, who started with a match against Villarreal and ended with one against Sporting, said: “It was a mistake. These things can happen, to managers, players and UEFA too. It is fair. It would be a mistake not to repeat, there would suspicions.”Matchups in the second-tier Europa League tournament include Barcelona, making an unaccustomed appearance after finishing third in its Champions League group, against Napoli and Porto vs. Lazio.In the new third-tier tournament, the Conference League, with a more eclectic mix of clubs, Leicester City will take on Randers of Denmark. Teams from Israel, Azerbaijan and Norway are also in the last 16.Each of those tournaments was drawn just once. So far. More

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      French Soccer Wrestles Surge in Stadium Violence

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      The return of supporters to stadiums in France has been accompanied by a series of games postponed or marred by trouble in the stands.Only 3 minutes 54 seconds into the match, Dimitri Payet jogged gingerly toward the corner flag at the Stade Gerland. The game between his team, Marseille, and the host, Lyon, was young and still formless. There had been no goals. There had barely been time for a chance. Everybody, fans and players alike, was still settling in.In the stands above him, Wilfried Serriere, 32, a food delivery driver, looked down and saw a half-liter bottle of water at his feet. It was full. Payet was placing the ball for a corner. His back was turned. In images captured by the stadium’s security cameras and later played in a courtroom, Serriere can be seen picking up the bottle, lowering his hood, and throwing it.A beat later, Payet fell to the grass, clutching his face. The bottle had caught him flush on the cheek.Dimitri Payet has been hit twice this season by objects thrown from the stands.Benoit Tessier/ReutersPayet’s teammates rushed to his aid. Anthony Lopes, Lyon’s goalkeeper, gestured at his own fans, pleading for calm. Later, Serriere told a court that he did “not know what went on in my head: euphoria, I don’t know.” He accepted he had thrown the bottle that struck Payet, but he could not explain why.The rest of France has spent the opening months of the soccer season asking itself the same question. A wave of violence has washed over Ligue 1, the country’s top division, since fans returned to its stadiums in August after a yearlong absence caused by the coronavirus pandemic.Two games, both involving Marseille, have been suspended — and eventually postponed — after Payet was struck by an object thrown from the stands. In Lyon, the players were taken off the field quickly. In the previous incident, at Nice, there was an angry confrontation on the field between Marseille’s players and hundreds of opposition fans. That confrontation also had consequences: A Nice fan was given a 12-month suspended sentence for kicking Payet, and a Marseille coach was barred for the rest of the season for punching a field invader.Those, though, were only the two most high-profile incidents. Fans have invaded the field during games at Lens and Angers. There have been pitched battles between rival groups of ultras before and after games in several cities. Missiles have been thrown at Montpellier and Metz and the Parc des Princes, home of Paris St.-Germain.In all, nine games in Ligue 1 have been afflicted this season by what the newspaper Dauphiné Libéré has described as an “epidemic” of violence, one so rampant that France’s soccer authorities have come to regard it as an existential threat. Vincent Labrune, the president of the French league, has called it nothing less than “a question of survival for our sport.”If that sounds hyperbolic, it is at least rooted in realism. There is a fear the violence could have financial ramifications; Roxana Maracineanu, the country’s sports minister, has said French soccer cannot “collectively afford” to fail to deliver the content the league’s broadcasters have paid for. But there is also concern that it could make France an inhospitable place for players to work, too.An incident involving Payet during a game at Nice in August led to on-field confrontations that drew in players, coaches, fans and security staff members.Valery Hache/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAt Serriere’s sentencing, Axel Daurat, a lawyer representing Payet and Marseille, testified that the player had suffered “significant” psychological impact as a result of being attacked twice in three months. “The fear will be there every time he puts the ball down for a corner,” Daurat said.But while the potential consequences are clear, there has been less progress on the causes. Labrune has suggested that the increase in disorder is best read as a reflection of the state of post-pandemic French society: “Anxious, worried, fractured, argumentative and — I have to say — a little crazy.”And yet that explanation does not quite withstand scrutiny. France is hardly alone in feeling a certain civic fractiousness as it emerges, haltingly and uncertainly, into an uncomfortable new reality. Most of Europe’s other major leagues, greeting that same reality, have not seen anything like the upsurge in violence Ligue 1 has faced.“It feels a little bit like cod psychology to say that it is to do with a tension in society manifesting in the stadium,” said Ronan Evain, the executive director of Football Supporters Europe. More likely, he said, is that the violence illustrates a structural, institutional failing.“It is like the clubs have lost a little bit of expertise,” he said. “In the incident between Lens and Lille, there was no buffer zone between the home and away fans. I have not seen that at a game in 20 years, maybe more. The clubs put a lot of emphasis on the Covid protocols for returning to the stadiums. Perhaps there was not enough focus on security.”Evain argued that may be connected to the loss of experienced stewards and security staff members during the pandemic, and he drew a parallel between the French experience and the scenes at Wembley Stadium in London in July, when thousands of ticketless fans stormed the gates when England played Italy in the Euro 2020 final. A sharply critical report this month documented how policing failures had left stadium security employees in an impossible — and potentially deadly — situation that day. “You cannot ask someone who is underpaid, undertrained and in poor working conditions to risk their health to stop someone going on the field,” Evain said.Nicolas Hourcade, a sociologist at the École Centrale de Lyon who specializes in fan movements, suggested that lack of expertise has been compounded by the financial difficulties faced by French teams. France, alone among Europe’s major leagues, chose not to conclude its pandemic-interrupted 2019-20 season, and its teams are still reeling from the subsequent collapse of the league’s broadcast deal.“It is possible the clubs did not invest enough in security,” he said, “which would explain why the measures were sometimes insufficient.”But while that provides a possible explanation for why French soccer has provided such fertile ground for the violence, it does not offer insight into the root of it. Maracineanu, the sports minister, has laid blame at the door of France’s ultra groups, urging their leaders to “control your troops.” But it is not quite so simple.At Serriere’s hearing, it emerged that he had been a Lyon fan for 15 years — though news reports noted he attended court in a Bayern Munich jersey — but was not a member of any organized group. He was not, in other words, an ultra.“There have been incidents involving ultra groups,” said Pierre Barthélemy, a lawyer who has acted on behalf of the ultra movement. He cited two, specifically, including the field invasion at Lens, which he said had been triggered by the presence of “Belgian hooligans” among the visiting Lille fans, and an incident at a game in Montpellier that the ultras were boycotting.Smoke from a flare in Montpellier. Fans also have thrown bottles, smoke bombs and punches this season.Eric Gaillard/Reuters“When the game was suspended at Nice, it was because the authorities had let people throw missiles on the field for 40 or 50 minutes,” Barthélemy said. “These are not organized incidents. They are spontaneous, and most are not coming from the ultras.”That, however, only makes them harder to police. France has some of the most draconian punishments for crowd disorder in Europe, Evain said, including the ability to close grandstands or even entire stadiums.He fears the current outbreak will be met by a “populist” response: increased calls for monitoring of fans in stadiums, and the greeting of any incident, even an individual action, with a collective punishment. At least one club owner has confided privately that he would agree to play behind closed doors if the issues continued.But perhaps more significant, the atomized nature of the incidents in France makes them harder to understand. “Violence caused by ultras and incidents caused by other fans are not related,” said Hourcade, the sociologist.Violence may be an organizational failure, he said. Or perhaps long-running grievances between ultra groups are resurfacing after lying dormant during the pandemic.But threading through it all is the sense that the stadium has become a place where lines can be crossed and taboos broken, and 3:54 into a game, when the trill of the whistle has barely faded and the game has barely begun, a fan can look at a bottle and, without ever knowing why, pick it up and hurl it at a player, and land another blow on the image French soccer presents to the world. More

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      NYCFC Played the Long Game to Reach MLS Cup

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      A team that once took the field behind big-name European imports embraced a new kind of star power en route to its first M.L.S. championship.PORTLAND, Ore. — The road, New York City Football Club executives had said from their team’s earliest days, was always supposed to lead here, to big moments, to finals, to trophies. It perhaps did not need to have so much drama, they knew, but this was always the plan.Victory arrived soaked in tension and in a cold rain on Saturday, when N.Y.C.F.C. outlasted the host Portland Timbers, 4-2, in a penalty-kick shootout after the teams played a 1-1 tie to win its first Major League Soccer championship. The shootout capped a day in which New York City F.C. appeared to have the M.L.S. Cup title sealed in regular time, only to surrender a last-second goal that forced extra time and, at least briefly, made it feel as if the team’s moment had slipped from its grasp.Steadying themselves in the two extra periods, though, N.Y.C.F.C. ensured that its joy would only be delayed, not denied. Three successful penalty attempts in four shots to open the shootout, and then two saves by goalkeeper Sean Johnson, set the stage for defender Alex Callens to complete the job.ALEX CALLENS WITH AUTHORITY! 💥What a moment for @NYCFC. #MLSCup pic.twitter.com/KXvbDg0ASt— Major League Soccer (@MLS) December 11, 2021
      “No one said it would be easy,” said Johnson, who was named the game’s most valuable player. “It’s been difficult, but that’s how it should be to win a championship.”N.Y.C.F.C. Coach Ronny Deila noted the number of young players on his team and praised them for bouncing back after a tough late-season stretch in which they had just one win in 10 matches.“We knew that when we get things right, we are very hard to play against,” he said.Those who haven’t paid close attention to New York City F.C.’s roster evolution the past few years might not have seen the team’s plan quite so clearly before now, and so they might have been surprised to scan the Manchester City-backed team’s roster ahead of the M.L.S. Cup final. There are no longer any Andrea Pirlos, no Frank Lampards, no David Villas in N.Y.C.F.C.’s squad — the kind of boldfaced European imports that once gave the team a flash of star power in its early years of existence.Instead, the team’s run to its first title was led by two comparatively unheralded Argentine players: Maxi Moralez, a 34-year-old midfielder who once won a youth World Cup alongside brighter lights like Sergio Agüero and Ángel Di María, and forward Valentín Castellanos, the leading scorer in M.L.S. this season.They combined to produce the first goal in the final, a curling free kick from Moralez dropped precisely onto the forehead of an open Castellanos at the back post in the 41st minute.Four minutes into injury time, and with the final whistle beckoning, that goal seemed as if it would be enough to deliver N.Y.C.F.C.’s title.But a late cross, a goal mouth scramble, a blocked shot and then a rebound produced a lifeline for Portland in the form of a Felipe Mora goal that rejuvenated the Timbers and the sold-out crowd of 25,218.New York City F.C.’s journey, its players realized, would have to go the extra mile. But Johnson stopped the first two Portland penalty kicks, and that proved to be enough.That this year’s version of N.Y.C.F.C. reached the final represented less a long-awaited breakthrough for the team’s ownership group and more of an expected step on a long, well-plotted path.The shift in roster strategy since the team’s inaugural season in 2015 — an overhaul that parallels the league’s own recent transformation toward developing young talents instead of importing established stars — was not the result of sudden enlightenment, however.It was, a top team executive said on Friday, the plan all along.“We are here for the long term,” said Ferran Soriano, the chief executive of City Football Group, whose growing network of soccer clubs around the world includes not only Manchester City of the Premier League and N.Y.C.F.C. but also nine other teams in 11 countries. “And the long term is not five years. It’s not 10. It’s 50.”“We’re very happy to be in the final — very happy,” Soriano had added on the eve of the final. “It’s a symbol to what we have achieved. But in reality, the work has been steady year after year.”That was not always apparent in the results. Despite making the playoffs in five of its first six seasons, N.Y.C.F.C. won only a single playoff round in those trips. It won twice as many postseason matches in 2021 (four) than it did in its first six seasons combined (two).Portland players pile onto Felipe Mora after his goal in the dying seconds of injury time sent the M.L.S. Cup final to extra time.Troy Wayrynen/USA Today Sports, via ReutersSoriano acknowledged that the early N.Y.C.F.C. teams were hampered on the field by their top-heavy constructions, which saw cheaper players fill out the rosters alongside multimillion-dollar stars like Villa, Lampard and Pirlo. That led to regular disappointments, as regular-season successes were frequently followed by quick postseason exits.Soon, though, team executives worked within M.L.S.’s thicket of roster and salary rules to make smart signings like Moralez and to bring City Football Group’s resources to bear in more positive, productive ways.The 23-year-old Castellanos, for example, joined as a teenager in 2018 on loan from the Uruguayan club Torque, which is also owned by City Football Group, and later signed a permanent deal to stay in New York. For Castellanos, the move represented a step up the C.F.G. ladder — an actual ranking of leagues that the group created using data and analytics. (The Premier League is at the top, Soriano said, with M.L.S. somewhere in the middle, “a bit higher than Japan.”)The system of linked clubs is not without conflict. Castellanos’s manager at Torque resisted the transfer, Soriano said, and the Uruguayan team struggled after his departure — a fate that could come to N.Y.C.F.C., too, if and when ownership decides it is time for their newest star to move on.Valentín Castellanos, this season’s M.L.S. scoring leader, opened the scoring on Saturday.Jaime Valdez/USA Today Sports, via ReutersBut the system also requires patience from a fan base that has not always understood the need for popular, and vital, players like Jack Harrison, now at Leeds United; Yangel Herrera, who left New York for La Liga in Spain; and others to move on to a higher level of development than M.L.S.“This is a long game for the City Football Group,” M.L.S. Commissioner Don Garber said. “They’re thinking about their investment in Major League Soccer over a generational time frame.”At the beginning, that meant spending for star power that might attract attention to the newest City-owned club. But it also meant investments in an academy that helped groom stars like Gio Reyna and Joe Scally, and in the belief that a constant churn of talents will yield a more talented roster year after year.“The way we measure the work that we do every day is what we do in the regular season,” Soriano said. “That’s a good measure of what we do. Then we go to the playoffs and maybe you can be lucky. But if you go to the playoffs regularly, one day you will win.” More

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      What Do We Mean by Good Soccer?

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      The best games manage to be both compulsive viewing and technically excellent, but those that clear that bar are rare. And that presents fans with a choice.MANCHESTER, England — Jesse Lingard was streaking away, the ball at his feet, on the right wing. Their legs weary and their hopes dwindling, Arsenal’s defenders heaved and hauled to keep up with him, as if they were running into a stiff wind. And on the other side of the field, Cristiano Ronaldo started to sprint.It was a true sprint, too, a track sprint, a coached sprint: starting in a low crouch, his back straightening as he reached full tilt, head held high, arms pumping. The clock had just ticked past 90 minutes, but there seemed to be a magnet drawing Ronaldo to Arsenal’s penalty area, some elemental force. He had scented a chance from 60 yards, and he just could not resist the aroma.Ronaldo arrived in the penalty area roughly at the same time as Lingard, and the ball, but the chance never came. He came to a sudden halt, stood for a moment, and then doubled over, gulping down the air. It was fitting, really, a breathless end to a breathless game, the sort of evening that leaves the fans as drained as the players.Manchester United had won, 3-2, but the richness was in the detail: Arsenal’s opening goal, scored by Emile Smith-Rowe as David de Gea, the United goalkeeper, lay prone on the goal line, nursing an injury he had sustained by running into his own player; the quick thrust and parry early in the second half, as United took the lead and then offered Arsenal a reprieve almost immediately; the confected, compulsory drama of the referee, Martin Atkinson, walking achingly slowly to the monitor to award the penalty kick that won the game.As entertainment, it was difficult to beat. It was compelling and enthralling and pulsating, a sort of Platonic ideal of a Premier League game, all of the characteristics that English soccer prides itself on, that it sells to the world at a premium, distilled into 90 minutes. It was, by that measure, a good game of soccer.But by another, it was not. Michael Carrick had been in charge of United that night. His successor, Ralf Rangnick, was sitting in the directors’ box. At the end of the game, Carrick told his players that he would not only be stepping down but leaving the club altogether, off in search of fulfillment elsewhere.Ralf Rangnick pondering the scale of the job he has accepted at United. Jon Super/Associated PressUnited played like a team that had internalized that uncertainty. It had the air of a side between managers, one only just beginning to emerge from a month of confidence-sapping crisis. There was no shortage of individual talent, but there was a lack of organization, an undeniable jaggedness to their play. Martin Odegaard appeared wholly unmarked to score Arsenal’s equalizer. Passes went astray. Attacks bubbled and then fizzled out. It was obvious United wanted to win. It was not always so obvious that it knew how.Arsenal might have known precisely who its manager was, but it was no better. Mikel Arteta has crafted a young, game team, but with that youth and that exuberance comes a naïveté. Having taken the lead, it ceded the initiative. It squandered possession. It folded as United attacked. It ran out of ideas. Its most experienced player, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, was irrelevant throughout.As a technical exercise, then, the match was hardly conclusive proof of the Premier League’s old boast that it is the best domestic competition in the world. It was mainly striking as an illustration of how far both United and Arsenal have fallen: watching on, Rangnick must have seen all of that haphazard defending, uncertain pressing, that rushed passing and thought that perhaps the Premier League was not so different from the Bundesliga after all.For everyone else, it was difficult to watch either team without being struck by how far both have fallen, to wonder quite what Alex Ferguson or Arsène Wenger would have thought if you had told them that the roles of Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira would one night be taken by Scott McTominay and Mohamed Elneny.Those two definitions of good are not always in tension — the best games, of course, manage to be both compulsive viewing and technically excellent — but, in truth, those that clear that bar are rare beasts. And that presents us, as fans, with a choice, one that strikes at the heart of what it is about sports that makes us want to watch, what we want a sport to be.Mohamed Salah and Liverpool: when a team morphs into one long knee slide.Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesAnnibale Frossi, the former Inter Milan manager, once declared that the “perfect result to a game of football is 0-0,” because that represents “a balance between the attacks and defenses on the field.” There is truth in that, but it does not sound as if it would offer a particularly gripping spectacle. Entertainment lies, often, in the imperfections: the lapse in concentration that leads to an attack; the mistake that concedes an equalizer; Harry Maguire. Which good do we want?If that sounds an ephemeral, philosophical question, it is not, not at the moment. European soccer’s financial imbalance — between the Premier League and everyone else; between the dozen or so superclubs and their underlings; between the state-backed and the self-sufficient — has allowed a handful of teams to achieve a level of excellence that is more sustainable than ever before.There exists a group of clubs that can carry squads of quite impossible depth, slipping in one $70 million player after another; gobbling up any talent that emerges elsewhere; acquiring the best in sports science and data analysis and youth development.Those teams are capable of playing soccer that touches perfection: Bayern Munich and Manchester City and Liverpool and Chelsea. Entering Friday, the Premier League’s top three had goal differences of +23, +32 and +26. Only two other teams have positive goal differences, and one of those is Manchester United, which is currently on +1. P.S.G. is already 11 points clear at the top in France. Bayern is on course for a 10th straight German championship.Alphonso Davies and Bayern Munich strolled through the Champions League group stage, winning all six games and outscoring their opponents by 22-3.Christof Stache/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThere is a pleasure in watching all of them, of course, as there is a pleasure in watching any master at work. The intricacy of City’s movement, the ruthlessness of the attacks of Bayern and Liverpool, Chelsea’s precision-engineered craft. But that is unrelated to whether they produce games that are compelling to watch. Just as Manchester United and Arsenal did not have to be good to conjure a good game, the converse is true. Good teams do not necessarily lead to good entertainment.To Chelsea, Bayern and the rest, that is of no concern: The professional part of professional soccer means that their only duty is to win, as much and as well as possible. It can feel a little dirty, too, to discuss soccer in these terms, gathering it under that great umbrella that encompasses television and cinema and music and all the rest.But, ultimately, that is what soccer is supposed to be: entertainment. It is because it is entertaining that we keep watching. It is, in part, why fans are quicker to turn on coaches who prioritize the dour and the miserly rather than those who speak airily of their visions of the game. Excellence can take the breath away. But it is the flaws that keep us coming back for more.The Not-So-Lovable UnderdogThe Atlético Madrid-Porto Champions League match in one photograph.Luis Vieira/Associated PressIt has been hard not to admire Atlético Madrid for the last decade or so. Not only because of what Diego Simeone has achieved — the two league championships, the two Champions League finals — but the circumstances in which he has done it, and the approach he has taken.Atlético has emerged as a consistent power in La Liga and the Champions League on a fraction of the budget enjoyed by its rivals both in Spain and in Europe. It has done so not by copying the stylistic orthodoxy of the elite, but by subverting it. Where others have sought elegance and beauty, Atlético has prized courage and grit and a snarling, street-fighting determination.That has made it a useful corrective in the era of the smooth, glossy superclub: Atlético is a reminder that power and money are not always everything, that there is more than one path to be taken, that beauty can be in the eye of the beholder.Criticizing Atlético always risks sounding prudish. Simeone’s team embodies certain martial values, after all, a vision of soccer that many cherish. Competitive sports is not meant to be gentle. And yet, on its journey through the Champions League, it has felt a little like something at Atlético has curdled. It has become the underdog you want to lose.At Anfield, a few weeks ago, Simeone’s team spent a considerable portion of the game trying to incite Sadio Mané into doing something reckless. Against Porto, on Tuesday, its response to coming under concerted pressure was to spark two full-scale brawls.When Atlético had a player dismissed, it did not grit its teeth and dig in; it set about leveling the field. This time, it worked. The Porto substitute Wendell reacted to Atlético’s provocation. Brushed on the touch line, the Atlético striker Matheus Cunha fell to the ground theatrically, and the referee duly produced a red card.Atlético went on to win the game, and book its place in the last 16. Not long ago, the frenzied scenes of celebration would have been quite uplifting, another demonstration of Simeone’s team’s indomitability. This time, it was not quite so appealing.Atlético no longer seems a team that can indulge in soccer’s dark arts — and there is a place in all sports, for gamesmanship, and it is even possible to marvel at their master practitioners — but a team defined by them. In another time, those brawls might have looked like a deliberate tactic: It is Atlético, after all. But not this time. This time, it looked like a team losing control, letting its demons run.Coming Saturday: M.L.S. CupNew York City F.C. players this week at Providence Park in Portland, Ore., where they will face the host Portland Timbers on Saturday in Major League Soccer’s championship game. N.Y.C.F.C. is making its first appearance in the final. More on them in The Times this weekend.Troy Wayrynen/USA Today SportsWarning SignsThis is a slightly strange week, it has to be said, to issue some grand proclamation about the strength of the Premier League. After all, only one of its four representatives in the Champions League recorded a victory in the final round of group games.Manchester City lost at RB Leipzig. Manchester United drew at home to the Swiss champion, Young Boys. Most damaging, Chelsea conceded a late equalizer against Zenit St. Petersburg that meant it did not win its group, making its task significantly more difficult in the last 16 (unless it draws Lille, the weakest of its potential opponents, on Monday).But the nature of that sole victory felt instructive. Liverpool did not need to beat A.C. Milan. Jürgen Klopp’s team had already won its group with ease, allowing him to change his side considerably. By a conservative estimate, he omitted eight first-team players from the game. Milan, by contrast, had to win to have any chance at all of qualifying for the knockouts.And yet Liverpool, with a team far weaker than it would ever dream of sending into a Premier League game, still strolled to victory. In the context of the week, that means little. But take a step back and it fits a pattern: England has provided both teams for two of the last three Champions League finals. Only one English team — United last year — has failed to make it out of the group stage since Tottenham in 2016.Raheem Sterling’s Manchester City was one of three Premier League teams to win their Champions League group. All four English entries made the last 16.David Klein/ReutersThere is nothing new in one league’s emerging as the best on the planet. Italy held that status in the 1990s. Spain has been able to lay claim to it for stretches of the current century. Perhaps it is just England’s turn again, as it was between 2005 and 2010 (give or take a little blurring at the edges.)The difference this time is the size of the gap. The Premier League’s financial advantage is growing at an alarming rate: its television revenues are increasing at the same time that most of continental Europe’s clubs are trying to claw back money lost to the coronavirus pandemic.Liverpool’s second team can include a $45 million defender like Ibrahima Konaté, and a $50 million midfielder like Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. A.C. Milan, on the other hand, had the chance to sign Bernardo Silva from Manchester City this summer but simply could not come close to his $8 million-a-year salary.The nature of the Champions League — the vagaries of the draw, the immediacy of the format, the outsize influence of injury in a knockout competition — means it cannot be guaranteed that a Premier League team will win it this season. But there are, now, only one or two continental sides that might realistically match the English contingent.The financial gulf is now so great that the trend should only grow stronger over the next few years. Of course, continental Europe’s clubs could spend their money more wisely, they could recruit better, and they could play smarter (Italian and Spanish teams, for one, need to adopt a higher tempo to compete). But the imbalance is such, now, that it is hard to see how it is corrected.CorrespondenceThere was, it turns out, a glaring inaccuracy in last week’s newsletter. This is unacceptable, of course, and I will be duly censured for it — though my attempts to secure myself the traditional soccer punishment, a weeklong suspension on full pay, have been unsuccessful — but I think you may understand: apparently, Juventus is not the only club in the world to have its own font.Bea Reiter points to the Kansas City Current, of the N.W.S.L., which boasts a hand-drawn effort to “reflect the power and movement of the brand.” Major League Soccer’s Columbus Crew can make the same claim, Harmon Vredeveld informs us: It has a bespoke font, too, called NineSix, a nod to the year of the club’s founding. Every day, as they say, is a school day.Apologies are also owed to Ben Myers and Naomi Farley, who were equally offended that I forgot to add Weston McKennie in my list of young players Juventus might, if it were so minded, try to build a revitalized team around. He warranted a mention, certainly, though I fear he may yet prove a victim of the club’s short-termism.Weston McKennie thanks you for your letters.Peter Cziborra/Action Images Via ReutersLet’s end on a positive note, because Zach Hollander has the kernel of an excellent idea to share. “Don’t you think it would be beneficial to have the Ballon d’Or decided after summer tournaments, but before the next season starts? That way it would take into account one full season, and let players who have an incredible club season not be “forgotten” for having a slow start to the next season.”This is thoroughly sensible, but the solution is far easier: Leave the Ballon d’Or where it is, for reasons of history, but move the other individual award — the FIFA one, rather cumbersomely called The Best — to the end of the season. That way, each award has its own, defined place, rather than sharing space: one for the calendar year, one for the soccer year. More

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      What Happened in the P.S.G. Attack?

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      The assault of a top women’s player made headlines, with masked men, a metal bar and the arrest of a teammate. But weeks later, new details suggest the original story might have been wrong.VERSAILLES, France — It was dark by the time Aminata Diallo stepped through the concrete arch of the Hôtel de Police and onto the sidewalk outside. It had been about 36 hours since officers had banged on her apartment door, rousing her from sleep and taking her into custody.Now released and scrolling through the hundreds of messages she had missed, Diallo, a midfielder for the French soccer team Paris St.-Germain, was stunned by what she saw. Little known only days earlier beyond the cloistered world of French women’s soccer, her name was suddenly headline news around the world.Diallo, the news reports said, was the player who had been driving the car last month when one of her teammates was pulled from the passenger seat by a masked man and assaulted. Diallo, the reports said, was the one who had been unharmed as her friend and teammate Kheira Hamraoui was beaten with an iron bar. And Diallo was the player now being questioned not as a witness but as a possible suspect in what the police had suggested was an orchestrated attack.The story, with its hints of sporting jealousy, its echoes of Tonya Harding and its links to Paris St.-Germain, the reigning French champion and one of the richest soccer clubs in the world, quickly spread far and wide.But as details emerge — about marital infidelity; about accusations implicating other members of the team; about reports of menacing phone calls to players disparaging the victim before she was attacked — that initial story has been turned on its head.And now no one is sure what, or whom, to believe.A Case in LimboAminata Diallo, confident the police were mistaken in detaining her, declined a lawyer during questioning.Loic Baratoux/Abaca/Sipa USA, via AP ImagesMore than three weeks have passed since Diallo, 26, walked out of the police station in Versailles, released after two days of interviews and a night in a tiny, foul-smelling cell. The investigation continues, but the police appear to be no closer to figuring out what, or who, was behind the attack on Nov. 4 on a dark street in the Paris suburb of Chatou.A few things are undisputed. Hamraoui, 31, was the victim of a serious crime. Diallo was questioned and released. None of the attackers have been identified. No weapon has been recovered. And no one has been charged with a crime.But in reporting about the tumultuous weeks since the attack, The New York Times also learned that Hamraoui has at times suggested other people with links to the club, including at least two other teammates, may have been involved in her assault; that while P.S.G. kept Diallo and Hamraoui training apart from the team, and from each other, for weeks, a scheduling mistake led to one interaction in which sharp words were exchanged; and that while the police released Diallo without filing charges, they have declined to clear her of suspicion and have retained her two cellphones and laptop.The collateral damage of the incident, meanwhile, continues to grow. Diallo and Hamraoui had their names smeared and their careers disrupted. The locker room harmony at P.S.G. has been shattered, hobbling the trophy ambitions of one of Europe’s best teams. And the marriage of a French soccer hero drawn into the case has collapsed; his wife released a statement saying she would seek a divorce after, her lawyer claimed, he had admitted to her that he had been having an extramarital affair with Hamraoui.Kheira Hamraoui in August. She and Diallo vacationed together and were teammates with Paris St.-Germain and France’s national team.Tim Nwachukwu/Getty ImagesThe Times collected information on the attack, and its aftermath, by interviewing nearly a dozen people with direct knowledge of the principals, the assault and the days that followed, including friends, relatives and associates of the players; the players’ lawyers; P.S.G. insiders; and the police.Many of those interviewed sought to rebut the story’s existing narrative of jealousy and betrayal, and nearly all agreed to speak only if they were not quoted by name, given the sensitivity of the case.Yet the path forward appears as complicated as the present: Hamraoui met with the police again last week, and Diallo most likely faces further questioning, too. The players rejoined their teammates in training on Tuesday, but the case is now in the hands of an investigating magistrate, a process that could continue for at least 18 months. During that time, the authorities, and the players, will continue to try to untangle the single minute on a dark street that changed both of their lives.A Team DinnerLe Chalet des Iles in the Bois de Boulogne, on the outskirts of Paris, where Hamraoui, Diallo and their P.S.G. teammates gathered for a dinner on the night of the attack. James Hill for The New York TimesTo those present there was nothing special about the dinner at an upscale restaurant set on an island in one of Paris’s biggest parks in the first week of November.The players had been brought together by their club to break bread, an effort to maintain the cohesion that helped them start the season undefeated, and to steel them for the challenges ahead.Diallo agreed to pick up Hamraoui and another player, Sakina Karchaoui, after the club asked the players to car pool because of limited parking at the restaurant. The three players, who lived near one another in the northwest suburbs of Paris, had grown close since joining the club over the summer: Hamraoui from Barcelona, Karchaoui from Lyon and Diallo from a brief loan at Atlético Madrid. But Diallo and Hamraoui, teammates from a previous stint at P.S.G. and camps with France’s national team, were particularly friendly; they had even vacationed together.After dinner, around 10:30 p.m., the three women returned to Diallo’s car, a club-issued Toyota Corolla, for the drive home. Hamraoui jumped into the front passenger seat, Diallo plugged Karchaoui’s address into a navigation app, and they set off.After dropping off Karchaoui, and with parked cars narrowing the roadway, Diallo was still pulling away tentatively when two men, their faces covered by masks, emerged from behind a van. They thumped on the car’s hood, demanding that it stop, and screamed to Diallo and Hamraoui to “open the door.”The assailants moved quickly. One opened the driver’s door and pinned Diallo against the steering wheel. The other yanked Hamraoui from the passenger seat.“The man on my side grabbed me and pulled me from the vehicle,” Hamraoui later told the police, according to details of her statements published by the French news media. “Before he did that, he pulled a rectangular iron bar that he had hidden in his pants or underneath his sweater. He hit me from the very first moments of the attack to force me out.”Hamraoui’s injuries included cuts and deep bruising around her knees.Courtesy Harir AvocatsShe told the police her assailant paid particular attention to her legs.Hamraoui said she fell into the road. “My attacker hit me with an iron bar several times,” she said. “I saw that he was targeting my legs, and I tried to protect myself with my hands.”Hamraoui said she recalled hearing one of the men yell something about a married man. Diallo would later tell the police she heard a full sentence: “So like that, you touch married men?” Diallo also told the police that she had heard sexually charged insults above the agonizing screams of Hamraoui as the attacker’s blows rained down.The attack lasted less than a minute before the assailants fled. Hamraoui, blood streaming from a wound on her hand, slumped back into the car. She and Diallo immediately called Karchaoui, whose home was less than 100 meters behind them, to tell her what had happened and to ask her to join them at the car. Then they set off for a nearby emergency room.The AftermathThe emergency entrance of the hospital in Poissy, where Hamraoui was treated for her injuries hours after she was assaulted.James Hill for The New York TimesAs Diallo drove, the players alerted their team. P.S.G.’s deputy head of security, Frédéric Doué arrived at the hospital with Bernard Mendy, an assistant coach on the women’s team. A friend of Hamraoui’s soon appeared there as well.With Hamraoui’s wounds treated but the assailants unidentified, the club officials told the women that under no circumstances were they to return to their homes. Instead, the team arranged for them to spend the night at a Holiday Inn close to the team’s training base about 10 miles west of central Paris.The hotel was familiar to all three women; they had spent weeks there after their moves to P.S.G. last summer. Karchaoui and Hamraoui shared a room. Diallo took one nearby. Hamraoui’s friend also spent the night.In the hotel, the women discussed who might have been behind the attack. Hamraoui was adamant from the start that someone at the club was involved, according to people familiar with the conversations. The players also discussed a strange episode from a couple of weeks earlier, when a number of their teammates had received anonymous calls from a man speaking ill of Hamraoui. But as they continued to talk through the night, Hamraoui also alighted on other potential suspects, at one point raising the name of the husband of a fourth P.S.G. teammate, who acts as the agent for yet another French star on the team.The next morning, after a few hours of fitful, fretful sleep, the women went through the events again. As they talked, Hamraoui received a phone call. It was Eric Abidal, a former French national team player whom she had come to know at Barcelona, where she played for three seasons when he served as the club’s technical director.Eric Abidal, a two-time winner of the Champions League with Barcelona who played in two World Cups for France, remains a popular figure in his home country.Albert Gea/ReutersHamraoui asked Abidal if his wife might want to hurt her, before telling him that she had been assaulted. With the phone set to loudspeaker, the people in the room could hear his response: He sounded stunned. A few more words were exchanged and the call ended.Karchaoui and Diallo soon left together to have breakfast at the club’s training facility in Bougival, where they practiced before meeting with members of the club’s management to relay the details of the attack. (Hamraoui did not accompany them; she was taken for more treatment of her injuries.) Later, the players and several teammates, those who received the anonymous calls, went to the police station to provide more statements.The club, uneasy about an attack on one of its players, assigned members of its security staff to watch over the homes of Diallo, Hamraoui and Karchaoui in the days that followed, but news of the assault stayed within the club.Inside the team, though, tensions were mounting. The French national team striker Kadidiatou Diani, angry that Hamraoui had mentioned her husband as a possible suspect — he has not been implicated or even questioned by the police — confronted her teammate as Hamraoui worked out on a bicycle.On Nov. 9, less than a week after the attack, Diallo started in Hamraoui’s place in a Champions League game against Real Madrid. Karchaoui played, too. Nothing seemed amiss, beyond Hamraoui’s absence, which was explained away by the club as being for “personal reasons.” P.S.G. collected another victory. It had still not allowed a goal all season.That night, as she does after most games, Diallo stayed up late, the adrenaline of having played keeping her up until about 3 a.m. She had barely slept, according to people close to her, when a few hours later she was awakened by banging at her front door. Opening it, she was confronted by four police officers.36 HoursThe central police station in Versailles, where Diallo was detained for about 36 hours.James Hill for The New York TimesPolitely but firmly, an officer told Diallo that she was to accompany them to the police station. Other officers searched her home and collected items, including at least two cellphones and a laptop computer. At the police station, Diallo declined an offer to have a lawyer present during questioning.From the moment the police started asking her questions, Diallo realized Hamraoui had named her as a suspect. The police suggested Diallo had taken a different route home after dinner than the one she had first suggested. They questioned her about why she had been driving so slowly after she pulled away from Karchaoui’s home. And then they presented her with the theory, later published by a French newspaper while she was still in custody, that the assault might have been rooted in her desire to acquire Hamraoui’s midfield spot in the first team.It was that claim that vaulted the story into the global news cycle, and prompted the comparisons with the infamous 1994 assault on the figure skater Nancy Kerrigan.The police concentrated on the same series of questions during repeated rounds of questioning with Diallo, mainly focusing on the car journey and her actions during the assault. But they also asked her about her connection to a man imprisoned in Lyon for unrelated crimes, including extortion. The man, known as Ja Ja, was familiar to several female soccer players, Diallo told the police, including Hamraoui. He, too, was being questioned about the attack, the police later confirmed.And after at first keeping it to herself, Diallo revealed to her questioners that she had heard one of the assailants accuse Hamraoui of sleeping with a married man. (By the end of her fifth interview, the police had learned that the chip in Hamraoui’s cellphone was registered in Abidal’s name; Hamraoui had told them only that it was linked to an ex-boyfriend.)By then, Diallo told friends, she had noticed a softening in the police’s questioning. Still, they said she would have to spend the night in her cell because the next day she would be required to participate in a “confrontation” with Hamraoui — a feature in French criminal investigations in which suspects and witnesses are presented with versions of events at the same time and allowed to respond.To make her stay more comfortable, the police allowed Diallo, a Muslim, to order her own dinner through a food delivery app. She chose a halal chicken sandwich.A Murky FutureThe facility in Bougival where the P.S.G. women’s team trains. Recently, Hamraoui has arrived for her workouts accompanied by a bodyguard.James Hill for The New York TimesIt was late in the afternoon the next day when Diallo finally came face to face with Hamraoui. She later told friends and relatives that she found it “bizarre” to hear the accusation being leveled at her: that Hamraoui had heard from other teammates that Diallo was behind the attack. Diallo denied the charge. The meeting lasted about an hour. When it ended, Diallo was allowed to leave.At the entrance to the police station, she was picked up by a friend. As she was driven home, the scale of her unwanted celebrity quickly became clear in the hundreds of text messages she had received from friends and family and others.That evening she hired a lawyer, Mourad Battikh, to represent her. The next day, P.S.G.’s general manager, Ulrich Ramé, accompanied by a doctor, met with Diallo at her home. They urged her to spend time with her family, to recover. Diallo insisted she was ready to return to training, that all she wanted to do was play again. The team quickly made it clear that would not be possible initially.With a break in P.S.G.’s schedule, Diallo eventually made a trip to Grenoble to visit her family, parts of which had learned of the attack, and her arrest, through news media reports.A cousin, Abou Dieng, told The Times that all Diallo wanted to do was return to the field for P.S.G., the team she had always dreamed of representing. “We don’t even speak about Hamraoui,” he said. “We speak just about football and a return to the training ground.”After returning to Paris, Diallo trained alone. So did Hamraoui, with the club scheduling their workouts at different times and taking pains to ensure they were never at the training facility at the same time (not always successfully). Their purgatory began to end on Monday, when they trained together for the first time since the attack after France’s players’ union intervened. They rejoined their teammates on Tuesday, but a club official said both would be held back from a midweek trip to Ukraine for a Champions League game.Neither Diallo nor Hamraoui has said anything publicly about the attack or its aftermath. But a few days after Diallo’s release from detention, Battikh appeared on French television and described his client’s arrest as “defamatory, scandalous and incoherent.” A few hours later, Hamraoui’s lawyer, Said Harir, took to the airwaves brandishing images that showed in graphic detail the injuries his client had sustained.P.S.G., which declined to comment for this article, has said little amid twisting plotlines in the case, which now appear to include the demise of Abidal’s marriage. A lawyer representing his wife, Hayet, said she had filed for divorce, and released a statement on Nov. 18 in which Hayet Abidal claimed her husband had admitted to an extramarital affair with Hamraoui. Eric Abidal later took to Instagram to plead with his wife for forgiveness.Hayet Abidal has denied any involvement in the attack. But Maryvonne Caillebotte, the prosecutor first responsible for the case, told Le Monde last month that Abidal “would be heard soon” and did not exclude the possibility that his wife would be questioned, too.Battikh, Diallo’s lawyer, remains furious at how Diallo was treated by the police. “When it’s Aminata they show their muscles and they place her in detention,” Battikh said. “When it’s Eric Abidal — someone strong, famous, popular — they take their time, go slowly, ensure they don’t make a mistake.”Mourad Battikh, the lawyer of Aminata Diallo, in his office in Paris.James Hill for The New York TimesThe lawyer Said Harir was hired to represent Kheira Hamraoui.James Hill for The New York TimesThe P.S.G. women’s team remains convulsed by the crisis. Its first game after the news broke was a 6-1 thrashing by its main title rival, Lyon, that damaged its hopes of retaining the French championship. Since then, a few of Hamraoui’s teammates have asked to move their lockers away from hers in the dressing room. Others have told club management that they will find it hard to play with her again. Several of the club’s best players just want to move on.All the while, the assailants remain at large, and no one can say where the case may lead. A premeditated attack like the one inflicted on Hamraoui carries a five-year prison sentence, according to a police spokeswoman in Versailles.Diallo wants justice, her lawyer said. She is convinced of her innocence and determined to continue her career at P.S.G., where she has only six months left on her contract. “Her reputation was damaged by all the newspapers around the world,” said Battikh, her lawyer.Hamraoui wants justice, too, and continues to believe the truth will be found inside her soccer club. She said as much in her most recent interview with the police on Nov. 29; the investigators, according to a person familiar with her appearance, asked her again about Diallo’s actions on the drive home, and the route she took.In his office in an upscale district close to the Champs-Élysées, Hamraoui’s lawyer, Harir, said the focus must remain on finding out who was behind the attack. “We expect they will charge the guilty people quickly,” he said.“What she wants today,” he added of Hamraoui, “is that her private life is respected, that her status as a victim is respected.”Romain Molina More

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      Qui a commandité l'agression d'une footballeuse du PSG?

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      L’agression de la footballeuse du PSG a choqué les esprits: attaquants masqués, barre métallique, sa coéquipière Aminata Diallo arrêtée. Ces dernières semaines, de nouveaux éléments sont venus bouleverser la première version de l’histoire.VERSAILLES — La nuit est déjà tombée quand Aminata Diallo franchit le fronton de béton de l’Hôtel de Police pour quitter le bâtiment. 36 heures plus tôt, des agents de police ont frappé à la porte de son appartement, l’ont tirée de son sommeil, et l’ont emmenée en garde à vue.Enfin libérée, Aminata Diallo, milieu de terrain de l’équipe féminine du PSG, fait défiler les centaines de messages qu’elle a reçus. Elle tombe des nues. Inconnue quelques jours plus tôt en dehors du petit monde du football féminin français, son nom fait la Une des journaux aux quatre coins de la planète.Selon la presse, Aminata Diallo est celle qui, un mois plus tôt, conduisait la voiture depuis laquelle une de ses coéquipières avait été tirée du siège passager et agressée par un homme masqué. Toujours selon la presse, elle-même s’en était sortie indemne, alors que sa coéquipière et amie Kheira Hamraoui avait été frappée à coups de barre métallique. Aminata Diallo est donc celle qu’on a interrogée, non pas comme témoin, mais comme suspecte de ce qui, selon la police, pouvait être un coup monté.Avec ses relents de jalousie sportive, sa ressemblance avec l’affaire Tonya Harding et ses liens avec le PSG (champion de France en titre et l’un des clubs de foot les plus riches au monde), l’affaire a rapidement fait le tour de la planète.Mais plus on en apprend — sur une histoire d’infidélité conjugale, sur des accusations à l’encontre d’autres joueuses de l’équipe, et sur des coups de fil à d’autres joueuses médisant sur la victime avant l’agression — plus la première version de l’histoire est remise en cause.Aujourd’hui, plus personne ne sait qui croire. Ni quoi.Un dossier en suspensAminata Diallo, convaincue que sa garde à vue était une erreur de la police, a refusé de se faire assister d’un avocat lors de ses interrogatoires.Loic Baratoux/Abaca/Sipa USA, via AP ImagesPlus de trois semaines se sont écoulées depuis qu’Aminata Diallo, 26 ans, quittait le commissariat de Versailles après deux jours d’interrogatoires et une nuit passée dans une cellule minuscule et nauséabonde. L’enquête se poursuit, mais la police semble loin de comprendre qui, ou quoi, est derrière cette agression qui a eu lieu le 4 novembre. dans une rue sombre de Chatou, en banlieue parisienne.Certains faits sont indiscutables. Kheira Hamraoui, 31 ans, a été victime d’un grave délit. Aminata Diallo a été interrogée puis relâchée. Aucun des agresseurs n’a été identifié. Aucune arme n’a été retrouvée. Et personne n’a été accusé du crime.Mais en enquêtant sur les semaines tumultueuses qui ont suivi l’agression, le New York Times a aussi découvert que Kheira Hamraoui a plusieurs fois laissé entendre que d’autres personnes en lien avec le club, (dont au moins deux co-équipières) seraient impliquées dans l’affaire; qu’alors que le PSG faisait s’entraîner Aminata Diallo et Kheira Hamraoui chacune de son côté, et séparément de leur équipe, depuis des semaines, une erreur de calendrier les a amenées à se croiser et à échanger des noms d’oiseau; enfin, il a découvert que la police a relâché Aminata Diallo sans déposer de plainte, mais a refusé de l’innocenter et de lui rendre ses deux téléphones et son ordinateur portable.En attendant, les dommages collatéraux s’accumulent. Diallo et Hamraoui voient leurs noms salis et leur carrières bouleversées. La cohésion dans les vestiaires du PSG en souffre, compromettant les ambitions de victoire d’une des meilleures équipes d’Europe. Et le mariage d’une légende du football français impliqué dans l’affaire en a pris un coup : sa femme a annoncé dans un communiqué qu’elle demandait le divorce après qu’il lui a avoué avoir eu une liaison avec Kheira Hamraoui, selon son avocat.Kheira Hamraoui en août dernier. Elle et Diallo ont passée des vacances ensemble et étaient coéquipières au sein du club du Paris Saint-Germain et de l’équipe nationale.  Tim Nwachukwu/Getty ImagesLe New York Times a recueilli des informations sur l’agression et ses suite en interviewant une douzaine de personnes en contact direct avec les principaux protagonistes et ayant connaissance de l’agression et des évènements des jours qui l’ont suivie, dont des amis, des membres de leurs familles et des associés des joueuses, leurs avocats, des membres du PSG et de la police.Parmi les personnes interviewées, beaucoup tendent à réfuter les soupçons de jalousie et de trahison. La plupart n’ont accepté de parler qu’à condition que leur nom se soit pas cité, jugeant l’affaire trop sensible.Telle qu’elle se présente aujourd’hui, la situation est toujours aussi compliquée : Kheira Hamraoui a revu la police la semaine dernière, et il y a de fortes chances qu’Aminata Diallo soit elle aussi interrogée à nouveau. Les joueuses doivent reprendre l’entraînement avec leurs coéquipières mardi, mais l’affaire est désormais entre les mains d’un juge d’instruction pour une procédure qui pourrait durer au moins 18 mois. Pendant ce temps-là, les autorités et les joueuses continueront d’essayer d’élucider les dessous de cette petite minute qui, dans une rue peu éclairée, a fait basculer leurs vies.Un dîner d’équipeC’est au Chalet des Iles dans le Bois de Boulogne, aux abords de Paris, qu’Hamraoui, Diallo et leurs coéquipières du PSG ont dîné le soir de l’agression.James Hill pour The New York TimesPour les convives, ce dîner dans un restaurant chic situé sur une île dans un des plus grands parcs de Paris n’avait pourtant rien de particulier.C’était au début du mois de novembre, le club avait réuni les joueuses autour d’un bon repas pour entretenir cette cohésion qui leur avait permis de débuter la saison sans essuyer la moindre défaite, et pour les préparer aux prochaines épreuves.Aminata Diallo avait accepté de prendre Kheira Hamraoui et une autre joueuse, Sakina Karchaoui, dans sa voiture. Le restaurant ayant peu de places de parking, le club leur avait demandé de faire du co-voiturage. Les trois joueuses, qui habitent non loin les unes des autres dans une banlieue nord-ouest de Paris, s’étaient rapprochées depuis qu’elles avaient rejoint le PSG l’été précédent : Kheira Hamraoui venait de Barcelone, Sakina Karchaoui de Lyon, et Aminata Diallo avait été temporairement “prêtée” à l’Atletico de Madrid. Diallo et Hamraoui, déjà coéquipières à l’occasion d’un précédent passage au PSG et de stages avec l’équipe nationale étaient particulièrement proches. Elles avaient même passé des vacances ensemble.Après le dîner, vers 22h30, les trois jeunes femmes reprennent la voiture de Diallo, une Toyota Corolla fournie par le club. Hamraoui s’installe sur le siège passager, Diallo entre l’adresse de Karchaoui dans son GPS et elles prennent la route.Après avoir déposé Karchaoui dans une rue rendue étroite par le grand nombre de voitures garées tout au long, Diallo redémarre doucement lorsque deux hommes masqués surgissent de derrière une camionnette. Ils tapent sur le capot de la voiture pour la faire stopper et hurlent à l’attention de Diallo et d’Hamraoui :“Ouvre la porte!”Les agresseurs agissent très vite. Le premier ouvre la portière côté conducteur et plaque Aminata Diallo contre le volant. Le second arrache Kheira Hamraoui du siège passager.“Celui qui était de mon côté s’est saisi de moi et m’a extirpée du véhicule,” a déclaré Kheira Hamraoui à la police (d’après les extraits de ses déclarations publiés par la presse française). “Avant, il s’est emparé d’une barre de fer rectangulaire qu’il avait cachée dans son pantalon ou sous son pull. Il m’a donné un coup dès les premiers instants de l’agression pour m’obliger à sortir de l’habitacle.”Les blessures de Hamraoui étaient des coupures et d’importants hématomes au niveau des genous.Courtesy Harir AvocatsElle a déclaré à la police que l’agresseur visait essentiellement ses jambes.Kheira Hamraoui dit qu’elle est tombée sur la chaussée : “J’ai vu qu’il visait essentiellement mes jambes, et moi, j’essayais de me protéger avec mes mains.”Elle se souvient aussi avoir entendu un des inconnus crier quelque chose à propos d’un homme marié. Plus tard, Aminata Diallo dira à la police avoir entendu la phrase: “Alors comme ça, on couche avec des hommes mariés ?” Elle dira aussi avoir entendu des insultes à connotation sexuelle au travers des hurlements de Kheira Hamraoui , sur laquelle pleuvaient les coups.L’agression dure moins d’une minute avant que les agresseurs ne prennent la fuite. Hamraoui rentre et s’affalle dans la voiture, une main en sang. Les deux femmes appellent immédiatement Sakina Karchaoui, dont le domicile est à moins de 100 mètres, pour lui raconter ce qui s’est passé et lui demander de les rejoindre. Elles filent ensuite aux urgences les plus proches.Les suitesLes urgences de l’hôpital de Poissy, où Hamaraoui  s’est rendue pour faire soigner ses blessures quelques heures après l’agression.James Hill pour The New York TimesPendant le trajet, Diallo au volant, les joueuses préviennent le club de ce qui vient de se passer. Le directeur-adjoint de la sécurité du PSG, Frédéric Doué, arrive aux urgences avec Bernard Mendy, entraîneur adjoint de l’équipe féminine. Peu après, une amie de Kheira Hamraoui les rejoint aussi.Une fois les blessures de Hamraoui soignées, les agresseurs n’ayant pas été identifiés, les responsables du club interdisent aux joueuses de rentrer chez elles. L’équipe s’est arrangée pour qu’elles passent la nuit dans un Holiday Inn proche de leur terrain d’entraînement, à une quinzaine de kilomètres à l’ouest de Paris.Les trois jeunes femmes connaissent cet hôtel car elle ont y logé quelques semaines après leur transfert au PSG l’été précédent. Sakina Karchaoui et Kheira Hamraoui prennent une chambre à deux. Aminata Diallo s’installe dans une chambre voisine. L’amie de Kheira Hamraoui , elle aussi, passe la nuit à l’hôtel.Sur place, les jeunes femmes essaient de comprendre qui peut bien être à l’origine de l’agression. D’après plusieurs personnes au courant de leur conversation, Kheira Hamraoui est catégorique dès le départ : un membre du club est forcément impliqué. Les joueuses évoquent aussi un épisode étrange qui a eu lieu quelques semaines plus tôt : plusieurs de leurs coéquipières avaient reçu des appels anonymes d’un homme qui disait du mal de Hamraoui. Mais plus tard cette nuit-là, Kheira Hamraoui évoque aussi d’autres suspects, citant notamment le mari d’une quatrième joueuse du PSG, qui se trouve être aussi l’agent d’une autre star française de l’équipe.Le lendemain matin, après une nuit brève et agitée, les jeunes femmes reprennent leurs discussions. Pendant qu’elles parlent, le téléphone de Kheira Hamraoui sonne. C’est Éric Abidal, un ancien joueur de l’équipe nationale française qu’elle a connu au FC Barcelone, le club où elle a joué pednant trois saisons et dont il était alors le directeur technique.Eric Abidal, deux fois vainqueur de la Champions League à Barcelone et deux fois sélectionné dans l’équipe nationale pour la Coupe du Monde, demeure une populaire dans son pays natal. Albert Gea/ReutersKheira Hamraoui demande à Éric Abidal si sa femme pourrait vouloir lui faire du mal, puis lui annonce qu’elle s’est fait agresser. Le téléphone étant sur haut-parleur, tous ceux dans la pièce entendent sa reaction: il semble abasourdi. Ils échangent encore quelques mots, puis l’appel prend fin.Peu après, Sakira Karchaoui et Aminata Diallo partent petit-déjeuner au camp du club, à Bougival. Elles s’entraînent puis rencontrent des membres de la direction pour leur raconter les détails de l’agression. (Kheira Hamraoui ne les accompagnait pas ; elle était retournée faire soigner ses blessures). Plus tard, les joueuses, ainsi que les coéquipières qui avaient reçu les appels anonymes, sont allées faire de nouvelles déclarations à la police.Inquiet de voir qu’on s’en était pris à une de ses joueuses, le club désigne des agents de sécurité pour surveiller les domiciles des trois joueuses pendant quelques jours, mais ne divulgue pas la nouvelle de l’incident.Au sein de l’équipe, pourtant, la tension monte. L’attaquante de l’équipe nationale Kadidiatou Diani, qui en veut à Kheira Hamraoui d’avoir cité son mari parmi les éventuels suspects — il n’a pas été inquiété, ni même interrogé par la police — la prend à partie alors qu’elle s’entraîne sur un vélo en salle.Le 9 novembre, moins d’une semaine après l’agression, Aminata Diallo débutait le match de Ligue des Champions contre le Real Madrid à la place de Kheira Hamraoui. Sakira Karchaoui était aussi de la partie. Tout semblait normal, excepté l’absence de Kheira Hamraoui que le club justifia pour “raisons personnelles”. Encore une victoire pour le PSG. Et toujours aucun but encaissé depuis le début de la saison.Ce soir-là, comme souvent après les matchs, Aminata Diallo se couche tard. L’adrénaline la tient éveillée jusqu’à 3 heures du matin. Elle vient de fermer l’œil, selon ses proches, quand des coups frappés à sa porte d’entrée la tirent de son sommeil. Elle ouvre et se retrouve face à quatre officiers de police.36 heuresL’hôtel de police de Versailles, où Diallo est restée environ 36 heures en garde à vue.James Hill pour The New York TimesPoliment mais fermement, l’un d’eux demande à Aminata Diallo de les suivre au commissariat. Ses collègues fouillent le domicile et emportent plusieurs objets, dont au moins deux téléphones et un ordinateur portable. Arrivée au commissariat, Diallo refuse une offre d’être assistée par un avocat pendant son interrogatoire.Dès le début de l’interrogatoire, Aminata Diallo comprend que Kheira Hamraoui l’a désignée comme suspecte. Les policiers sous-entendaient qu’au retour du dîner, elle avait pris une autre route que celle qu’elle avait indiquée au départ. Ils lui demandaient pourquoi elle conduisait si lentement après avoir déposé Sakira Karchaoui. Ils lui ont ensuite soumis l’hypothèse suivante, publiée très vite dans un journal français alors que Diallo est encore en garde à vue : l’agression aurait été motivée par son désir d’être titularisée au poste de milieu de terrain, occupé par Hamraoui, dans l’équipe première.C’est cette hypothèse qui a catapulté l’histoire de l’agression dans les médias internationaux et suscité des comparaisons avec la tristement célèbre agression de la patineuse Nancy Kerrigan en 1994.La police procède à plusieurs interrogations d’Aminata Diallo, revenant à chaque reprise sur une même série de questions sur le trajet en voiture et sur ce qu’elle-même faisait pendant l’agression. Les policiers l’interroge aussi sur ses liens avec un homme emprisonné à Lyon pour des délits (notamment des extorsions) sans rapport avec l’agression. Connu sous le nom de Ja Ja, cet homme compte plusieurs footballeuses parmi ses connaissances, explique Diallo à la police, dont Kheira Hamraoui. La police a confirmé par la suite que lui aussi avait été interrogé au sujet de l’agression.Après l’avoir gardé pour elle, Aminata Diallo finit par révéler à ses interrogateurs qu’elle avait entendu un des agresseurs accuser Kheira Hamraoui de coucher avec un homme marié. (Au bout du cinquième interrogatoire de Diallo, la police a appris que la carte SIM du téléphone portable de Kheira Hamraoui est enregistrée au nom d’Eric Abidal; jusque là, cette dernière leur avait simplement dit que cette carte était liée à un ancien petit ami.)Aminata Diallo a raconté à des amis qu’à partir de ce moment-là, l’interrogatoire s’est adouci. Les officiers lui disent tout de même qu’elle devra passer la nuit au poste afin, dès le lendemain, qu’elle puisse prendre part à une “confrontation” avec Kheira Hamraoui – la confrontation, propre aux enquêtes françaises, consiste à réunir les suspects et les témoins pour que chacun expose sa version des faits.En guise de réconfort, la police autorise Aminata Diallo, qui est musulmane, à commander son dîner via une application de livraison. Elle choisit un sandwich au poulet halal.Un avenir incertainÀ Bougival, le centre où s’entraîne l’équipe féminine du PSG. Depuis peu, Hamraoui se rend aux entraînements accompagnée d’un garde du corps. James Hill pour The New York TimesLe lendemain, en fin d’après-midi, Aminata Diallo s’est donc retrouvée donc face à Kheira Hamraoui. Plus tard elle a dit à ses proches qu’elle avait trouvé “bizarre” de découvrir ce dont on l’accusait, à savoir que Kheira Hamraoui aurait entendu dire par des coéquipières que Diallo était derrière l’agression. Celle-ci a nié l’accusation. La confrontation a duré environ une heure. À la fin, Diallo a été autorisée à partir.Une amie d’Aminata Diallo est venue la chercher à la sortie de l’hôtel de police. Pendant le trajet, alors qu’on la reconduisait chez elle, Diallo a très vite réalisé l’ampleur qu’avait pris l’affaire — et sa notoriété bien malgré elle — à la lecture des centaines de SMS d’amis, de sa famille et d’autres.Le soir même, elle engageait un avocat, Mourad Battikh, pour la représenter. Le lendemain, le manager du PSG, Ulrich Ramé, lui a rendu visite chez elle accompagné d’un médecin. Ils l’ont encouragée à passer du temps avec ses proches pour se remettre. Elle insistait au contraire pour reprendre l’entraînement. Tout ce qu’elle désirait, c’était de retourner sur le terrain. Le club lui a fait comprendre que ce n’était pas possible, du moins dans un premier temps.Comme il y avait une pause dans le programme du PSG, Diallo en a profité pour aller à Grenoble voir sa famille, dont certains avaient appris l’agression et son arrestation dans les médias.Abou Dieng, un cousin, a confirmé au New York Times qu’elle espérait recommencer à jouer pour le PSG, l’équipe qu’elle a toujours rêvé de représenter : “On ne parle même pas de Kheira Hamraoui. On ne parle que de foot et de son retour aux entraînements.”De retour à Paris, Aminata Diallo a repris seule les entraînements. De même pour Kheira Hamraoui, le club s’appliquant à programmer leurs séances d’entraînement à des heures différentes et veillant à ce qu’elles ne se retrouvent jamais sur le terrain au même moment (sans toujours y parvenir). Leur purgatoire a commencé à prendre fin lundi, quand elles se sont entraînées ensemble pour la première fois depuis l’agression, après l’intervention du syndicat des joueurs français. Mardi, elles ont rejoint leurs coéquipières, mais un responsable du club leur a annoncé qu’elles ne les accompagneraient pas en Ukraine en milieu de semaine pour un match de Ligue des Champions.Ni l’une ni l’autre ne s’est exprimée publiquement sur l’agression, ni sur ses suites. Mais quelques jours après la libération d’Aminata Diallo, son avocat Mourad Battikh a qualifié à la télévision son arrestation d’ “infamante, scandaleuse et incohérente”. Quelques heures plus tard, c’est l’avocat de Kheira Hamraoui, Saïd Harir, qui réagissait à l’antenne en montrant des photos des blessures infligées à sa cliente.Le PSG, qui a refusé de répondre à nos questions, reste discret sur les rebondissements d’une affaire qui semble désormais également signer la fin du mariage d’Éric Abidal. L’avocat de son épouse Hayet a annoncé que sa cliente demande le divorce. Le 18 novembre, il a publié un communiqué dans lequel Hayet Abidal affirme que son mari reconnaît avoir eu une liaison avec Kheira Hamraoui. Plus tard sur Instagram, Eric Abidal a demandé à sa femme de lui pardonner.Hayet Abidal a nié toute implication dans l’agression. Mais Maryvonne Caillebotte, la procureure chargée du dossier, a déclaré le 15 novembre au journal Le Monde qu’Éric Abidal “sera entendu prochainement”. Une audition de son épouse n’est pas non plus exclue.Mourad Battikh, l’avocat de Diallo, ne décolère pas sur la façon dont sa cliente a été traitée par la police. “Quand c’est Aminata, ils montrent leurs muscles et ils la mettent en garde à vue”, s’indigne-t-il. “Quand c’est Éric Abidal, une personnalité forte, célèbre, populaire, ils prennent leur temps et procèdent lentement pour être sûrs de ne pas faire d’erreurs.”Mourad Battikh, l’avocat d’Aminata Diallo, dans son bureau à Paris.James Hill pour The New York TimesL’avocat Saïd Harir, engagé pour représenter Kheira Hamraoui.James Hill pour The New York TimesL’équipe féminine du PSG traverse une crise. Son premier match après le scandale a été une raclée (6-1) par son principal rival, Lyon, qui compromet sans doute ses espoirs de conserver le titre de champion de France. Certaines coéquipières de Kheira Hamraoui ont demandé qu’on éloigne leur casier du sien dans les vestiaires. D’autres ont avoué à la direction du club qu’elles auront du mal à reprendre le jeu avec elle. Plusieurs des meilleures joueuses du club veulent simplement passer à autre chose.Pendant ce temps-là, les agresseurs sont toujours en cavale et personne ne sait où cette affaire mènera. Une attaque préméditée comme celle qu’a subie Kheira Hamraoui est passible de cinq ans de prison, selon une porte-parole de la police de Versailles.Aminata Diallo souhaite que justice soit rendue, affirme son avocat. Elle est convaincue de son innocence et déterminée à poursuivre sa carrière au PSG — son contrat prend fin dans six mois. “Sa réputation a été ternie par les journaux du monde entier,” déplore Me Battikh.Kheira Hamraoui aussi veut que justice soit faite, mais elle continue de croire que c’est au sein du club que la vérité verra le jour. Elle l’a dit lors de son dernier entretien avec la police, le 29 novembre. D’après un témoin de sa comparution, les enquêteurs l’ont réinterrogée sur le comportement d’Aminata Diallo dans la voiture et sur la route qu’elle a empruntée.Dans son bureau aux environs des Champs-Élysées, son avocat, Me Harir, affirme qu’il s’agit avant tout de découvrir qui sont les auteurs de l’agression. “On espère que les coupables seront inculpés rapidement,” confirme-t-il.Il ajoute, à propos de Kheira Hamraoui : “Ce qu’elle veut aujourd’hui, c’est que l’on respecte sa vie privée, que l’on respecte son statut de victime.”Romain Molina et Daphné Anglès ont contribué à ce reportage. More

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      Juventus, Chasing Style, Forgets the Substance

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      Juventus has thought for too long about the now, and too little about what comes next.Perhaps the best measure of how concerned Juventus is by image — of how central to the club’s identity is the way that identity is projected and perceived — is that it may well be the only team in world soccer to have its own, custom-designed font.It was commissioned in 2017, presumably after a raft of meetings that featured intense, sincere discussions about what typeface best conveyed the team’s values and mission. The font appears in all of the club’s marketing campaigns. It is deployed on all its social media pronouncements. It adorns the Juventus offices in Turin and Milan.Using the font is important to Juventus executives: uniformity of iconography, they believe, is crucial in helping build the club’s brand, in expressing to current fans and prospective ones and, where none can be found, putative customers, quite what Juventus stands for. Everything the club publishes has to have that distinctive, recognizable Juventus look. Image comes first.All of which makes the events of the last few months — perhaps longer — difficult to understand. First, there is the ongoing and now faintly masochistic devotion of Andrea Agnelli, the club’s president, to a Super League project that has not only cost him friendships and positions of power, but that has been met with pretty much universal opprobrium from fans. Continued commitment to it is not, as they say, a good look.And then, more serious still, there is the investigation by Italy’s financial authorities into six current and former executives — including Agnelli and Pavel Nedved, the club’s vice president — into Juventus’s transfer dealings. The authorities are said to be considering various charges of false accounting and reporting. The police have already raided the club’s training facility and its offices. That is not great for the image, either.It would be easy, then, to see more than a little hubris in Juventus’s on-field travails this season. There is a scene in the first episode of the club’s edition of the “All Or Nothing” documentary series — which started airing on Amazon Prime late last month, and over which the team’s executives hung like hawks, every step of the way — in which Agnelli gathers the members of the playing squad and lets them know, in no uncertain terms, the expectations.With an expletive or two thrown in, he tells the players that the previous season was not up to scratch. The year in question was the one before last, the one in which Maurizio Sarri led Juventus to a ninth straight Serie A title. The coach, an unlikely appointment who turned into an unpopular incumbent, had gone; Agnelli would not, he said, tolerate a repeat.The Juventus president Andrea Agnelli, right, and vice president Pavel Nedved are said be to be under investigation for the club’s transfer dealings.Massimo Rana/EPA, via ShutterstockIn comparison, of course, that year under Sarri would come to be seen as the last chapter of the golden era. Under his replacement, the novice Andrea Pirlo, Juventus barely scraped into the Champions League — relying on Napoli’s stumbling at home on the final day to make it — and then, over the course of the summer, discovered that Cristiano Ronaldo, the player it had brought in to turn domestic hegemony into continental success, no longer wanted to stick around.If that seemed like the nadir, it was not. After the failed experiments with Sarri and Pirlo, Juventus restored Massimiliano Allegri as coach this summer. His task was to prioritize “results,” as he has put it, over the pursuit of style that had captivated the club when it decided, a couple of years ago, that it had outgrown Sarri. Juventus had realized, it seemed, that the fact of winning was more central to its identity than the nature of it.Things are not, though, quite so simple. Allegri’s team has lost five games in Serie A already this season. Relative minnows, like Sassuolo, and actual minnows, like Empoli, have returned from Juventus’s Allianz Stadium with victories. Last weekend, Atalanta won in Turin for the first time in more than 30 years.Juventus sits seventh in Serie A, 12 points behind Napoli, the early leader. Allegri has already stated his belief that finishing fourth, and securing yet another season in the Champions League, may be the limit of this team’s ambitions. Even that relatively meager target is by no means guaranteed.Juventus fans are not used to watching a seventh-place team.Massimo Pinca/ReutersThe cause of that decline can be traced to the same root as the demise in Juventus’s image. There is a tendency, in soccer, to believe nobody is capable of doing two things at once: A player taking an interest in off-field activities — whether that is being on TikTok, running a fashion label, feeding hungry children — will, at some point, invariably be told to concentrate on their performances; a club that takes care of its brand identity will be told to focus, instead, on signing players.It is a false dichotomy, of course. Players can run a business, campaign or social media account and still remember how to mark opponents on corners. Clubs employ hundreds of people, not all of whom are devoted to tactics, nutrition or being a right back.Where the two threads of Juventus’s struggles entwine is in the rationale behind them. Agnelli favors a Super League because it solves his club’s immediate financial problems. The plusvalenza system that the team’s executives are accused of manipulating offers the same, short-term hit: It makes sure this year’s books look good, with little or no thought to what happens later.Manager Massimiliano Allegri is already setting limits on what his team can achieve this season.Ciro De Luca/ReutersThat is precisely how Juventus has been run, too. In 2017, after a second defeat in the Champions League final in three years, Agnelli became obsessed with winning instantly. The painstaking, intelligent work that had returned the club to the pinnacle in both Italy and Europe was out; signing players to triumph immediately became the order of the day. A year later, the approach reached its apogee when Ronaldo arrived in Turin.Now Juventus is paying for that impatience. Ronaldo may be gone, but there are countless others — all on hefty contracts, all eating up the club’s pandemic-ravaged finances, all too costly to be easily offloaded — who remain: Aaron Ramsey and Alex Sandro and Adrien Rabiot.Allegri has at his disposal the sketch outline of a young, competitive team: Matthijs de Ligt, Rodrigo Bentancur, Manuel Locatelli, Dejan Kulusevski and Federico Chiesa. The club’s decision to establish an under-23 team in Italy’s third tier was made with the future in mind, too.But none of it can come to fruition while the squad, and the balance sheet, is filled by the underperforming and the overpaid. Juventus has thought for too long about the now, and too little about what comes next. And it is that, ultimately, which will do the damage to its image, to how it is perceived, and how it perceives itself. What matters, after all, is the story a club tells, not how it is written.Not Such a Walk in the ParcLionel Messi’s brilliance has not translated directly into French quite yet.Thibault Camus/Associated PressThere have been years when it has felt at least a little like either Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo won the Ballon d’Or by default, that they were awarded the most prestigious individual prize in soccer not so much for what they had achieved recently but because it seemed inconceivable to suggest one of the two of them was not the finest player in the world.This year was not one of them. Of course, Robert Lewandowski offered a compelling alternative case. Even discounting the emotional appeal of honoring a player who so richly deserved the award 12 months ago, Lewandowski, the Bayern Munich striker, had done enough — more than enough — to win it based on his 2021 alone. It is not every season, after all, that a player breaks a 50-year-old goal-scoring record.But it hardly requires some great suspension of disbelief to understand why, eventually, France Football’s jurors chose Messi: It was this year, after all, that he finally ended his — and his country’s — long wait for an international trophy. The Copa América was Argentina’s first senior triumph since 1993. Delivering international glory was the one hole on Messi’s résumé. Now he has filled it. That was, as it should have been, enough.The complication is that Messi won his seventh Ballon d’Or as his domestic form is — how to put this delicately? — stuttering. His final season at Barcelona brought 38 goals in 47 games, even in a bitterly disappointing campaign, but he has struggled to find that form at Paris St.-Germain.He has three goals in the Champions League — including a wonderful strike against Manchester City — but only one in Ligue 1. A delayed start to the season, a couple of interruptions from minor injuries and being part of a somewhat inchoate team have not helped, but he has certainly not found France’s top flight as easy as anticipated.That will change, obviously, as P.S.G. hits its stride and as Messi adapts to a league he has acknowledged is more physical to the one to which he was accustomed. He recorded three assists against Saint-Etienne last weekend.But for now it serves as a reminder, perhaps, that Ligue 1 — widely derided as the weakest of Europe’s major domestic tournaments — is not quite the cakewalk many believe it to be, that any player at all can find a new environment challenging, and that nothing is easy, not really, even for the greats.Twenty’s PlentyIt is hard to tell which is the more startling statistic: that England scored 20 goals — 20, two zero — in a single game on Tuesday, or that in the process, Sarina Wiegman’s team racked up 64 shots. That works out, math fans, to roughly one every 90 seconds.The victory, in a World Cup qualifier against Latvia, ranks as the biggest-ever win by an England team. It also represented a European record for a competitive women’s game, though there should be just a small asterisk there: the previous mark was set only a few days earlier, when Belgium beat Armenia, 19-0.The issue of what to do with overmatched teams is not exclusive to the women’s game, of course — the debate flares up pretty reliably in men’s qualifying, too — but, because of the rapid development of the game across Europe, the scale of the imbalance and the urgency with which it must be addressed feel much greater.Ellen White and Beth Mead each scored three goals against Latvia this week. Their teammate Lauren Hemp had four.Tim Goode/Press Association, via Associated PressIt is, certainly, no time to indulge the two nonsensical orthodoxies that infect this debate in the men’s game: that playing the very best helps the smaller nations to improve — even Wiegman quite rightly dispatched that idea — and that changing the format of qualifying, in some way, prevents everyone from having an even chance to reach a tournament.A two- or even three-tier qualifying system for major competitions exists in North America, Africa and Asia. It does not exist in South America, but only because the likes of Suriname and French Guiana compete (for reasons that are not strictly geographical) in Concacaf. There is absolutely no reason Europe could not do the same.As Wiegman said, Latvia learned nothing from losing, 20-0, to England, in a game in which it had 14 percent possession and no shots on goal. England, likewise, learned nothing. Streamlining qualification is not a mark of disrespect to developing nations. It is not depriving them of a chance to get better. If anything, the exact opposite is true.CorrespondenceTo be honest, I could just copy and paste Nitin Bajaj’s email and leave it there for correspondence this week: “I read the bit on managers’ captivation with condiments with a great deal of … er … relish,” he wrote, clearly very pleased with himself.Gary Brown, meanwhile, thinks there is some sort of ketchup-based conspiracy at play. “What’s the evidence that Dean Smith had ever allowed ketchup at Villa before his sacking?” he asked. “Steven Gerrard announced that he’d banned it before he’d even seen it on the table at his new club. On the other hand, a suspicious mind might follow Dean Smith to his quick appointment at Norwich, whose majority owner is Delia Smith, cookery writer and TV legend, who is on record as saying she and her husband have ‘Big Mac picnics in the car-park’ at evening games, with fries and loads of ketchup’.”A clutch of you, meanwhile — James Patch, Martin Maudal and Jim Yoder — all got in touch to suggest the perfect example of how much difference a manager can make: Thomas Tuchel at Chelsea. This is absolutely correct, of course, but once again: I cannot produce a newsletter that just runs to four words.Thomas Tuchel, the exception that proves the rule.Frank Augstein/Associated PressAnd Thabo Caves sends an email that leads me to another thought. “A team has 11 players on the pitch most of the time,” he wrote. “If one player has roughly the same impact as another, then each player would have roughly a 9 percent influence on their team’s performance. Bringing in a new manager could then be considered as almost as influential as signing a new player in the middle of the season. Single players are consistently lauded for having transformative effects on teams, so why can’t a manager?”Why not indeed, Thabo, which leaves me to wonder: Should we not limit when teams can change their managers — perhaps to two windows, one before and one during the season — as we do with players? Why the reason for the difference? More

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      Lionel Messi Wins Record Seventh Ballon d’Or

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      The Paris St.-Germain star capped a year in which he led Argentina to the Copa América title by edging Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski.Some of the most illustrious names in soccer’s long history only managed to win the Ballon d’Or, the sport’s most prestigious individual prize, once. George Best, Zinedine Zidane and Eúsebio all have just a single award to their names. Ronaldo, the great Brazilian striker, won two. Johan Cruyff, arguably the finest European player in history, has three.After Monday night, Lionel Messi has seven.Messi, 34, effectively retained the trophy he last won in 2019 — controversially, the award was not handed out by France Football last year because of the coronavirus pandemic — after a year in which he ended his long wait for an international honor, winning the Copa América with Argentina, and left Barcelona, the club where he had spent all of his career, for Paris St.-Germain.When your dad wins an other Ballon d’Or 🙌#ballondor pic.twitter.com/UWKir71mX5— Ballon d’Or #ballondor (@francefootball) November 29, 2021
      “It’s incredible to be here again,” Messi said. “Two years ago I thought it was the last time. Winning the Copa América was the key.”“I don’t know how many years I have left,” he added, “but I hope many more.”Messi finished with 613 points in the voting, only 33 more than the runner-up, Bayern Munich striker Robert Lewandowski. In 2019, the last time the trophy was awarded, Messi beat Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk by only seven points.Barcelona may have lost Messi this year, but it still took home some hardware on Monday: Alexia Putellas, a star midfielder on its treble-winning women’s team, became the third winner of the women’s Ballon d’Or, and the teenager Pedri, a rising talent who is already a fixture for Barcelona and Spain’s national team, was honored as the world’s best player under 21.Messi, who had arrived at the gala at Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris in a shimmering tuxedo, a look matched by his three young sons, was typically soft-spoken in accepting his award. He praised his former teammates at Barcelona and his countrymen with Argentina, and vowed to fight for new trophies with his new club, P.S.G.Messi defeated Lewandowski in voting by 176 journalists and conducted by France Football, which awards the Ballon d’Or (almost) every year. Many experts argued Lewandowski deserved the honor in 2020, when it was not handed out because, organizers said, disruptions to the soccer calendar had made it impossible to judge. Messi said he agreed with that position.“I think you deserved to win the award last year,” Messi told Lewandowski from the stage, calling it “an honor” to stand against him for top honors in 2021.Jorginho, the Brazil-born Italy midfielder, was third in the balloting, reward for a season in which his club team, Chelsea, won the Champions League and Italy won the European Championship. Real Madrid and France striker Karim Benzema was fourth, and Jorginho’s Chelsea midfield partner, N’Golo Kanté, was fifth.Ronaldo, who finished sixth in the voting, was absent from Monday’s ceremony, but his rivalry with Messi was not. On his Instagram account, Ronaldo angrily took issue with a comment made recently by France Football’s editor in chief, Pascal Ferré, in an interview with The New York Times about the award’s prestige.“Ronaldo has only one ambition, and that is to retire with more Ballons d’Or than Messi,” Ferré said, “and I know that because he has told me.”Ronaldo — despite suggesting as much in other interviews — denied he had made the comment, saying, “Ferré lied, used my name to promote himself and to promote the publication he works for.”“It is unacceptable,” he added, “that the person responsible for awarding such a prestigious prize could lie in this way, in absolute disrespect for someone who has always respected France Football and the Ballon d’Or.”Though 2021 has hardly been a vintage year by Messi’s standards — Barcelona was beaten to the Spanish title by Atlético Madrid and eliminated from last season’s Champions League in the round of 16 — his achievement with Argentina, as well as the attention drawn by his move to France after winning six Ballons d’Or at Barcelona, was enough to convince the award’s jurors.That Messi had never won an international trophy with his national team had always been held against him in the debate over whether he warrants the status as soccer’s greatest ever player. His rivals, after all, had triumphed with their countries as well as their clubs: Pelé led Brazil to three World Cups, Diego Maradona inspired Argentina to one and Cristiano Ronaldo helped Portugal claim the European Championship in 2016.Messi finally put that idea to rest in this summer’s Copa América, breaking down in tears on the field after Ángel Di María’s goal had given Argentina its first international trophy since 1993, beating Brazil, the host, in the final.His tally of seven Ballons d’Or now puts him two clear of Ronaldo, his great rival: The Portuguese forward remains on five, but he has not won the prize since 2017, and at age 36 he is more than two years older than Messi.Putellas, the 27-year-old midfielder who is captain of Barcelona’s all-conquering women’s team, won the women’s Ballon d’Or. Her victory completed a clean sweep of last season’s prizes, after she led her Barcelona side to the Champions League title and a league and cup double in Spain, and then was honored as Europe’s player of the year.Her main rivals for the Ballon d’Or were mostly familiar faces: Barcelona had become the first women’s team to register five nominees in a single year, and two of Putellas’s teammates — Jennifer Hermoso, who was second, and Lieke Martens, who was fifth — finished in the top five in the voting.“Honestly it’s a bit emotional, and very special,” Putellas said. “It’s great to be here with all of my teammates, since we have lived and experienced so much together, especially in the past year.”“This is an individual prize,” she added, “but football is a team sport.” More