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      At Euro 2020, a Reminder That Good Can Be Great

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      Holding national teams to club standards spoils the fun of international tournaments like the Euros and Copa América.Let’s start with a little intellectual exercise. A purely hypothetical, entirely subjective, ultimately inconclusive one, admittedly, but still: Now that each of the presumed contenders to win the European Championship has shown at least some of its hand, how competitive would any of them be if they were to be parachuted, as they are, into the Champions League?Instinctively, it feels as if France, at least, would do pretty well. A front line of Antoine Griezmann, Karim Benzema and Kylian Mbappé bears comparison to any attacking trident in the club game.Paul Pogba and Adrien Rabiot contribute elegance, drive and imagination to the midfield. N’Golo Kanté, at this point in history, appears to be the key ingredient to any world-beating team. The defense is not quite so stellar, but Didier Deschamps has fashioned a miserly, obdurate back line around Raphaël Varane and Presnel Kimpembe, both proven performers among soccer’s elite. And besides, if either was found wanting, Deschamps has a wealth of replacements at his disposal.On paper, then, France could be considered a contender, the sort of team that — with a fair wind — might be able to best Manchester City and Bayern Munich and Chelsea.The only quibble is with style: For all its excess of talent, Deschamps’s France is an inherently reactive proposition, an approach that, by and large, has been rejected by the game’s leading clubs. (It is why José Mourinho, its high priest, is now at Roma, very much marooned in the second rank.)France would, though, go much further than most of its rivals. Portugal (outplayed by Bayern Munich in the theoretical quarterfinals of this exercise) has the compact defense and the devastating attack, but its midfield is limited. Germany’s semi-coherent pressing style would be either overpowered by a smoother, slicker machine, or picked apart by a counterpuncher (knocked out by Liverpool in the last 16).Portugal: a puncher’s chance against anyone thanks to Cristiano Ronaldo.Hugo Delgado/EPA, via ShutterstockEngland (unfortunate early knockout defeat to Real Madrid) gives up too many chances, Belgium (dizzied by Manchester City) is too old, and a little too slow. Italy (stifled by Chelsea) has too little experience, the Netherlands (third in the group stage, behind RB Leipzig) too little class. Spain (dismantled by Borussia Dortmund) has Álvaro Morata up front.There are, of course, valid reasons for these weaknesses, these comparative flaws. National teams cannot solve shortages in one specific position, or even a broad area of the field, by going out and buying someone to plug the gap. Their tactical systems are, necessarily, less sophisticated than those of the game’s best club sides because their coaches have so little time with their players.And, of course, none of it actually matters. France will never have to play Manchester City. Real Madrid will never have the chance to record an undeserved win against England. When, in three weeks, one of these teams is proclaimed the winner of Euro 2020 at Wembley, it will not diminish its achievement that it is not better than Bayern Munich.Indeed, to some extent it is the flaws that mark all international teams that lend tournaments their magic. France, on first glimpse, is superior to all of its rivals, but it is not perfect, impervious. It has weaknesses, ones more likely to be exposed and exploited in a single game, one-and-done knockout than over the course of a league season, or even in the home-and-away format of the latter stages of the Champions League.At least in a tournament summer, it is a strength, not a weakness, of international soccer that it is not subject to the same schisms as the club game, where a smattering of teams have hoarded so many players and so much talent that they are, in effect, untouchable by all but a handful of rivals. The gap between great international sides and merely good ones is much smaller than that between the very best clubs and, well, everyone else.Germany and France: a good bet against any opponent.Pool photo by Matthias HangstThe comparison is still worth making, though, and the hypothetical worth indulging, because the difference between club and international soccer affects the way we judge teams when a tournament rolls around.Our barometer of what is good — of what it takes to win a competition, of what makes a team a serious contender, of what excellence looks like — is set during the long stretch of the club season, from August until May.We watch Manchester City, Liverpool, Bayern and the rest and understand that they represent the bar: To be good enough to win the Premier League or the Champions League, a team must be able to reach that specific level of organization and sophistication and potency. They are all of such a high standard that almost any flaw qualifies as fatal.The same does not hold in an international tournament. None of the teams in Euro 2020 — and the same is true of the Copa América — have yet surpassed that bar. Belgium looked good, but against a weak Russian team. Italy has won twice but only against a disappointing Turkey and Switzerland. England was wasteful against Croatia. The Dutch let Ukraine back into the game. Portugal required 84 minutes to score against Hungary. Spain had Álvaro Morata up front.The Netherlands: two wins, and the same old worries.Pool photo by Piroshka Van De WouwWe look at these teams and we see shortcomings and then use them as evidence that they cannot be considered serious contenders to win the tournament.That, though, is the club game talking. It is what we have learned to be true in the Champions League being applied to a tournament where the same logic does not hold, like watching a school track-and-field day and expecting to see times fitting for an Olympic final. (“That 8-year-old hasn’t even gone under 10 seconds, they don’t stand a chance.”)With a couple of exceptions — most notably the Spain team that won three consecutive tournaments between 2008 and 2012 — most teams that succeed on the international stage are flawed. Most of them would, at best, be considered broadly passable if they came up against the very best clubs. Only a few would make it to the quarterfinals of the Champions League.That is not something to be bemoaned. If anything, it is to be encouraged. But it means, as we settle into a tournament like the Euros or the Copa América, we need to remember that you do not need to be great to win it; that the expectations we develop over the course of a club season are not especially relevant; that, at the international level, a team cannot be written off because it does not look great, because sometimes, every couple of years, being merely good is enough.Not Everything Is Reduced by PerspectivePlayers from Belgium and Denmark stopped their match in the 10th minute and joined fans for a one-minute ovation for Christian Eriksen, who wears No. 10.Pool photo by Friedemann VogelDenmark’s players had barely stopped running. For 10 minutes, they had hunted down Belgium’s glittering lineup remorselessly, ruthlessly, racing around the field at the Parken Stadium with a fierce, frenzied energy. And then, as soon as the clock struck 10, they stopped, they stood and they applauded. And the fans applauded with them.It is not quite true to say that the fate of Denmark’s campaign in Euro 2020 does not matter, that what happened to Christian Eriksen last Saturday has rendered it all irrelevant. It is of secondary importance, of course, compared with Eriksen’s health, but it does not render those fans in the stadium in Copenhagen on Thursday inhuman for wanting their team to win. It does not make the players monsters for being disappointed that, despite a spirited first half, they eventually lost to Belgium.Soccer is at its best in its darkest moments. The outpouring of concern and affection after Eriksen’s gut-wrenching, terrifying collapse was — despite the intense darkness of the circumstance — cheering. Players and officials and fans set aside tribal and national allegiances to extend their support. Perhaps that is just the decent thing to do, but still: Those clubs offering their thoughts and prayers did not have to say anything, so even a small kindness should be worthy of praise.But soccer also has a tendency, at those times, to downplay its significance, to insist on its own irrelevance, as if in the most extreme circumstances it allows us all to glimpse the great secret that lies behind the fourth wall: that this is all just a game, that we are all party to some great mutual, self-sustaining delusion, that none of it really matters.That is and is not true. It is possible to care far more about Eriksen’s health than whether Denmark qualifies, but the two do not need to be mutually exclusive. Part of the reason that Eriksen means so much to so many people is because soccer does matter; because he has brought them pleasure in, and excelled at, something that matters not only to them, but to him, too.Yussuf Poulsen, center, gave Denmark an early lead against Belgium.Stuart Franklin/Pool, via ReutersA Lost SoulEven before he got to the part where he explained what had happened, it was abundantly clear that, deep down, Sergio Ramos did not want to be standing at a microphone, explaining that he was leaving Real Madrid. His voice was cracking by the end of the first sentence. He was holding back tears midway through the second.This was not a player who had decided it was time for a fresh start, or a broader horizon, or a final payday. He was not making a reluctant, but necessary, change. Instead, he had been left with little to no choice. He had been haggling with the club for months over the length of a new contract. He wanted two more seasons; Real Madrid felt that, at his age, one was more appropriate.In Ramos’s telling, at least, as he was mulling it over, it turned out that he had run out of time. Quite how a club can forget to tell its iconic captain that a deadline to agree a contract is approaching — let alone that it has passed — is hard to fathom, but credit to Real Madrid for managing it.Could this really be the last glimpse of Sergio Ramos at Real Madrid?Susana Vera/ReutersIn a strictly sporting sense, Real Madrid should not bat an eyelash at his departure. His replacement was secured weeks ago: the Austrian captain David Alaba, signed on a free transfer from Bayern Munich, may not be a specialist central defender, but he is sufficiently versatile that he is probably in the top 10 in the world at that position anyway.But in almost every other way, Real Madrid will be impoverished by Ramos’s absence. No player better summed up the club: his fierce will to win, his irrevocable competitive streak, the faint sense that it was hard to work out quite how he was as good as he was. Real is losing far more than a central defender; it is losing its heart and soul, the player who had come to embody the club. That it is losing all of that so carelessly is, perhaps, the most damning indictment imaginable.CorrespondenceNo doubt about the question on everyone’s mind this week, given voice by Shawn Donnelly: “Who would win in a game between Georgia, the state, and Georgia, the country?”After a little cursory research, Shawn, this one is quite easy: the country, every single time. Georgia the state can call on Kyle Martino, Clint Mathis, Ricardo Clark and — at best — two other people I have heard of. Georgia the country gets to name Kakha Kaladze, Temuri Ketsbaia, Georgi Kinkladze, Levan Kobiashvili and not one but two Arveladzes. It’s a walkover.James Armstrong nominates Ferenc Puskas as the player he would most like to time-travel to watch — which seems, if I am honest, a bit of a waste of that particular superpower — though I wonder if there is another player from that famous Hungarian squad of the 1950s who might be an even smarter suggestion: Nandor Hidegkuti, the man who made the team tick.The United States ran its unbeaten streak to 42 games with a 2-0 win over Nigeria on Wednesday.Chuck Burton/Getty ImagesAnd an extremely apposite question from Brandon Conner, to round things off. “As the Women’s Super League has risen lately, and with the increased importance the richer clubs have placed on their women’s teams, I wonder how this will affect the international landscape. The U.S.W.N.T. has been the lone bright spot in America’s soccer hopes, but could the rise of European teams investing in women’s soccer eventually bring an end to the U.S. women’s dominance?”My short answer would be yes: That will, I would guess, be the story of women’s soccer over the next decade or so. Not because Europeans are naturally superior at soccer to Americans and not even, really, because of the investment, but because all of those clubs bristling up against one another turns Europe into a cradle of ideas. It creates what is described in “Soccernomics” as a best-practice network, in which proximity to the network is what determines success and failure. More

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      Christian Eriksen Will Have a Defibrillator Implanted

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      The Denmark player collapsed during a Euro 2020 game on Saturday. The device could allow him to resume his career.Christian Eriksen, the Danish soccer player who collapsed on the field during a game at the European Championship, will have a defibrillator implanted to help prevent future heart episodes, Denmark’s team doctor said Thursday.The device, an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator, or I.C.D., will be placed under Eriksen’s skin and monitor his heart rhythm. A combination pacemaker and defibrillator, the device tracks a person’s heartbeat and can send electrical pulses to restore a normal rhythm as needed.“After Christian has been through different heart examinations, it has been decided that he should have an I.C.D. (heart starter),” the doctor, Morten Boesen, said in a statement released by Denmark’s soccer federation. “This device is necessary after a cardiac attack due to rhythmic disturbances.”“Christian has accepted the solution,” it added.The doctor did not address Eriksen’s possible return to the sport.Another player taking part in the Euros, Daley Blind of the Netherlands, had a similar device implanted in 2019 after two in-game collapses, although it was not known how directly comparable his condition is to Eriksen’s. Blind and Eriksen are friends and former teammates at the Dutch powerhouse Ajax Amsterdam.Eriksen, 29, collapsed on the field late in the first half of a game against Finland at Euro 2020 on Saturday, and then received lifesaving treatment, including C.P.R., as his teammates and fans at the game in Copenhagen — and a global television audience — looked on in shock. After a delay, the game was restarted, a decision that has been heavily criticized in Denmark, including by the team’s current and former players and its head coach. Finland went on to win, 1-0.Eriksen released a message and photograph from the hospital on Tuesday thanking fans for their good wishes, saying, “I’m fine, under the circumstances.”Manager Kasper Hjulmand of Denmark said he expected that Eriksen would watch the game from the hospital. After the loss to Finland, the game is critical for Denmark’s hopes of advancing at the tournament.Belgian players have said they plan to kick the ball out of bounds in the 10th minute of the game as a tribute to Eriksen, who wears No. 10 when playing for Denmark. Several Belgian players, including striker Romelu Lukaku, have played alongside Eriksen for European club teams.Simon Kjaer, the Denmark captain, was among the first to reach Eriksen when he collapsed on Saturday, and he appeared near tears as he warmed up for the restart 90 minutes later. Kjaer was substituted in the second half of the match, but was returned to the starting lineup that will face Belgium on Thursday.On Thursday, he released a statement to fans in which he said the team would “enter the pitch against Belgium with Christian in our hearts and thoughts.”“It gives us peace in our minds, which allows us to focus on the game of football,” he said of knowing Eriksen’s condition had stabilized. “We will play for Christian, and as always for all of Denmark. That is the greatest motivation for all of us.” More

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      In Pandev They Trust

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      Goran Pandev’s face is everywhere in Strumica, a sleepy city tucked away in the corner of North Macedonia, not far from the borders with Greece and Bulgaria. It is on the banners around the field at the local stadium. It is painted on the walls of the changing rooms. It beams out from the television screens of dozens of cafes, which faithfully broadcast every game played by the striker’s Italian club team, Genoa.Strumica has produced presidents and prime ministers, but it is Pandev it holds closest to its heart. He has repaid that affection. Plenty of the players who leave North Macedonia for fame and fortune in western Europe’s most glamorous soccer leagues invest in businesses at home. Eljif Elmas, a midfielder for Napoli, often returns to the family pastry shop in the capital, Skopje. Boban Nikolov, who plays for Lecce, helped his father open a transport company in the city of Stip.Pandev’s only rival for the title of the country’s greatest-ever player, Darko Pancev, runs a cafe in Skopje named after the jersey he wore during his career: Café 9.Tose Proeski National Arena is home to multiple clubs as well as North Macedonia’s national team.North Macedonia’s soccer federation sees the national team at a unifying force that transcends ethnic differences.Euro 2020 has been a point of pride, but some in the country choose to support Albania’s national team.“Here, it is common for former footballers to open a cafe or restaurant and sit there all day,” said Mario Sotirovski, the soccer editor of the newspaper Vecer. “Pandev is different.”For more than a decade, he has funded an eponymous soccer academy here, training 300 young hopefuls at its spectacular, Italian-inflected campus in the city, as well as 1,000 more across the country. “He is an idol for all the kids,” said Jugoslav Trenchovski, Akademija Pandev’s director.The facilities available at the academy — there are plans to open a sports center by the end of this year that will include a hotel, a spa and a museum — make it an outlier in North Macedonia. Other than the million-dollar national training center, largely financed by FIFA, that opened its doors in 2018, the country’s soccer infrastructure is largely threadbare. Most stadiums only have one grandstand. Capacities rarely exceed 4,000.Pandev’s greater impact may not be in concrete and steel, though, but in something far less tangible. In November last year, the striker — at 37, he is older than the country he represents — scored the goal in a qualifying game against Georgia that assured North Macedonia a place in this summer’s European Championship. It was, he said at the time, “a great victory for our people.”In North Macedonia, the significance of qualifying for its first major tournament extended far beyond sport. “From now on, the whole world will know where our country is,” said Muamed Sejdini, the president of the Football Federation of Macedonia. “When I talk to people from abroad, I will no longer have to explain that we border with Serbia, Albania, Bulgaria and Greece.”Akademija Pandev, founded by Goran Pandev, trains about 300 children in Strumica.Young women’s players from F.C. COOL, a youth team in Skopje.Other young talents train at the federation’s national training center.The women of ZFK Ljuboten, a team in Tetovo, near the border with Kosovo.But it is more than a matter of national pride. In 2019, after two decades of dispute with the last of those neighbors and a contested referendum, the country changed its name: from the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to North Macedonia. By placating Greece, the country hoped to remove the first, and most daunting, obstacle in its path to joining the European Union.Now, two years later, there is a belief that its case can only be strengthened by playing in the Euros. “These players have raised the bar a lot,” said Sase Gjoles, the lead singer for the band Vis Risovi. “There is no going back. It is a message for the new generation.” Gjoles has written a song to support the team during the tournament. Its chorus runs: “Let’s go to Europe, the place where we belong.”That sense of unity is important. Around a quarter of North Macedonia’s population is ethnically Albanian, separated from the Macedonian majority by its language and its predominantly Muslim faith. “None of us supports Macedonia,” said Arijan Murtezani, a graduate student. “It’s our country and we respect it, but we also love and honor our national heritage, which is Albanian.”Murtezani is a member of the Ballistët, an ultras group that supports Shkëndija, a team in the largely Albanian city of Tetovo. Shkëndija — spark in Albanian — plays in red and black, the colors of the Albanian flag, and was banned in the latter years of Communist rule amid concerns its popularity might stoke nationalistic fervor.A playground in Kavadarci, home to the first-division team Tikvesh.An F.K. Vardar fan wears her passion on her shirt, and her arm.Supporters of Pobeda Prilep, two-time champions of the Macedonian first division.Many of the teams in Macedonian soccer are defined by their ethnic ties, and violence between ultra groups can run along those lines. In June 2018, a Vardar Skopje fan was killed in broad daylight at a bus stop; two fans of Shkupi, a team from an ethnic Albanian neighborhood in the capital, ended up in prison.Sejdini, the soccer federation’s president, said he hoped that the team’s European Championship campaign will help unite the country under one flag. There is an initiative among ultra groups to form a united front to support the national team, under the name Falanga — the phalanx. The words refers to the military formation invented by Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great, two millenniums ago.The team, certainly, reflects North Macedonia’s complex, interwoven fabric. Some of its stars are ethnically Albanian — Ezgjan Alioski and Enis Bardhi — and some, like Nikolov, are Macedonian. Elmas, a winger for the Italian team Napoli, is of Turkish descent. The hope is that they can help to forge an identity for the country, one that is not only projected externally, to Europe, but internally, too.Still, it was fitting that, when North Macedonia took the field in a major tournament for the first time in its brief history, its first goal — in a 3-1 defeat to Austria on Sunday — came from a familiar face; the most familiar face of all, the one that hangs on banners and is painted on walls and beams out from televisions across Strumica. Goran Pandev has spent a decade trying to change soccer in his country. With one strike, he might have changed his country through soccer.City Stadium in Kicevo, the home of F.K. Napredok. More

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      Euro 2020: France Beats Germany, in Control at All Times

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      A score line disguises an imperious performance from the reigning World Cup champions as they throttle Germany in their debut at Euro 2020.For a few minutes, not long after the start of the second half, France finally had to break a sweat. Quite how many minutes, exactly, is a matter of perspective: the French might come in low, at about 10 minutes; Germany, by contrast, might be inclined to be a little more generous, and put the figure a little higher, at 15 or so.It might have felt a little longer to Raphael Varane, gritting his teeth, or to Didier Deschamps, trusting just a little to luck, or to a French fan, watching on, desperate for their team to cling on to a lead that, at 1-0, somehow managed to seem as fragile as porcelain but yet as certain as iron.But that is all it was: in the opening game of a major tournament, against a putative rival, in Munich on enemy territory, France looked discomfited for no more than a quarter-hour, and even that was relative. Serge Gnabry might have scored: certainly once, possibly twice. Toni Kroos snapped a shot in from distance. Robin Gosens hurled himself at a tantalizing Gnabry cross, only to make contact not with the ball but with Benjamin Pavard.There was no seat-of-the-pants desperation, no skin-of-the-teeth siege. France, the reigning world champion, did not ride out a storm. At best, it weathered a brief, inconvenient squall, waited for the clouds to dissipate, and then set out under fair blue skies once more, untroubled and unruffled and serene, a team in complete control.Scenes from a Munich evening: a French star in full flight, a German racing to keep up.Pool photo by Franck FifeThat France possesses greater depth than any nation in the world, at this point, goes without saying. It has, as the former Lille executive Marc Ingla put it, become “the Brazil of Europe,” home to a seemingly endless production line of impossibly gifted young players.Its top flight, Ligue 1, has rebranded itself as the “league of talents,” a place to see tomorrow’s stars today. It has so many towering central defenders that one of them, Aymeric Laporte, had to decide that he was Spanish just to play international soccer. France has more players currently employed in Europe’s top five leagues than any country, including Brazil.And its national team reflects that. Deschamps, the French coach, was so spoiled for choice when picking his squad for this tournament — even before he decided to offer Karim Benzema, his prodigal son, a shot at redemption — that he could have left all 26 players he did select at home, picked a whole different squad, and probably still made the semifinals.That is the quantity; the quality is no less intimidating. Benzema was thrown into an attack that already included Antoine Griezmann, the team’s spiritual leader, and Kylian Mbappé, next in line to be the best player in the world. The midfield is built around the indomitable N’Golo Kanté, or possibly the artful Paul Pogba, or maybe even the elegant Adrien Rabiot: It depends, largely, on who has the ball at any moment.It is the combination of the two — the gifted players and the sheer number of them — that makes France such a daunting proposition, that ensured Deschamps and his squad arrived at this tournament expected to add a European Championship to the World Cup it secured in Russia three years ago, and take its place among the front rank of the greatest international teams of the modern age.Paul Pogba was a handful for Germany all night.Pool photo by Alexander HassensteinBut it is not the quality of its individuals that defines this France team. It is the strength of the collective that Deschamps — hardly the most charismatic or inspiring of coaches, even among his peers in the international game — has forged from them. France did not win the World Cup by morphing into some soccer equivalent of the Harlem Globetrotters. It does not intend to repeat the trick here by taking the breath away.Instead, Deschamps has taken the gold of a generation and used it to build a wall: one that shimmers and glitters and can, in the right light, be quite beautiful, but is still, first and foremost, a wall. France’s defense is stolid and obdurate and miserly. Its midfield contains more than enough brilliance to dazzle opponents, but it is no less adept at squeezing them, constricting their space and their choice until they run out of ideas or, better yet, hope.With its almost comically devastating attack — the raw speed and the rare brilliance of Mbappé, the precision of Benzema, the craft of Griezmann — France could cause chaos at will. It does not. It uses its front line only sparingly, picking its moments, content that the unspoken threat of their presence is deterrent enough.Instead, it prefers to spend its time seeking total, absolute control. That is the mark of truly great, truly gifted teams: They give you the sense that everything that happens on the field is at their behest, as if they are in charge not only of the speed of the game but the ticking of the clock. The very best teams have one thing that the merely good can never quite attain: agency. And France has agency in abundance.That, certainly, is what Germany found. It did not play badly — there will have been plenty to give Joachim Löw, its coach, hope that there will be no repeat of the humiliation of 2018 in his farewell tournament — but it did not matter, because for long stretches it was playing someone else’s game.Kylian Mbappé celebrates and Mats Hummels attempts to disappear after his own goal gave France a 1-0 lead.Pool photo by Lukas Barth-TuttasFrance took the lead, through a Mats Hummels own goal, midway through the first half, and though it did not seem particularly hurried to double it, it never looked like relinquishing it. When Germany did, briefly, wrestle the upper hand, the French seemed happy enough. Deschamps’s team sank back to its own half, then to its own penalty area, and repelled everything that came its way.And when the Germans had run out of steam, when they had blown themselves out, the French cleared the sweat from their brow, and took control once again. France had a goal. A second might have been nice — Rabiot hit the post, Mbappé had one ruled out for offside, Benzema did, too — but it was not, strictly, necessary.For all the talent at his disposal, Deschamps knows that one is always enough. That, perhaps, is the defining trait of his team. It is what, deep down, makes it so ominous, more than the players on his squad or the ones left at home: that no matter what it needs to do, no matter how great the challenge, France always has enough. More

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      Was Paul Pogba Bitten in Germany vs. France?

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      Pogba reacted and Antonio Rüdiger has video deniability, experts say. But what exactly happened in the 45th minute of a Euro 2020 match?The linesman apparently didn’t see it. Neither did the Spanish referee. And the television replays were inconclusive.But Euro 2020 got its first real controversy on Tuesday:Did Germany’s Antonio Rüdiger bite France’s Paul Pogba on the shoulder?Let’s go to the videotape.What is Rudiger doing 😳 pic.twitter.com/gsMyYBLyz1— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) June 15, 2021
      The incident happened just before halftime, as Rüdiger snuggled up to mark Pogba from behind as he prepared to receive a throw-in deep in Germany’s end during their teams’ group-stage match in Munich. Suddenly, Rüdiger, the German defender, pressed his face into the back of Pogba, the France midfielder, and the latter let out a shot, grabbed the back of his right shoulder and then leaned forward while holding it.In the United States, ESPN’s broadcast team didn’t draw any conclusions of what occurred. In Britain, Roy Keane, who knows a thing or two about getting under an opponent’s skin, called it more of a “nibble” than a bite on ITV. In Brazil, where he is preparing to play for Uruguay in the Copa América on Friday, Luis Suárez probably wondered why he was suddenly a trending topic on Twitter.But was it a bite? Or did it just look like one?Pogba pleading his case. Antonio Rüdiger looking to play on.Pool photo by Matthias HangstReplays offered Rüdiger enough of a degree of deniability, the former Premier League referee Mark Clattenburg suggested on ESPN. He said there was no way the match referee — or even the video review system in operation at the tournament — could rule on it beyond a shadow of a doubt based on the available replays. (The video-assistant referee was far more certain about the two French goals it ruled out for offside.)But almost as soon as Pogba vs. Rüdiger became a flash point, it was over. Play continued, with Rüdiger taking a free kick. A few minutes after that, it was halftime. But what, exactly, had Pogba been complaining about?Neither Pogba nor Rüdiger offered any clarity immediately after the match, which France won, 1-0.UPDATE: The players appeared to have resolved any animosity, if there ever was any, after the final whistle.Pool photo by Alexander Hassenstein More

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      Euro 2020: Austria’s Marko Arnautovic Faces UEFA Investigation

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      North Macedonia’s soccer federation filed a complaint and said that it “strongly condemns the nationalistic outburst” by the forward after a goal on Sunday.European soccer’s governing body has begun an investigation of Austria forward Marko Arnautovic after he was accused of making nationalist comments after scoring a goal in victory against North Macedonia in Euro 2020 on Sunday.UEFA confirmed on Monday that it had appointed an investigator “to conduct an investigation regarding the incident involving the player Marko Arnautovic.” The action came after North Macedonia filed a complaint.With two minutes to play on Sunday in Bucharest, Romania, Arnautovic scored a goal to seal Austria’s 3-1 victory over North Macedonia. His vigorous celebration included shouted words and gestures directed at several North Macedonian players.At one point during the outburst, the Austrian team captain, David Alaba, entered the team’s goal celebration and grabbed Arnautovic by the jaw. Many have interpreted the action as Alaba’s attempt to silence Arnautovic.North Macedonia filed an official complaint after the game.“The FFM strongly condemns the nationalistic outburst of Austrian player Marko Arnautovic, after a goal scored in yesterday’s match, addressed to the Macedonian player Ezgjan Alioski,” the federation said in a statement. “At the same time, we inform you that we have submitted an official letter to UEFA demanding the harshest punishment for Arnautovic.”Unofficial reviews of the video from the game have suggested that the remarks by Arnautovic, who is of Serbian heritage, referred to Albanians, and North Macedonia has contended they were directed at Alioski, who has Albanian roots.Ethnic and political rivalries are a persistent story line in European soccer. Just last week, UEFA ordered a change to Ukraine’s jerseys after Russia objected to a slogan on the collar and a map that included Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.Disputes involving Serbia and its Balkan neighbors are common, and frequently involve Albania, since representatives of the Albanian diaspora dot the rosters of several national teams, including North Macedonia, Kosovo and Switzerland.At the World Cup in 2018, for example, two Swiss players of Albanian extraction, Granit Xhaka and Xherdan Shaqiri, were fined for making the sign of the double eagle, an Albanian national symbol, during a game against Serbia. That match produced at least six separate disciplinary investigations.Arnautovic spoke with North Macedonia’s Ezgjan Alioski after the match.Pool photo by Justin SetterfieldArnautovic apologized for his outburst on Instagram after Sunday’s game.“There were some heated words yesterday in the emotions of the game for which I would like to apologize — especially to my friends from North Macedonia and Albania,” he wrote. “I would like to say one thing very clearly: I am not a racist. I have friends in almost every country and I stand for diversity. Everyone who knows me is aware of that.”Arnautovic, 32, is a veteran forward currently playing club soccer in China for Shanghai Port. His previous stops include Germany’s Werder Bremen and Stoke City and West Ham in England.But he has been dogged by a reputation for bad behavior and anger on the pitch. “People are always searching for something,” he told The Telegraph in 2013. “If I drop a water bottle it’s like I’ve dropped a bomb or killed a guy. They make a big drama of it.”In 2009, when playing in Holland, he was accused of directing a racial slur at a Black opponent. The authorities said they found no evidence, and no action was taken. More

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      Christian Eriksen’s Teammates Question Decision to Resume Play

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      “We made the least bad decision,” one Denmark player said of the choice to continue a Euro 2020 match after Eriksen collapsed and went into cardiac arrest.Denmark’s soccer team returned to the field on Monday, practicing for the first time since the shocking collapse of their teammate Christian Eriksen during a match on Saturday. But the players did so amid growing criticism of the decision to resume the team’s Euro 2020 match just over an hour after Eriksen received lifesaving treatment on the field after his heart stopped.When the players on Denmark’s team and their opponents from Finland returned to the field on Saturday, it was widely reported that they had chosen to do so.But the players on Monday disputed that simple explanation, which had been offered by the tournament’s organizer, UEFA, and said they had been put in an impossible position: resume the game that day, or return the next day to complete it.“We were all about to lose a friend and a teammate,” Denmark forward Martin Braithwaite said. “There were lots of players who were unable to play. We were in a bad place. We made the least bad decision.”“We were put in a position that I personally feel that we shouldn’t have been put in,” goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel said.Hannah Mckay/ReutersEriksen, one of Denmark’s stars, collapsed on the field late in the first half of a game against Finland at Parken Stadium in Copenhagen. He lost consciousness and received treatment on the field, including C.P.R. His teammates were visibly shaken. Several prayed as they stood in a circle to protect Eriksen from view. A few wiped away tears.Eriksen was removed from the field by stretcher and appeared to be conscious. The game was halted, and there was talk of postponing the evening game between Belgium and Russia as well.But then, to the surprise of many, it was announced that the game would resume after a two-hour delay. UEFA, the governing body for European soccer, said the decision came “following the request made by players of both teams.” Finland scored on a header in the second half to beat Denmark, 1-0.But on Monday, Danish players and staff members said the reality was far less straightforward.“We were put in a position that I personally feel that we shouldn’t have been put in,” goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel said.Liselotte Sabroe/EPA, via ShutterstockDenmark’s players returned to training Monday in Copenhagen. At Scotland’s game, fans sent messages of support.Pool photo by Robert PerryAustria’s Michael Gregoritsch ran to the bench to display a jersey with a message to Eriksen after scoring on Sunday.Pool photo by Marko Djurica“It probably required that someone above us had said that it was not the time to make a decision and maybe should wait for the next day,” he added.Braithwaite said: “We had two choices from UEFA: to go out and play the match immediately or play the next day at noon. None of those choices were good. We took the lesser of two evils.”Coach Kasper Hjulmand said the team had decided that facing the prospect of returning the next day was unworkable.“The players couldn’t imagine not being able to sleep tonight and then having to get on the bus and come in again tomorrow,” Hjulmand told reporters after Saturday’s game. “Honestly it was best to get it over with.”Peter Schmeichel, the former Denmark goalkeeper and the father of Kasper, disputed UEFA’s characterization that the players insisted on playing.“I know that not to be the truth,” he said on “Good Morning Britain.” “Did they have any choice? I don’t think they had.”UEFA said the tournament’s tight schedule required a quick resolution. Denmark’s next game was Thursday, but the Finns had to travel to Russia and prepare for a game on Wednesday afternoon.“UEFA is sure it treated the matter with utmost respect for the sensitive situation and for the players,” UEFA said in a statement. “It was decided to restart the match only after the two teams requested to finish the game on the same evening. The players’ need for 48 hours’ rest between matches eliminated other options.”Eriksen, 29, remained in stable condition in a Copenhagen hospital on Monday. He has spoken with his teammates and was said to be in good spirits, the players said.“I have no doubt that we’ll see something special at Parken on Thursday,” Braithwaite told reporters. “Not just from the players but from the entire crowd. That’s something I look forward to. And I’m sure I will use it as motivation to go out and play for Christian.” More

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      Euro 2020: Scotland Returns, Tartan Army at Its Back

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      One of soccer’s most celebrated fan groups is reveling in a rare chance to support its team in a major tournament.GLASGOW — After more than two decades on the soccer sidelines, one of the game’s most celebrated fan groups finally has a chance to cheer on its team again.The Tartan Army is back.Its reputation precedes it. Throughout the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, Scotland was a regular presence at soccer’s biggest competitions, and so were its tartan-clad fans. Rambunctious, joyous and thirsty, the Tartan Army became a tourist attraction in its own right, a traveling horde of merriment that stood out in a culture in which fans were all too often known for leaving behind a trail of blood and broken glass.“They love us,” Alan Paterson, a retired schoolteacher, said of the cities and countries he visited in his years following the national team. “We’re going to spend a lot of money, and they know we’re not going to be a lot of trouble.”The problem is that, after the 1998 World Cup in France, the bagpipes stopped playing. Scotland’s soccer record became a string of disappointment and near-misses. This week, though, after a 23-year absence, the Scots are back on the big stage at last.On Monday, they will open play in the monthlong European Championship with a game against the Czech Republic in Glasgow. But it is the second game, against England in London, that stirs the most emotion for the Tartan Army.Somewhere in Paterson’s yard there is a patch of turf that has been growing for more than 44 years. Paterson is not quite sure where it is at the moment, but he remembers exactly where he was when he acquired it.Peterson passed on his devotion to Scotland’s national team to his son and grandchildren.Kieran Dodds for The New York TimesPaterson, now 66, was among the thousands of Scottish soccer supporters who streamed onto the field after their team outclassed England in 1977 during what was then a biennial pilgrimage to Wembley Stadium for an encounter between Scotland and the Auld Enemy.Paterson was not alone in carrying the spoils of that famous victory back home. Buses and cars headed north after the match were loaded with turf. Hamish Husband, then 19, remembers seeing a group heading out on Wembley Way, the famous thoroughfare that leads toward England’s national stadium, with pieces of the goal posts. Images of the Wembley pitch invasion by Scottish fans that day remain etched in British soccer folklore.“You are really divided between appreciating the delight of the Scottish fans but not wanting to see the ground pulled apart like this,” John Motson, the BBC commentator that day, said as the crossbar on one of the goals collapsed under the weight of fans.“There was a lot of drunkenness and a lot of young guys falling about,” Paterson said. “Things were getting a bit out of hand.”While there was little violence, the images worried officials at home. Hooliganism had taken hold in England during the 1980s and ’90s; pitched battles involving soccer fans became commonplace; and nations drawn to face England would regularly brace for violence. So within a few years, match-going veterans of those times said, Scottish fans decided to take the opposite tack.Tam Coyle, a veteran of more than 100 overseas games since 1985, recalled how fans started a chant with lyrics that included the words “We’re the famous Tartan Army, and not the English hooligans.” And Richard McBrearty, the curator of the Scottish Football Museum in Glasgow, said the rivalry with England was so deep that even the Scots’ reputation for good behavior could be traced to it.“The Scottish fans wanted to isolate themselves,” he said. “They wanted to say, ‘Look at us, we are better than the English.’”Hamish Husband’s collection of tickets. He has seen Scotland more than 200 times, and has travelled the world to support its team.Kieran Dodds for The New York TimesBy the 1980s, Scotland’s fans had become an attraction in their own right. The Tartan Army was a traveling circus — decked out in kilts, bonnets and tartan — that was seen as a welcome curiosity in the towns and cities it visited, and a source of easy profits for the hotels and bars the fans would keep busy until closing time.Even brushes with the law are remembered fondly. Paterson recalled the time he bought brandies for the police officers idling in a car before a game against Sweden at the 1990 World Cup. A year earlier, he said, he was in Paris for a qualification game when a Scottish fan emerged from the back of a police van to huge cheers after swapping clothes with a gendarme.When policing was required, it was often provided by the fans themselves. “There’s a pride in behaving well,” Paterson said.Low expectations helped foster good humor. Much of this was born out of the famous failure of the star-studded Scotland team that went to Argentina for the 1978 World Cup, only to be eliminated after just two games, including a draw against Iran.“On the back of that, for a lot of Scotland fans, there was almost a change in ethos of supporting the team,” said McBrearty, the curator. “Of course they wanted to watch the team, and wanted it to play well, but there was a decision that they were going to go out and enjoy the experience first and foremost.”By the time the 1998 World Cup was played in France, the Tartan Army’s popular appeal and global standing had largely surpassed its team’s. While Scotland tumbled out of the tournament, finishing at the bottom of its first-round group, the Tartan Army headed home with its reputation burnished. FIFA recognized it as the tournament’s best fan group, and the city of Bordeaux took out a full-page advertisement in Scotland’s most popular newspaper.“Come back soon,” the ad read. “We miss you already.”A young Tartan Army member: Freya, Paterson’s granddaughter.Kieran Dodds for The New York TimesHusband, a well-seasoned Scotland supporter.Kieran Dodds for The New York TimesBut there would be no comeback. Fans like Paterson, Coyle and Husband, for whom following Scotland to championship events formed a backdrop to their lives, have waited more than two decades for their team to get to another major tournament. For younger fans like Gordon Sheach, 32, the wait has been just as excruciating.Scotland’s presence at the 1998 World Cup, Sheach said, was a transformational experience, the moment he fell in love with soccer, and with his national team. It was also the moment he decided he wanted to join the Tartan Army at a tournament.But his chance never came. As he grew from boy to adolescent to man, Scotland persistently — maddeningly — found new and painful ways to fail. “I think it almost got to the point where you kind of emotionally disconnected Scotland from major finals,” Sheach said.But even during those years of failure, Scotland’s traveling army stayed on the march. It would turn up at friendly matches and qualifying games near and far, in outposts like Lithuania and Kazakhstan. A charity affiliated with Scottish fans, the Tartan Army Sunshine Appeal, makes a donation to children’s causes in every country where Scotland plays a game. There have been 83 consecutive donations totaling more than $200,000 since 2003, according to the charity’s secretary, Clark Gillies.But when Scotland finally ended its exile, its fans were absent, forced to watch from home because of the coronavirus pandemic. The team kept its supporters on edge until the last ball was kicked in a penalty shootout against Serbia in Belgrade.The stadium was empty, but the country was transfixed. Paterson said he slipped out of his house into the pitch-black November night. He could not watch.Paterson and Torrance in full uniform.Kieran Dodds for The New York TimesGoalkeeper David Marshall’s penalty save set off celebrations in homes across the country, and midfielder Ryan Christie’s emotional interview in the aftermath brought many to tears.“I’m gone,” Christie said as he choked up. “For the whole nation, it’s been a horrible year, for everyone. We knew that coming into the game we could give a little something to this country, and I hope everyone back home is having a party tonight.“Cause we deserve it. We’ve been through so many years — we know it, you know it, everyone knows it.”Scotland, and the Tartan Army, is now back in the big time. Sheach, who was a boy the last time that happened, is hoping Scotland’s presence at the Euros this summer will have the same effect that its appearance at a World Cup 23 years ago had on him.“This summer will be massively inspirational moment for a whole generation of supporters who can see Scotland at a tournament for the first time,” he said. More