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      Investigators Clear Former U.S. Soccer Coach in 1992 Incident

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      An inquiry found no reason U.S. Soccer could not rehire Gregg Berhalter as coach of the men’s national team. But investigators criticized the parents of a player for their part in the controversy.Gregg Berhalter, the men’s national soccer team coach at last year’s World Cup, is eligible to return for the next World Cup cycle after investigators looking into his personal conduct cleared him to remain a candidate for the job, the U.S. Soccer Federation said on Monday.“There is no basis to conclude that employing Mr. Berhalter would create legal risks for an organization,” investigators said in a report made public on Monday.The federation three months ago hired investigators at the Atlanta-based law firm Alston & Bird to look into an incident involving Berhalter kicking his wife, Rosalind, in front of a bar when they were dating as students at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in 1992. No police report was filed for that incident.The investigators said they were “impressed with Mr. Berhalter’s candor and demeanor” during the inquiry and found no discrepancies between Gregg and Rosalind Berhalter’s description of the incident, with Gregg Berhalter saying he reported it to his college coach and also sought counseling for the way he acted. The two had been drunk when they left the bar arguing, and Rosalind hit Gregg in the face. Gregg then pushed her down and kicked her twice in the upper leg, the report said.Both Berhalters, in a statement made public in January, acknowledged what happened and said they have been happily married for 25 years.The report also said, based on interviews and research, that there was no reason to believe that Berhalter — whose contract with U.S. Soccer expired at the end of 2022 — ever acted aggressively toward his wife in the past 31 years.“The investigation revealed no evidence to suggest that he had engaged in violence against another person at any time prior or thereafter,” the report said, calling the 1992 incident “an isolated event.”In a statement Monday, Gregg Berhalter said: “Rosalind and I respect the process that U.S. Soccer went through. We are grateful that it is concluded and look forward to what’s next.”The report concludes a bizarre turn of events surrounding the World Cup involving Claudio and Danielle Reyna, the parents of U.S. forward Gio Reyna. The Reynas complained to U.S. Soccer about Gio’s playing time in the tournament and suggested “they knew damaging information about Mr. Berhalter that U.S. Soccer officials did not know.”The Berhalters and Reynas had been close friends for decades, and Rosalind and Danielle had been college soccer teammates. But the Reynas became upset after hearing Berhalter’s public comments about an unnamed player at the World Cup who “was clearly not meeting expectations on and off the field” and who the staff considered sending home. The player was Gio Reyna, and the Reynas vented to U.S. Soccer about what Berhalter had said, with Danielle Reyna telling the federation about the 1992 incident.Berhalter coaching Gio Reyna during a match against the Netherlands in December.Danielle Parhizkaran/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe Reynas told U.S. Soccer about the incident, the report said, because they didn’t want the federation to renew Berhalter’s contract. “The information was disclosed at a time when it would be expected to discourage or otherwise influence the organization from offering a contract extension to Mr. Berhalter,” the report said.The report said Danielle Reyna first denied to investigators that she told the U.S. Soccer sporting director Earnie Stewart about the kicking incident, but then called back to say she indeed had. Compared to how open and willing the Berhalters had been in the inquiry, the report said, the Reynas were much less cooperative.The Reynas could not immediately be reached for comment.The investigative report details some of the Reynas’ complaints to U.S. Soccer over the years, specifically calling out Claudio Reyna’s yearslong outreach to the federation on behalf of his children, especially Gio.Claudio Reyna expressed his dissatisfaction with refereeing at the youth club level of the U.S. Soccer Development Academy, travel arrangements at the U-17 World Cup (he wanted business class) and Gio’s playing time on the national team, according to the report. One person interviewed by investigators referred to Reyna’s interactions with U.S. Soccer about his sons as “inappropriate,” “bullying” and “mean spirited.” Another, whose name was also redacted, said, “Mr. Reyna expected Gio Reyna to be treated better than other players.”The report also said that the communications between the Reynas and U.S. Soccer didn’t violate any federation laws or policy, but it did not say whether the Reynas violated FIFA’s code of ethics.In a statement, U.S. Soccer noted that the report said that there is “a need to revisit U.S. Soccer’s policies concerning appropriate parental conduct and communications with the staff at the National Team level.”The federation went on to say: “We will be updating those policies as we continue to work to ensure safe environments for all participants in our game.”Whether Berhalter will be in charge of the men’s national team when those policies are put in place is still unknown.Stewart, the sporting director, resigned in January amid the Reyna-Berhalter situation and took a job with a Dutch club team, and U.S. Soccer is looking for his replacement. The new sporting director will likely will be in charge of hiring the new men’s national team coach. More

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      Copa América Will Return to U.S. in 2024

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      The relocation of the South American soccer championship is part of an agreement that also includes expanded events for clubs and women in the Americas.The Copa América, South America’s biggest soccer championship, will return to the United States in 2024 as part of a broad collaboration agreement between soccer officials in the Americas that also includes at least one new tournament as well as expanded intercontinental competitions for clubs and women’s national teams.Concacaf, the confederation that governs the sport in North and Central America and the Caribbean, and Conmebol, which rules the game in South America, announced their agreement on Friday.Among its obvious soccer and financial benefits — a previous Copa América in the United States was the largest and richest edition in the competition’s history — the agreement signaled a significant restoration of trust between officials from North and South America.Many soccer relationships in the region were seriously damaged in the years after 2015, when a corruption investigation led by the United States Department of Justice led to the arrests and convictions of dozens of soccer and marketing officials throughout the Americas. Television rights to the Copa América, the century-old South American championship, were central to some of those cases, and two former television executives charged with other crimes are currently on trial in New York.Despite all that, South American soccer nations have long looked to the United States, with its vast pool of expatriates but also its vast pool of capital, as a market they wanted to tap. But they wanted to do it on their terms.Now, South America will get access to both, while the United States, Mexico and Canada — the three co-hosts of the 2026 World Cup — will have the opportunity to play in a meaningful and competitive tournament two years before that global event. The success of the 2024 Copa América will go a long way toward determining if a longer term collaboration will become a fixture for soccer in the region.The Copa América was played in the United States in 2016, the only other time it was held outside South America and also the only time it included as many as 16 teams. Chile beat Lionel Messi and Argentina in the final, denying Messi a coveted trophy he has since claimed. (Messi also led Argentina to the World Cup title last year, but it is unclear if he will still be playing internationally in 2024.)In 2024, the 10 South American nations that would normally contest the Copa América will be joined by six teams from the Concacaf region.It is not uncommon for the Copa América to include “guest teams” from other regions. But for 2024, the teams from Concacaf will qualify through the 2023-24 Concacaf Nations League, rather than by invitation. A guest team has never won the Copa América, although Mexico made the final in 1993 and 2001. The United States has appeared in the tournament four times, making two semifinal appearances.The federations said the expanded Copa América would serve, in part, as a vital window of top-level preparation in the Western Hemisphere ahead of the 2026 World Cup, which is to be co-hosted in the United States, Mexico and Canada.The tournament will be held from mid-June to mid-July 2024, putting it in scheduling conflict with that summer’s European Championship, a tent-pole event on the soccer calendar that is held every four years, but keeping both tournaments well clear of the Paris Olympics that open in late July 2024.Argentina won the most recent Copa América in 2021, a career highlight for Lionel Messi, and his first major national team title. He and Argentina followed that with a World Cup win in 2022. In all, Argentina and Uruguay have won 15 Copa Américas each and Brazil nine.The federations also announced that the 2024 women’s Concacaf Gold Cup will include the top four South American teams alongside eight teams from Concacaf, a rare (and welcome) bit of heightened tournament competition for the region’s best teams outside the Women’s World Cup or the Olympics.A new men’s club competition for the region is also planned, to include two club teams from each confederation. The federations said they hoped to launch that tournament in 2024 as well. The tournament comes as the Club World Cup, for club teams around the world, is in flux, with FIFA planning to expand it but hold it less frequently.The club tournament is another sign of the deepening relationship between the regional bodies and the willingness of Conmebol to seek new territories for its teams. It already has a relationship with UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, that has seen the revival of an intercontinental championship matching the winner of the Copa América against the European champion. Argentina beat Italy, 3-0, in the game last year, the first time it had been held since 1993.The new four-team club tournament is likely to feature the finalists from the Concacaf Champions League and the finalists from the Copa Libertadores, the South American club championship, or the winner of that event and the champion of South America’s second-tier competition, the Copa Sudamericana.The new ventures come against the background of intense negotiations ahead of FIFA finalizing the global calendar for the next decade, a keenly anticipated plan that will shape the future of soccer across the world. More

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      in Tennis

      At the Australian Open, American Men Advance en Masse

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      Sebastian Korda, Ben Shelton, J.J. Wolf and Tommy Paul all made the fourth round in singles. Not since 2004 have four men from the United States gone this far in Melbourne.MELBOURNE, Australia — There were 94,854 fans at the Australian Open on Saturday, setting a single-day attendance record.But perhaps even more surprising than the size of the audience was that four American men remained in contention for the men’s singles title: Sebastian Korda, Ben Shelton, J.J. Wolf and Tommy Paul.None of them have made it this far at the Open until now, and Shelton, the youngest at age 20, had never played in Australia or anywhere outside the United States until a few weeks ago.The two highest-ranked Americans and most likely candidates to go deeper in Melbourne are missing. Taylor Fritz, the No. 8 seed, and Frances Tiafoe, the No. 16 seed, have already been eliminated. Reilly Opelka, the imposing 7-foot-tall big server who broke into the top 20 last year, is recovering from hip surgery. Mackenzie McDonald, the former U.C.L.A. star who upset Rafael Nadal in the second round, was beaten in his next match.But Korda, Shelton, Wolf and Paul all advanced to the round of 16, a sign of the renewed strength and depth of American men’s tennis.“These young guys are coming up, pushing each other,” said Dean Goldfine, one of Shelton’s coaches. “I think that’s one of the things that’s contributing to our success right now as a country. We have these waves. It’s not just one guy here, one guy there. We’ve got a bunch of them, and I think there’s a friendly rivalry there.”The last time there were four American men in the fourth round of the Australian Open in singles was in 2004 with Andre Agassi, James Blake, Robby Ginepri and Andy Roddick. All were stars or established threats, though it was Ginepri’s deepest run at that stage in a major.Tommy Paul will face Roberto Bautista Agut, a Spanish veteran who is seeded 24th.William West/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMost of this year’s group is just getting started. Paul, 25, is the oldest: an acrobatic all-court player with excellent timing who can take the ball extremely early. He also reached the fourth round at Wimbledon last year and broke into the top 30 under the tutelage of veteran coach Brad Stine. He switched racket brands in the off-season — often a risky move — but has been sharp in Melbourne and dominated fellow American Jenson Brooksby on Saturday, winning in straight sets.Paul will face Roberto Bautista Agut, a Spanish veteran who is seeded 24th and is the only seeded player left in the bottom quarter of the draw.The 2023 Australian OpenThe year’s first Grand Slam event runs from Jan. 16 to Jan. 29 in Melbourne.A New Style Star: Frances Tiafoe may have lost his shot at winning the Australian Open, but his swirly “himbo” look won him fashion points.Caroline Garcia: The top-five player has spoken openly about her struggles with an eating disorder. She is at the Australian Open chasing her first Grand Slam singles title.Behind the Scenes: A coterie of billionaires, deep-pocketed companies and star players has engaged for months in a high-stakes battle to lead what they view as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to disrupt the sport.Endless Games: As matches in professional tennis stretch into the early-morning hours, players have grown concerned for their health and performance.The other players in that section are Shelton and Wolf, former collegiate standouts who will face each other on Monday. Shelton won the N.C.A.A. singles title last year for the University of Florida, where he was coached by his father Bryan Shelton, a former ATP Tour player. Wolf, 24, played for three years at Ohio State, where he was an All-American and the Big Ten player of the year in 2019.Ben Shelton and Wolf have become friendly since Shelton turned pro last August. “I had seen him play in college tennis, but he was older than me, so we never competed against each other,” Shelton said of Wolf. “We’re good friends, like to joke around a lot, have a lot of locker room banter.”Both are solidly built and powerful. Wolf has one of the most penetrating forehands in the game. Shelton, a left-hander, has one of the most intimidating serves, frequently surpassing 124 miles per hour. He has won 83 percent of his first-serve points in Melbourne and 64 percent of his second-serve points. Shelton was not broken on Saturday as he prevailed over Alexei Popyrin, the Australian who upset Fritz in the second round and again had a big home crowd ready to support him in John Cain Arena.“They kind of set the tone when I walked out on the court, and I got booed,” said Shelton, laughing. “Similar to some away matches and college atmospheres that I have been at but definitely amplified today. The sound in there kind of just vibrates.”But Shelton’s dominant play in his victory, 6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-4, often meant that the arena was unusually quiet. His shouts of “Come on!” reverberated through the space.“Honestly, if this is the way he plays day in, day out, the guy is top 10 in six months,” Popyrin said.Consistency can be elusive at this level, particularly when you take the risks that Shelton does. But he continues to make a big impression as he embarks on his first full season on tour.“I definitely wouldn’t have thought that I would be here in this moment six months ago or four months ago,” said Shelton, who was ranked outside the top 500 in May.This is only his second Grand Slam tournament after losing in the first round of last year’s U.S. Open, but he already has guaranteed himself a spot in the top 70 and also equaled his father’s best performance in a Grand Slam event. Bryan Shelton reached the fourth round of Wimbledon as a qualifier in 1994.Ben Shelton celebrated after defeating Alexei Popyrin.James Ross/EPA, via ShutterstockBryan Shelton is not in Melbourne because he is in the middle of the collegiate tennis season. Florida had a match on Saturday, but he got up early to watch his son’s match in Australia because of the time difference.“I think I messed up his sleep schedule a little bit,” Ben Shelton said.Both Shelton and Wolf come from athletic families. Wolf’s sister Danielle also played tennis at Ohio State, and his mother, Brooke, played for Miami of Ohio. His grandfather Charles Wolf coached the Cincinnati Royals and the Detroit Pistons in the N.B.A.But the American in the fourth round with the most successful athletic family is the 22-year-old Korda. His parents were leading professional tennis players: his father, Petr, was No. 2 on the ATP Tour and won the Australian Open; his mother, Regina, was ranked in the top 30 on the WTA Tour. Korda’s two older sisters, Nelly and Jessica, are leading women’s professional golfers: Nelly has been ranked No. 1 in the world; Jessica is currently No. 18.“I’m definitely the worst athlete in the family so far,” Sebastian Korda said on Friday after defeating the former world No. 1 Daniil Medvedev in straight sets in the third round for the biggest victory of his career.But Korda, seeded 29th at the Australian Open, looks poised to move up in his family’s rankings. At 6-foot-5, he has a fluid, deceptively powerful game full of variety and though he has come close to major upsets against the game’s biggest stars, holding match points before losing to Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, he held firm against the 7th-seeded Medvedev in Rod Laver Arena to win, 7-6 (7), 6-3, 7-6 (4).Korda’s American peers were closely watching him as they prepared for their own challenges.“I was in my hotel room, stretching and taking care of myself, but I was glued to the TV,” Wolf said. “He was playing amazing.”J.J. Wolf in action during the first round of the Australian Open.Lukas Coch/EPA, via Shutterstock More

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      in Soccer

      When Pelé Took New York by Storm

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      In August 1967, it was hard to imagine that Americans might get interested in soccer. Then Pelé played at Yankee Stadium.It was August 1967. The Yankees were languishing near the bottom of the standings, their great years behind them. The Mets had not yet become the Miracle Mets. Still, it was hard to imagine then that a soccer player would capture a large measure of New York sports fans — if not the entire United States.But there he was, all of 5 feet 8 inches and 145 pounds. Pelé. We in the sportswriting business had heard of him, of course. He had led Brazil to two World Cup titles. We had even seen him play in New York the year before.But this was soccer. Although played in some neighborhoods of the Bronx, Queens or Brooklyn where immigrants brought it from home, it had not yet widely taken hold across the land.In the Sheraton-Atlantic Hotel, on Broadway and 34th Street, Pelé was holding a news conference. A day later, his team from Brazil, Santos, was to meet Inter of Milan at Yankee Stadium. A year earlier, Pelé had played in a boisterous match at Randalls Island, where fans ran from the stands onto the field to protest a referee’s call.Now, there were rumors that promoters were thinking of expanding soccer in the States by starting a league, and what better place to start, what better athlete to help jump-start it, than Pelé, known as the “Black Pearl”?A South American newspaper reporter asked the first question.“Honorable Sir,” he began.And I realized something different was happening here.“Honorable Sir”? I don’t think anyone addressed even Willie Mays as “Honorable Sir.” Obviously, this was not your typical American athlete. (Mays, by the way, was the highest paid baseball player at the time at $125,000 a year. Pelé was earning $200,000 for Santos).The foreign reporters continued to ask their questions, a beatific expression over their faces as they looked at this graciously smiling fellow who was deemed a national treasure by Brazil.That’s right, a national treasure, making him officially something like the Statue of Liberty. By Brazilian law, he could not be traded to another team out of the country.Everything about him was fascinating, starting with his name. A Brazilian reporter told me that in São Paulo they call street soccer “pelada”; he was such a symbol of the game that he got the nickname Pelé. (Pelé himself, though, offered several possible explanations for the nickname in his autobiography, but most probably it was a derivation of a player named Bilé whom he had admired as a boy.)Pelé, 26 at the time, seemed quite comfortable talking with the international press before appearing at America’s most famous stadium. He spoke about his far-flung business interests, his 7-month-old daughter.More than 15,000 tickets were sold in advance of the game. What would people see? What did this unassuming man do that would make Americans interested in soccer? There were clues. In his game the year before, when the second half began, fans ran onto the field. A woman kissed Pelé. Other fans fought with some of the players. It was a chaotic scene.Yet, as I watched, I understood how it came to be known as the beautiful game. And I recalled my first time with a soccer ball, at City College of New York. Like most New York kids, I had played baseball, stickball in the streets, basketball in the gyms and outside courts of the local schools.But when I started to kick the soccer ball, there was a freedom I felt that I hadn’t gotten even from baseball. And in soccer, you are always in the game. You are always moving. You never stop — well, almost never. The game goes on and on and you’re always in it.And now, all these years after college, as I watched Pelé at Yankee Stadium and listened to the full-throated fans hollering in Portuguese — there was a sizable Brazilian population in New York — I understood why Pelé had become a national treasure.He was injured near halftime when three Inter players surrounded him and one tripped him. Pelé sat out the second half.No matter. There were 37,063 fans at the game, then the third highest for a soccer match in the United States.Within a few years, big-league soccer came to America, and not just as a fad. And, of course, Pelé came with it, bringing his big smile, his incredible upside-down and backward kicks and his boyish enthusiasm for the sport.He showed Americans why soccer was the beautiful game. More

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      in Basket

      In the Deal to Free Griner, Putin Used a Familiar Lever: Pain

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      President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia wants to prosecute his war in Ukraine in the same way he secured the freedom on Thursday of a major Russian arms dealer: inflict so much pain on Western governments that, eventually, they make a deal.The Kremlin pushed for more than a decade to get Viktor Bout, convicted in 2011 of conspiring to kill Americans, released from prison in the United States. But it was only this year, with the arrest at a Moscow airport of the American basketball star Brittney Griner, that Mr. Putin found the leverage to get his way.On Thursday, pro-Kremlin voices celebrated Mr. Bout’s release, in a prisoner exchange for Ms. Griner, as a victory, a sign that no matter the desire to punish Russia over the war in Ukraine, the United States will still come to the table when key American interests are at play. Russia negotiated from “a position of strength, comrades,” Maria Butina — a pro-Putin member of Parliament who herself served time in an American prison — posted on the Telegram messaging app.Mr. Putin’s emerging strategy in Ukraine, in the wake of his military’s repeated failures, now increasingly echoes the strategy that finally brought Mr. Bout back to Moscow. He is bombarding Ukrainian energy infrastructure, effectively taking its people hostage as he seeks to break the country’s spirit. The tactic is threatening the European Union with a new wave of refugees just as Mr. Putin uses a familiar economic lever: choking off gas exports. And Mr. Putin is betting that the West, even after showing far more unity in support of Ukraine than Mr. Putin appears to have expected, will eventually tire of the fight and its economic ill effects.The American basketball star Brittney Griner, who was arrested in March, was released from a penal colony on Thursday. Here, she is being escorted to a Moscow courtroom last August.Pool photo by Kirill KudryavtsevThere’s no guarantee that strategy will work. Though President Biden yielded on Mr. Bout, he has shown no inclination to relent on United States support for Ukraine. America’s European allies, while facing some domestic political and economic pressure to press for a compromise with Russia, have remained on board.In the face of this Western solidarity, Mr. Putin repeatedly signaled this week that he is willing to keep fighting, despite embarrassing territorial retreats, Russian casualties that the United States puts at more than 100,000 and the West’s ever-expanding sanctions. On Wednesday, he warned that the war “might be a long process.” And at a Kremlin medal ceremony for soldiers on Thursday, Mr. Putin insisted — falsely — that it was Ukraine’s government that was carrying out “genocide,” suggesting that Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure would continue.“If we make the smallest move to respond, there’s noise, din and clamor across the whole universe,” he said, champagne flute in hand, in remarks broadcast on state television. “This will not prevent us from fulfilling our combat missions.”Mr. Putin did not comment on the prisoner exchange himself on Thursday. But in the context of the Ukraine war, there was a clear undertone to the crowing in Moscow: To supporters, Mr. Putin remains a deal maker, and he stands ready to negotiate over Ukraine as long as the West does not block his goal of pulling the country into his orbit and seizing some of its territory.“He’s signaling that he’s ready to bargain,” Tatiana Stanovaya, a political analyst who studies Mr. Putin, said. “But he’s letting the West know that ‘Ukraine is ours.’”Heavily damaged buildings in Bakhmut, Ukraine, last week.Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesAsked when the war could end, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, hinted on Thursday that Russia is still waiting for President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to accept some kind of deal: “Zelensky knows when this could all end. It could end tomorrow, if there’s a will.”But when one of Mr. Putin’s top spies, Sergei Naryshkin, met with the head of the C.I.A., William Burns, in Turkey last month, Mr. Burns did not discuss a settlement to the Ukraine war, American officials said. Instead, Mr. Burns warned of dire consequences for Moscow were it to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, and discussed the fate of Americans imprisoned in Russia, including Ms. Griner.“The Russian negotiating style is, they punch you in the face and then they ask if you want to negotiate,” said Jeremy Shapiro, a former State Department official who now works as research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank. “The Americans respond to that by saying, ‘You know, you just punched us in the face, you clearly don’t want to negotiate.’”Nevertheless, negotiations on some issues have continued even as Russia’s onslaught of missile attacks has escalated, talks blessed by Mr. Putin despite occasional criticism from the most hawkish supporters of his war.Russia’s pro-war bloggers fumed in September when Mr. Putin agreed to an earlier high-profile exchange: commanders of the Azov Battalion, a nationalist fighting force within the Ukrainian military that gained celebrity status for its defense of a besieged steel plant, for a friend of Mr. Putin, the Ukrainian politician Viktor Medvedchuk. Some critics have slammed Mr. Putin’s agreement to allow Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea as representing an undue concession.President Vladimir V. Putin, third from left, inspecting the Kerch Strait Bridge this week. The bridge, which connects the Russian mainland and the Crimean Peninsula, was badly damaged in a Ukrainian attack in October.Mikhail Metzel/Sputnik, via ReutersAnd then there were the talks surrounding Mr. Bout and Ms. Griner. On the surface, the exchange appeared to be a mismatch, given the wide disparity in the severity of their offenses: one of the world’s most prolific arms dealers and an American basketball star detained for traveling with vape cartridges containing hashish oil.But Mr. Biden showed he was prepared to invest significant political capital in securing Ms. Griner’s freedom, while the Kremlin has long sought Mr. Bout’s release.“We know that attempts to help Bout have been made for many years,” said Andrei Kortunov, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council, a research organization close to the Russian government. “He has also become a symbolic figure” for the Kremlin, he added.Mr. Bout became notorious among American intelligence officials, earning the nickname “Merchant of Death” as he evaded capture for years. He was finally arrested in an undercover operation in Bangkok in 2008, with American prosecutors saying he had agreed to sell antiaircraft weapons to informants posing as arms buyers for the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces, or FARC.Some analysts believe that Mr. Bout has connections to Russia’s intelligence services. Such links have not been publicly confirmed, but they could explain why Mr. Putin — a former K.G.B. officer — has put such stock in working for Mr. Bout’s release.“If he were just some arms dealer and cargo magnate, then it is hard to see why it would have been quite such a priority for the Russian state,” Mark Galeotti, a lecturer on Russia and transnational crime at University College London, said last summer.President Biden at a news conference on Thursday with Brittney Griner’s wife, Cherelle Griner, left, Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken in Washington.Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThat means that the U.S. decision to free Mr. Bout — likely the most prominent Russian in American custody — represented a significant compromise. It was magnified by the fact that the United States accepted the exchange even though Russia declined to also release Paul Whelan, a former Marine the Biden administration also considers a political hostage.Some analysts believe that the decision to free Mr. Bout carries risks because it could encourage Mr. Putin to take new hostages — and shows that his strategy of causing pain, and then winning concessions, is continuing to bear fruit.Andrei Soldatov, a Russian journalist who specializes in the security services, said that he was worried about the precedent set by Washington’s agreeing to trade an arms dealer for a basketball player who committed a minor offense.“Back in the days of the Cold War, it was always about professionals against professionals, one spy against another,” he said. While the United States must contend with public demand at home to return a hostage, the Russians can “ignore it completely,” he said.Now, Moscow “can just grab someone with a high public profile in the U.S. — an athlete, a sportsman,” he said. Public outcry in the U.S. “would make that position much more advantageous in terms of these kind of talks.” More

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      in Soccer

      Hometown of Tyler Adams, U.S. Captain, Still Proud Even With Loss

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      Schoolmates, friends and others packed a pub early to watch their hometown hero, Tyler Adams, lead the United States men’s national team, which was eliminated from the World Cup by the Netherlands.WAPPINGERS FALLS, N.Y. — The United States may be out of the World Cup, but the team’s elimination on Saturday did little to dim the pride for the team’s captain, Tyler Adams, in his Hudson Valley hometown.Adams, 23, is one of the youngest players to be captain of the U.S. men’s national team, and his play in Qatar had captured the attention of those around his hometown, Wappinger, between Poughkeepsie and Fishkill, near the banks of the Hudson River.At the County Fare Bar & Grill on Saturday morning, it seemed that nearly half the town showed up to cheer for Adams. That included Matt Ball and Joseph Cavaccini, who had grown up with the soccer star and his brothers, as well as a bus driver known to boast over her loudspeaker that Adams had graduated from nearby Roy C. Ketcham High School.Family friends, former schoolmates and neighbors recalled Adams as a driven young man who regularly missed social and school functions — including his own graduation ceremony — because of sports commitments.Adams worked hard, Cavaccini said using, more colorful terms. “That’s why it’s not a surprise. It’s just pride — we are just so proud,” he said.A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

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      in Soccer

      The U.S. Cleared a Big World Cup Hurdle. The Knockout Round Poses Another.

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      The U.S. victory over Iran sent it to the round of 16, with a match against the Netherlands on Saturday. But the team already has much to be proud of.DOHA, Qatar — Those last few minutes, the ones in which everything the United States has worked for was close enough to touch, seemed to stretch on and on into the night. The clock refused to tick. There was always another attack to repel, another ball to clear, another scare to survive.Eight years since it last played a knockout game at the World Cup, four years since it was forced to endure the stinging humiliation of watching the tournament from home, the country’s men’s team was on the brink of laying the ghosts to rest. It held a slender, single-goal lead against Iran, thanks to the self-sacrificing courage of Christian Pulisic. That was enough. All it had to do was hold on.Ever since that night five years ago in Couva, Trinidad, when it had all gone wrong, the question has been whether the United States has sufficiently gifted players to compete with the game’s superpowers. The relative ability of Pulisic, Tyler Adams and Weston McKennie is pored over, their every flaw prized open, their every strength judged and weighed.Those last few minutes, though, were not about talent. They were, instead, the most thorough examination imaginable of Gregg Berhalter’s team’s poise, and composure, and grit. They were a test of nerve. It is to their immense credit that they passed and now have a meeting with the Netherlands on Saturday in the next round.Victory was not comfortable, not at all. There were moments when their hearts rose up into their mouths, moments when their legs seemed heavy and their minds weary, moments when they had to fight off the siren call of blind panic. But then, it could not be any other way. It would not be a test if it were easy.The U.S. held a slender, single-goal lead against Iran, thanks to the self-sacrificing courage of Christian Pulisic.Odd Andersen/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThis remains an intensely young team, one that has been designed at least in part with the next World Cup, four years away and (mostly) on home soil, in mind. That they weathered what is most likely the most stressful situation any of them have experienced is to their enormous credit.A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

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      U.S. Team Distances Itself From Federation’s Decision to Alter Iran Flag

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      A day before a critical World Cup match with abounding political and competitive ramifications, players and coaches on the U.S. national team on Monday distanced themselves from social media posts made by their soccer federation that showed support for the women of Iran by doctoring that country’s flag.Gregg Berhalter, the American coach, said Monday that neither he nor any players were involved with the decision to remove Iran’s official emblem and two lines of Islamic script in posts on Twitter and Instagram.“We had no idea about what U.S. Soccer put out. The staff, the players, had no idea,” Berhalter told reporters Monday.He added: “Our focus is on this match. I don’t want to sound aloof or not caring by saying that, but the guys have worked really hard for the last four years. We have 72 hours between England and Iran, and we really are just focused on how to get past Iran and go to the knockout stage of this tournament. Of course, our thoughts are with the Iranian people, the whole country, the whole team, everyone, but our focus is on this match.”The Americans, after failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, can advance to the knockout rounds from Group B by defeating Iran, which would also progress with a victory.Iran condemned U.S. Soccer’s decision to use an incorrect flag. It said it violated the statutes of FIFA, world soccer’s global governing body. The American federation deleted the posts Sunday and said it would use only Iran’s official flag going forward.“The intent of the post was to show support for women’s rights,” Michael Kammarman, a U.S. Soccer spokesman, said at a news conference Monday. “It was meant to be a moment. We made the post at the time. All of the other representations of the flag were made consistent and will continue.”Over the past few months, and certainly at this World Cup, the Iranian team has become entangled with its country’s harsh treatment of women and its crackdowns on personal freedoms under theocratic rule. The team engaged in protests of its own after the September death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, 22, who had been arrested on charges of violating a law requiring head coverings for women.After refusing to sing the national anthem before its opening match, against England, the Iranian team appeared to join in before its next game, against Wales, with varying degrees of enthusiasm and commitment.“We can’t speak for them and their message,” U.S. defender Walker Zimmerman said. “We know that they’re all emotional. They’re going through things right now. They’re human, and, again, we empathize with that human emotion. So we completely feel for them.” More