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    FIFA to Consider Expanding World Cup to 64 Teams

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    Soccer’s governing body will look into another expansion of its marquee event, the most lucrative in sports, after a request by one of its 2030 co-hosts.FIFA, the governing body for global soccer, is considering a plan that would increase the number of teams in the 2030 World Cup to 64 for a one-off expansion to mark the centenary of the event, the organization said on Thursday.The proposal, which was made toward the end of a FIFA board meeting on Wednesday, would upend a tournament that already figures to be unwieldy and complicated because it will be played across three continents for the first time in its history.The World Cup is the most lucrative and most watched event in sports, bringing in billions for FIFA, but the coveted nature of the competition has led to battles among nations to host it, as well as widespread allegations in the past of corruption.The decision to award the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia was criticized by good governance organizations, after FIFA changed its own rules to allow the country to effectively secure rights without facing any competition.The FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, has already overseen the expansion of the World Cup once during his nine-year tenure, bringing the number of teams up to 48 from 32 at the next edition in 2026, which will be mostly played in the United States but also include matches in Mexico and Canada.According to four people with direct knowledge of the discussions, the proposal for a 64-team tournament came as the meeting that was drawing to a close and had reached the section of the agenda earmarked for “miscellaneous” issues.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Clashes at Soccer Match Kill Dozens in Guinea

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      It was unclear on Sunday how many people were killed, but at least one estimate neared 100 people.Dozens of people were killed on Sunday in clashes during a soccer match in Guinea, according to media reports.The violence occurred during a game between the Labe and Nzerekore soccer teams in the city of Nzerekore, the second-largest city in the West African nation.It was unclear on Sunday how many people were killed. Agence France-Presse, citing local hospital sources, said there were “dozens dead,” with one doctor estimating the death toll was closer to “around 100” people.Prime Minister Bah Oury of Guinea condemned the violence in a statement on X on Sunday.“The government deplores the incidents that marred the football match between the Labe and Nzerekore teams this afternoon in Nzerekore,” Mr. Oury said.The government called for calm “so that hospital services are not hindered in providing first aid to the injured,” Mr. Oury said.More information will be released when it becomes available, Mr. Oury said.It’s unclear exactly what led to the violence. Agence France-Presse spoke to a witness who said the clashes erupted after a disputed call by a referee that led to fans invading the field.One doctor at the local hospital told Agence France-Presse that the facility and morgue were filling up with bodies.The game was part of a tournament honoring Col. Mamady Doumbouya, Guinea’s military leader, who seized power in 2021.Nzerekore, which has a population of about 200,000 people, is about 555 miles southeast of the capital.This is a developing story. More

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      A Whole New Ballgame

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      What soccer, a recent foray into coaching and years of writing this newsletter taught our columnist about the game, and himself.A few weeks ago, the soccer team that occupies rather more of my thoughts than is healthy had a problem. Well, strictly speaking, it had several. One was that all of the players, including my son, were under the age of 7, which it turns out is something of a tactical limitation. Another was that I had been roped into being one of the coaches.More urgently, though, we kept conceding goals. Avoidable goals. Silly goals. Goals wrapped up in gift paper and presented to the opposition, accompanied by a heartfelt card.Technically, when children start playing formal soccer in England — at the age of 6 — the games are not competitive. There is no league table. The results are not even recorded. That arrangement is not quite the same, though, as nobody knowing what the results are. And it was apparent, to anyone who could count, that our results were not good.It was at this point that I hatched a plan to limit the damage. It seemed to me quite a good plan. We had spent two years encouraging the children to play soccer the way it is meant to be played. They pass out from the back. They take a touch. They rely on their technique to avert danger. They express themselves.But it had become very clear, very quickly, that this approach had not really survived first contact with reality. We were conceding goals in great bucket-loads because we kept creating problems for ourselves: dribbling across our own box, passing aimlessly into the middle of a congested field, turning not into space but into trouble. We kept losing games. And while winning or losing was not supposed to matter, we worried that, sooner or later, the children would start losing enthusiasm.What we needed, I thought, was just a dash of the ancient wisdom that had been passed down to me, when I was taking my first tentative steps in soccer. Geoff — my first and only youth coach, whose son took all the free kicks and corners — had given us two instructions, and only two: Play the way you are facing and, if in doubt, boot it out.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Gaza War Strains Europe’s Efforts at Social Cohesion

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      Institutions meant to promote civility, from soccer to song, have come under severe stress from rising antisemitism and anti-immigrant politics.The various institutions of postwar Europe were intended to keep the peace, bring warring peoples together and build a sense of continental attachment and even loyalty. From the growth of the European Union itself to other, softer organizations, dealing with culture or sports, the hope has always been to keep national passions within safe, larger limits.But growing antisemitism, increased migration and more extremist, anti-immigrant parties have led to backlash and divisions rather than comity. The long war in Gaza has only exacerbated these conflicts and their intensity, especially among young Muslims and others who feel outraged by Israeli bombings and by the tens of thousands of deaths in Gaza, a large proportion of them women and children.Those tensions were on full display in the recent violence surrounding a soccer match between an Israeli and a Dutch team in Amsterdam, where the authorities are investigating what they call antisemitic attacks on Israeli fans, as well as incendiary actions by both sides. Amsterdam is far from the only example of the divisions in Europe over the Gaza war and of the challenges they present to European governments.The normally amusing Eurovision Song Contest, which was held this year in Malmo, Sweden, a city with a significant Muslim population, was marred by pro-Palestinian protests against Eden Golan, a contestant from Israel, which participates as a full member.The original lyrics to her song, “October Rain,” in commemoration of the 1,200 Israelis who died from the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, which prompted Israel’s response in Gaza, were rejected by organizers for their political nature, so were altered to be less specific. Her performance was met with booing and jeering from some in the audience, but she did receive a wave of votes from online spectators, pushing her to fifth place.It was hardly the demonstration of togetherness in art and silliness that organizers have always intended.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Attacks on Israeli Soccer Fans in Amsterdam Unfolded

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      Antisemitic assaults on visiting Israeli soccer fans, and incendiary chants and attacks by some Israelis: Here’s what we know so far about the violence in Amsterdam last week.Early Thursday morning, taxi drivers gathered en masse outside Amsterdam’s Holland Casino. Hours before, Israeli soccer fans had stolen and burned a Palestinian flag, while others attacked a cab — and the drivers, the police said, were heeding an online call to “mobilize.”Inside the casino, hundreds of Israeli fans waited for the local police to bring them back to their hotels. There had been confrontations nearby, the authorities said.An Israeli fan who would agree to be identified only by his first name, Barak, said he encountered a young man in the casino with cuts on his hand and face, who had described being ambushed by men on scooters. “All his face was blood,” Barak said in an interview on Friday. The casino said it had fired a security guard after learning of posts he sent later that evening to a chat group. In a screenshot of the exchange posted online, the guard promises to alert others on the thread if Israeli fans “show up again.”“Tomorrow after the game in the night,” someone replies, “part two of Jew hunt.”The attacks near the casino were among the first in a series of assaults on visiting Israeli fans surrounding the Europa League match last week between an Israeli team, Maccabi Tel Aviv, and an Amsterdam-based opponent, Ajax. The Amsterdam authorities are still sorting through what, exactly, happened across the city over that two-day period, including what they have called antisemitic attacks, as well as inflammatory actions by Israeli fans.The events rattled Amsterdam’s Jewish and Muslim communities and drew an international outcry, including from President Biden and the leaders of Israel and the Netherlands. The police are scheduled to present a more detailed account next week, ahead of a hastily called debate in the City Council over antisemitism.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why Thomas Tuchel Was the Right Choice for England. And the Wrong One, Too.

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      An outcry over the hiring of a German to lead England’s national team was predictable. But don’t dismiss every objection out of hand.As a rule of thumb, it pays to look at the cast of characters already arrayed on one side of an argument before deciding to join them. When that list starts with Nigel Farage, swallows up Sam Allardyce and eventually sprawls across the editorial board of The Daily Mail, it should, really, serve as a burning red flag.That all three should have taken roughly the same position on England’s decision to appoint Thomas Tuchel as manager of its men’s national team is not anything approaching a surprise.Allardyce, in his defense, at least made a cogent and relevant case: Hiring a foreigner to lead the English national team could hardly be said to encourage English coaches. Farage and The Mail could not even muster that level of subtlety. Farage, England’s most stubborn bargain-basement populist, just wants the England manager to be English. The Mail seemed especially vexed that the choice was German.Still, as England’s fans tried to define their personal reaction to Tuchel’s arrival, many would — not unreasonably — have concluded that the presence of Farage and the rest clinched the matter. Much of public discourse is underpinned, now, by the belief that our identities are what is known as stacked: that what an individual thinks about abortion, say, is a reliable indicator of their views on gun control.To side with Farage, The Mail and the rest on Tuchel, then, would involve being unwillingly and unwittingly tethered to their views on a variety of subjects. It might, even, be seen to serve as a tacit endorsement of their positions on immigration, say, or who is and who is not eligible to claim English national identity.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Champions League’s New Format Creates a New Reality

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      This year more than ever is showing that the competition means different things to different clubs. And that’s a good thing.Lille’s players lingered on the field at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy, communing with their fans. The stands were still full, long after the game had finished, and the party was showing no signs of ending. Ethan Mbappé — famous name, if not quite a familiar face — wore the broad grin of a man who was going to take considerable pleasure in messaging his brother later.His team had enjoyed a mixed start to the season. Lille sat fifth in Ligue 1, France’s top division: three wins, two losses and a draw. Quite what the next few months would bring was not yet clear. There would not, in all likelihood, be a title challenge in the league. Competition for a Champions League slot was looking intense.And now, all of a sudden, everything had gathered into cold, sharp focus. Whatever else happened during this campaign, whether those early victories heralded the start of something or whether those defeats were harbingers of trouble, this would always be remembered as the year that Lille beat Real Madrid.Lille’s victory in the Champions League on Wednesday ended Real Madrid’s 36-match unbeaten streak.Francois Lo Presti/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOver the course of its first two rounds, it has been difficult to know what to make of the new format for the Champions League. There is some firm ground: The competition’s new guise is, we can agree, a monument both to the self-interest of Europe’s most powerful teams and the cravenness of the bodies charged with acting as custodians of soccer’s health.It has been expressly designed, after all, to bow to the incessant demands of the continent’s aristocrats. They wanted more games against each other. Thanks to UEFA’s spinelessness, they got them.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Robert Lewandowski on Fame, Frailty and the One Voice He Won’t Ignore

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      Much has been said about the increased workload of top players, the Barcelona star said, but the mental toll of expectations and fame is just as likely to lead to burnout.This week’s newsletter has been subject to a friendly takeover by my friend, colleague and occasional padel partner Tariq Panja, who spent some time talking to Robert Lewandowski a few weeks ago. The fruits of their conversation are below. But because I dislike not getting the chance to sound off on things on a regular basis, and would otherwise have to bore my wife with my thoughts on the #Barclaysman phenomenon, I’ve contributed some thoughts after his bit.Robert Lewandowski has been famous for a long time. And as one of the most successful players of his generation in the world’s most popular sport, he knows that attention comes with the job. But he is also a dad.So, like most elite soccer players, he must do a lot of planning and preparation when it comes to something as simple as going out for a stroll with his family, particularly if he leaves Castelldefels, the exclusive coastal enclave near Barcelona where he now lives.Over the years, he developed a tool kit for outings. Sunglasses and a cap are standard, even if they probably won’t fool the fans liable to mob him. But now any such outing also includes a preliminary chat with the person who decides how much Lewandowski can, and should, interact with the public: his daughter Klara.“We have an agreement that she can always tell me, ‘Yeah, you can do this’ or, ‘No,’ if she’s feeling stressed,” Lewandowski said in a recent interview. “Because for the kids, it’s not a normal situation.”In Europe, players of Lewandowski’s caliber, even as he nears the end of a trophy-laden career, are catnip for hordes of selfie-seeking soccer fans. So having a few hours out with the family can often mean striking a balance between meeting the needs of an eager and demanding fan base, especially one as large and as passionate as Barcelona’s, and those of his young family.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Premier League Preview: Here We Go Again

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      The European soccer season is back. Here are the top story lines to watch this season.You will, in all likelihood, have heard the sentence already. You will certainly hear it on Friday, at least once, and then over and over again on Saturday and Sunday, delivered by every pearly toothed host and every red-faced pundit and every eager-voiced commentator. The Premier League, they will say, is back.This is not true, of course. It is an anachronism, a throwback to the days when soccer had the common decency to take the summer off and hand center stage over to other sports for a while. The Premier League — all club soccer, in fact — cannot be back, as detailed last week, because it never really goes away.Chelsea spent the Olympics signing vast quantities of South American teenagers for reasons that remain moderately opaque. Several of its domestic and European rivals used the European Championship and the Copa América as the perfect cover for hiring and firing sundry, essentially interchangeable managers.Soccer, club soccer, is a juggernaut, and the thing about juggernauts is that they do not stop rolling. They do not rest up for a few weeks, take the summer off, have a bit of a rest. That sense of permanence, that omnipresence, is what has turned soccer into less of a pastime and more of a lifestyle choice, a strikingly lucrative cultural touchstone.And yet, by some sleight of hand, those few days before a new campaign begins do somehow feel like the start of a different day. No matter how hard-boiled, how cynical, how self-aware an observer you have become, there is something about the prospect of the new season — new jerseys being worn and new signings being fielded in new stadiums, bright in summer sunshine — that captures the imagination.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More