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A man wielding an ax on a street crowded with soccer fans was shot by the police on Sunday in Hamburg, Germany, only hours before the city was to host a game at the European Championship. The man threatened police officers with “a pickax and an incendiary device,” a police spokesman said on Sunday. The incident took place in Hamburg’s entertainment district, a section of the city known as the Reeperbahn that is filled with restaurants and bars. At the time, the area was packed with thousands of fans who had arrived to see the Netherlands play Poland on Sunday afternoon. According to a spokeswoman for the Hamburg police and videos of the incident posted online, the man came out of a small restaurant with a small, double-bladed ax and a firebomb and threatened officers nearby.

Persons: “ Organizations: European, Sunday, Hamburg Locations: Hamburg, Germany, Netherlands, Poland

☆ The Most Important Man in Germany This Month Is Its Soccer Coach
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-14 | by ( Rory Smith | Christopher F. Schuetze | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A little more than a week before the start of this summer’s European soccer championship, one of Germany’s national broadcasters aired a documentary examining the national team’s history through its multiculturalism. Or, rather, the lack of it. While the thrust of the film, “Unity and Justice and Diversity,” focused on the progress that Germany had made, it has reverberated inside the country, and beyond, for a very different reason. Joshua Kimmich, a senior member of Germany’s national team, described the survey as racist. The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, declared, “We will not allow ourselves to be divided.” They, and many others, focused not on the findings but on the decision to ask the question in the first place.

Persons: ”, Philipp Awounou, Joshua Kimmich, Olaf Scholz, “ Organizations: Justice, ARD, German national Locations: European, Germany

☆ Another Summer to Remember? For Germany: So Far, So Great.
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-14 | by ( Rory Smith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The arc of Philipp Lahm’s career had the rhythm of someone meticulously ticking items off a bucket list. He won eight German championships with Bayern Munich, the team he supported as a child. A year later, he captained Germany to World Cup glory. Yet for everything else he has achieved, Lahm will always be remembered in his homeland as the man who ushered in the Sommermärchen, the fairy-tale summer, of 2006. All that year’s World Cup became, all it meant to Germany then and all it means to Germany now, started with his goal in the opening game, here in Munich, against Costa Rica.

Persons: Philipp Lahm’s, Lahm Organizations: Bayern Munich Locations: Germany, Munich, Costa Rica

☆ The Champions League’s Most Bitter Rivalry May Be Off the Field
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-01 | by ( Rory Smith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Real Madrid had the celebratory jerseys ready as soon as its place in the Champions League final was secured. As the players raced to one another, exulting in yet another heart-stopping, nerve-shredding win, staff members sprinted onto the field after them, ensuring each star was correctly attired. The shorthand ran the risk of coming across as hubris: Real Madrid’s 15th Champions League title was still one win away. The Champions League, as far as the team that has won it twice as often as anyone else is concerned, very much belongs to Real Madrid. That belief has put the Spanish club at the center of a power struggle whose stakes include nothing less than control over the future of European soccer.

Persons: Florentino Pérez, Aleksander Ceferin Organizations: Real, Champions League Locations: Real Madrid, Spanish

☆ Borussia Dortmund and the Idea That Anything Is Possible
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-31 | by ( Rory Smith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Not quite five years ago, while he was on international duty with Germany, Can’s phone rang. On the other end of the line was an executive with Juventus, the Italian team he had joined the previous season. They had what might be described as a curt conversation, though either one of those words might be pushing it. He had turned down the chance to leave Juventus because he believed he would play in the Champions League, he said. And now he had been told he would not, in a “phone call that did not even last a minute.”

Persons: —, — Emre, curt, Maurizio Sarri, ” Organizations: Borussia Dortmund’s, unlikeliest Champions, Wembley, Juventus, Champions League Locations: Germany

☆ Why We Should Have Nice Things
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-24 | by ( Rory Smith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

All being well, Bayer Leverkusen will end this season with one record, two trophies and just three haunting, existential questions. Could Leverkusen’s manager, Xabi Alonso, have steered his team to an unbeaten treble? Leverkusen has, after all, illuminated the European season like no other team. It has overtaken Benfica as the owner of the longest unbeaten run in European soccer since World War I. And it has done it all, in case nobody has mentioned it, in Alonso’s first full season in management.

Persons: Exequiel Palacios, Ademola, Granit Xhaka, Edmond Tapsoba, Xabi Alonso Organizations: Bayer Leverkusen, Europa League, Leverkusen, Atalanta, Benfica Locations: Dublin

☆ Jürgen Klopp and Liverpool, a Love Affair in Street Art and Silverware
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-19 | by ( Rory Smith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On Thursday, he and his players shared one last barbecue at Liverpool’s training facility on the fringe of the city. There is still the looming specter of Sunday, when he will take charge of Liverpool one final time. They have moved him so much that, when asked by the club’s in-house television channel to read a handful, he demurred. Klopp does not pretend to understand, not fully, why there is such a depth of feeling toward him from Liverpool’s fans — the club’s “people,” as he calls them. “I know that if you are Liverpool manager, people like you,” he said.

Persons: Jürgen, Liverpool’s, ”, “, “ It’s, Klopp Organizations: Anfield, Liverpool Locations: Liverpool, Anfield

☆ The Premier League’s Asterisk Season
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-17 | by ( Rory Smith | Tariq Panja | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

With five minutes left in his team’s penultimate game of the Premier League season, Manchester City Manager Pep Guardiola found the tension just a little too much. As a rival striker bore down on his team’s goal, Guardiola — crouching on his haunches on the sideline — lost his balance and toppled over onto his back. Lying on the grass and expecting the worst, he missed what may yet prove to be the pivotal moment in the Premier League’s most enthralling title race in a decade. His effort was parried by goalkeeper Stefan Ortega, sending Manchester City above its title rival Arsenal in the standings and positioning it, if it can win again on Sunday, to become the first English team to win four consecutive championships. “Otherwise, Arsenal is champion.”That the destiny of the championship should have been determined only so late in the season seems fitting for what has, on the surface, been a vintage Premier League campaign.

Persons: Pep Guardiola, Guardiola, —, Stefan Ortega, “ Ortega, ” Guardiola Organizations: Premier League, Manchester City, Premier, Manchester, Arsenal Locations: Manchester City

☆ Taking Games Abroad Won’t Save Your League. Better Title Races Might.
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-17 | by ( Rory Smith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

There is an irony at the heart of the sports-as-entertainment business that most television executives would acknowledge but very few would ever publicly admit. It starts with a network’s committing billions of dollars for the rights to show the competition, and it builds from there. That can be doubled, at least, for a game on foreign soil, once hotels are reserved, equipment transported and flights booked. And then, of course, there is what is still called — though not always that accurately — the talent. A huge amount of time, thought and money goes into those segments: the fevered buildup, the halftime fat-chewing, the postgame bone picking.

Organizations: Broadcasting

☆ What Did P.S.G.’s Money Buy?
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-10 | by ( Rory Smith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

As a final scene it was so fitting that, for a second, it was possible to wonder if Kylian Mbappé had done it on purpose. He had reached the dying embers of Paris St.-Germain’s run in the Champions League. Yet again, the dream of European glory that powered the club for more than a decade had been dashed. Suddenly, here he was, clean through on goal: the best player in the world, the hometown icon who has come to symbolize P.S.G.’s ambition, prowess, excess and hubris, his flashbulb moment at his fingertips. And then, as Dortmund’s defiant back line trailed helplessly in his blistering wake, Mbappé slipped.

Persons: Kylian Mbappé, Mbappé Organizations: Champions League Locations: Paris St

It is the middle of Sunday afternoon, and he has not yet finished his shift at the barbershop. “I took a break for the love of the game,” Mr. Adeshina said. Mr. Adeshina became an Arsenal fan in the late 1990s, when Nigerian cable channels first began broadcasting the Premier League. If anything, though, Mr. Adeshina says his connection to the team is even deeper now. “He’s Yoruba, I’m Yoruba,” Mr. Adeshina said, in a tone rather softer than that with which he celebrated his idol’s first-half goal against Spurs.

Persons: Mayowa, “, Mr, Adeshina, Germain, Nwankwo Kanu Organizations: Arsenal, Real, Premier League, Tottenham Hotspur, Spurs Locations: Real Madrid, Barcelona, Paris, Nigeria, London

☆ Dortmund, Bayern Munich and the Siren Song of Yesterday
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-03 | by ( Rory Smith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In those few minutes after Niclas Füllkrug had scored, as the Yellow Wall swayed and roared, Borussia Dortmund must have felt the stirring of some distant memory. Waves of attacks pounded down on Paris St.-Germain, now dizzied and wearied. This is how it used to be, or at least some approximation of it, back in the days when Dortmund made Europe shake. More than a chance, really: Dortmund may live to regret that a second goal never came. had enough opportunities to hint at its threat, too, hitting the post twice in the space of 10 seconds at one point.

Persons: Niclas Füllkrug, Germain, Gregor Kobel, Mats Hummels, Jadon Sancho, Karim Adeyemi Organizations: Borussia Dortmund, Paris St, Champions League, Dortmund Locations: Paris, Europe, Dortmund

☆ Lessons in Democracy From F.C. Porto
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-26 | by ( Rory Smith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Few, though, will prove quite so virulent — or offer quite such an instructive case study of the state of democracy in 2024 — as the one to decide who gets to be president of F.C. Like dozens of clubs around Europe, Porto — one of the three great houses of Portuguese soccer — is owned by its members. Only a small percentage of members vote. The choice is usually between two essentially indistinguishable old men, when there is a choice at all. Until the last round of elections, in 2020, Porto had been a democracy in only the most nominal sense.

Persons: — Organizations: European Union, F.C, Porto Locations: Porto, Europe, Porto —

☆ This Town Had a Reputation Problem. Premier League Soccer Changed Things.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-24 | by ( Rory Smith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

As the announcement trilled out over Kenilworth Road, the jumble of rusted metal and peeling paint that Luton Town F.C. At the start of the sentence, it was little more than the traditional polite welcome to the stadium for that evening’s visiting team, Manchester City. By the end, though, the voice of the announcer seemed overcome by what sounded a little like awe. Cup, the champions of England and the champions of Europe.” Luton seems to be having a hard time believing the company it now keeps. Fifteen years ago, Luton Town had been relegated to the fifth tier of English soccer, a world away from the power and the prestige of the Premier League.

Persons: Luton Organizations: Luton Town F.C, Manchester, Luton Town, Premier League Locations: Kenilworth, Manchester City, Luton, England, Europe

☆ Why Don’t More People Resent Manchester City?
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-19 | by ( Rory Smith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Silence swept from one end of the Etihad Stadium to the other, a wave of dawning realization. The background noise that a crowd cannot help but generate — the rumble and murmur of 20,000 separate conversations — fell away. For most of Wednesday evening, the natural operating assumption was that Manchester City would advance past Real Madrid and reach yet another Champions League semifinal. Pep Guardiola’s City team was creating so many chances that victory felt, really, like a statistical inevitability. City went close with a chance again.

Persons: —, City, Bernardo Silva, Mateo Kovacic Organizations: Etihad, Manchester City, Real, League, Guardiola’s City Locations: Real Madrid

☆ A Perpetual Bridesmaid Gets the Crown, and Germany (Mostly) Likes the Look
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-13 | by ( Rory Smith | Christopher F. Schuetze | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Executives at Bayer Leverkusen, the longstanding but habitually middleweight German soccer team, have been fielding the messages since at least February. Some were delivered in person, a quiet blessing after yet another victory. Others came via WhatsApp, unsolicited and unexpected notes from peers and acquaintances and, to their occasional surprise, traditional foes. But as the German league season gathered pace, plenty wanted to laud Leverkusen’s impending achievement: It was, with each victory, getting closer and closer to being crowned national champion for the first time. Leverkusen will, this weekend, surge over the line and end a run of Bayern championships that stretches back more than a decade.

Persons: laud Leverkusen’s Organizations: Bayer Leverkusen, Soccer, Rivals, Bayern Munich, Bayern, Werder Bremen Locations: German

☆ Coaches Have to Be Salesmen, Too
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-12 | by ( Rory Smith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

West Ham, in the end, could not quite withstand the barrage. Bayer Leverkusen’s first goal — a Jonas Hofmann shot that picked its way through a thronged penalty area — broke its resistance. The club’s Europa League adventure will likely extend no further than the quarterfinals. Xabi Alonso, its estimable young coach, remains on course to claim a treble — league, cup, Europa League — in his first full season. West Ham is starting to feel at home on the continent: It reached the Europa League semifinals in 2022, losing out to Eintracht Frankfurt, and then beat Fiorentina to claim the Europa Conference League trophy in 2023.

Persons: Bayer Leverkusen’s, Jonas Hofmann, Victor Boniface, Xabi Alonso Organizations: Europa League, Leverkusen, League —, Premier League, Newcastle United, Chelsea, Manchester United, Eintracht Frankfurt, Fiorentina, Europa Conference League Locations: West Ham, Europe

☆ A Soccer Team Stopped Charging for Tickets. Should Others Do the Same?
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-10 | by ( Rory Smith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Neither Paris F.C. There was, really, precious little to remember at all: no goals, few shots, little drama — a drab, rain-sodden stalemate between the French capital’s third-most successful soccer team and the country’s sleepiest giant. Last November, Paris F.C. There were a couple of exceptions: a nominal fee for fans supporting the visiting team, and market rates for those using hospitality suites. Everyone else, however, could come to the Stade Charléty — the compact stadium that Paris F.C.

Organizations: Paris F.C, Stade Charléty

☆ Is Soccer’s Model Club Actually … Real Madrid?
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-05 | by ( Rory Smith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Florentino Pérez had a contented smile on his face, and with good reason. He had just watched Spain and Brazil share a thrilling, freewheeling draw at the stadium he has expensively, lavishly, reappointed. Now, Pérez, Real Madrid’s all-powerful president, found himself in a whitewashed tunnel, presented — completely by chance, obviously — with his favorite kind of photo opportunity. To one side stood Vinícius Júnior, Real Madrid’s standard-bearer and main event, dutifully introducing the man who pays his wages to his Brazil teammates. But Pérez’s focus was on Endrick, the 17-year-old star-in-waiting who will complete his long-awaited move to the Santiago Bernabéu this summer.

Persons: Florentino Pérez, —, Vinícius Júnior, Endrick, Pérez, “ We’re, ” Locations: Spain, Brazil, Santiago

☆ Stop Looking for Flaws in the Premier League Contenders
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-29 | by ( Rory Smith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The commentators may mention it in passing, but their tone will indicate that the hyperbole is not to be punctured. And if Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta try to point it out before Manchester City faces Arsenal on Sunday, it will be viewed as gamesmanship, or deflection, or unapologetic sophistry. Still, it is true: The meeting between City and Arsenal will not provide the deciding, defining moment in the Premier League’s most compelling title race in a decade. It is a game of glowering significance and considerable heft, of course, a chance for one team to clear a towering, looming hurdle. There is a better than even chance that by the time the whistle is blown at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday night, neither of them will be top of the league.

Persons: Pep Guardiola, Mikel Arteta Organizations: Manchester City, Arsenal, Premier, Etihad Locations: City

☆ TV’s Saviors Are Here, and They’re Wearing Spandex
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-29 | by ( Rory Smith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

First it was the streamers: the seismic arrival of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+ and the rest, offering television’s previously captive viewers the chance to watch seemingly whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. Then TikTok joined YouTube in conclusively shattering what was once a unified small-screen audience into a billion individual fragments. On both sides of the Atlantic, ratings plummeted. Viewers drifted away. Now, in Britain, a group of bodybuilders, personal trainers and sundry gym rats have stepped unto the breach.

Persons: TikTok, —, Gladiators ” Organizations: Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple, YouTube, Gladiators, BBC Locations: Britain

☆ Where’s the Next Generation of Great Coaches?
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-15 | by ( Rory Smith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Greek triumph came a few weeks after Porto, led by a charismatic young coach with hair more pepper than salt, lifted the Champions League trophy. That was after Werder Bremen finished the season as champion of Germany and Valencia secured its second Spanish title in three years. The compilation clip could, at a push, be used as a sort of generational Rorschach test. Werder Bremen should be able to win the Bundesliga. You might not want to watch Greece win the Euros again, but it was nice that it happened.

Persons: craven, Kate Middleton, —, pang Organizations: Greece, European, Champions League, Werder Bremen, Valencia, Caldas, Copa Libertadores, Bundesliga, Porto Locations: Porto, Germany, Colombian, Europe

☆ The Best Player in the Premier League? Look Deeper.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-08 | by ( Rory Smith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Pep Guardiola would, in an unguarded moment, probably concede that he has a slight tendency toward hyperbole. With eyes wide and voice breathless, he will sing the praises of some hopelessly overmatched opponent his Manchester City team has just beaten by 6-1, his players’ jerseys untainted by sweat. “Guys,” he will say, “guys, they are so good. The likeliest explanation is that it is just who Guardiola is: passionate and intense and deeply enthusiastic, still, about his sport. There might be just a dash of noblesse oblige in there, too, a little well-intentioned clemency from soccer’s great conqueror.

Persons: Pep Guardiola, breathless, Guardiola, soccer’s Organizations: Manchester City

☆ Want to Lose a Lot of Money, Fast? Buy a Small Soccer Team in England.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-24 | by ( Rory Smith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Few industries are quite as appealing or as prestigious as English soccer, and Mr. Thompson has a piece of it. But while his team might be small, Mr. Thompson is of the view that it is, at least, as perfectly formed as any minor-league English soccer club could hope to be. Mr. Thompson has spent considerable sums of money modernizing the bathrooms, the club shop and the private boxes. “We have done most of the hard yards,” Mr. Thompson said. After a cancer scare last year led him to reassess his priorities, Mr. Thompson has, reluctantly, decided that he has to “hand the baton” to someone else.

Persons: Geoff Thompson, Thompson, South Shields, Mr Organizations: Shields F.C, Premier League, English Locations: South

☆ Want to Play in Asia’s Champions League? It Will Cost You.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-23 | by ( Rory Smith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

At least nobody can accuse Asia’s soccer authorities of failing to sweat the small stuff. can still find the time to dictate precisely which water bottles, with which labels, fans should be allowed to carry into stadiums. That kind of attention to detail should reassure you that soccer’s future — from Beirut to Beijing, and Ulaanbaatar to Hobart — is in safe hands. Unfortunately, that is not quite the picture that emerges from a report, commissioned by soccer’s global players’ union, FIFPro, assessing the benefits and shortcomings of Asia’s most prestigious club competition, the Asian Champions League. Instead, the report documents a tournament that acts as an almost perfect microcosm of soccer’s general direction across the globe.

Persons: Hobart — Organizations: Asian Football Confederation, ’, Asian Champions League Locations: —, Beirut, Beijing, Ulaanbaatar, Hobart

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