Worldcrunch
Updated September 23, 2024 at 11:30 a.m. On this day in 2017, women were allowed to enter the King Fahd International Stadium in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for the first time ever. The women attended the stadium’s 87th anniversary celebrations and a qualifying World Cup match. Were there any restrictions or conditions for women attending the […]
With wars around the world arousing political strife and affecting the personal lives of many athletes, it seems the Paris 2024 Games could be overrun by geopolitics. Polish journalist Radoslaw Leniarski, an 11-time Olympic Games correspondent, explains what is, and isn’t, different this time.
Updated June 29, 2024 at 11:30 a.m. Brazil won their first World Cup on this day in 1958 which was hosted by Sweden with the final match held at the Rasunda Stadium in Solna. Who did Brazil beat in the final to win their first World Cup? In the final match, Brazil defeated Sweden by […]
January 14-15 OUR WEEKLY NEWS QUIZ What do you remember from the news this week? 1. Where was former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro while his supporters were storming government buildings in Brasilia? 2. What was found in Washington, D.C., that left U.S. President Joe Biden “surprised”? 3. Which world record did Elon Musk just […]
January 7-8 OUR WEEKLY NEWS QUIZ What do you remember from the news this week? 1. Who did Russia blame for a deadly Ukrainian missile strike on Makiivka that it said killed 89 servicemen? 2. U.S. Republican leader Kevin McCarthy repeatedly failed to secure enough support in the ballots to win the House of […]
Reflections from a still celebrating padre …
December 24-25 The Worldcrunch Today & Le Weekend crew is taking a short break, and will be back on Jan. 2, 2023. As always, we’ll continue publishing new stories through the holidays on Worldcrunch! Happy end of the year to all ? OUR WEEKLY NEWS QUIZ What do you remember from the news this […]
It’s been hailed as one of the most riveting finals in World Cup history ever. After 120 minutes of improbable reversal of fortunes, Argentina beat France on penalties. Argentine striker Lionel Messi scored twice (plus a penalty in the decisive showdown), securing his status of one of the sport’s all-time greats. This is how newspapers […]
December 17-18 OUR WEEKLY NEWS QUIZ What do you remember from the news this week? 1. Which South American country is in turmoil following the removal and arrest of its president, Pedro Castillo? 2. What is the nickname of Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout who was exchanged for U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner in […]
The World Cup in Qatar has been political on many fronts. Right now, with the event in an Arab country for the first time and Morocco as the first Arab team to make the quarterfinals, the Palestinian question is now very much on the agenda.
This is the Argentine author’s fourth world cup abroad, but his first as the father of two young boys.
Soccer is a useful political tool for dictatorships. But Qatar is able to milk the World Cup as much as possible because the sport is infected by unbridled capitalistic greed.
While retreating from Kherson, Russian troops forcibly removed more than 2,500 Ukrainians from prison colonies and pre-trial detention centers in the southern region. Those removed included prisoners as well as a large number of civilians who had been held in prisons during the occupation, according to the Ukrainian human rights organization Alliance of Ukrainian Unity. […]
The deaths of migrant worker deaths and Qatar’s poor human rights record will linger over the upcoming World Cup. Foreign powers need to intervene to help the situation of those trapped in slavery-like conditions.
The Qatar World Cup has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons. However, the newly constructed city of Lusail in the country makes one thing clear: the West is not the target audience for this World Cup. Qatar has different, even bigger ambitions.
The warning comes after Washington’s latest military aid package to Ukraine.
From Afghanistan to Argentina, women soccer players are pushing against the grain to earn equal treatment and respect in a growing, global sport.
-OpEd- In Germany, there are many people who criticize the policies of Recep Tayyip Erdogan — rightly so. Many of his toughest critics here are Germans with Turkish roots, who also denounce the German government’s political deals with Ankara. And many of them are now expressing their solidarity with Mesut Özil, the German-Turkish player who […]
The victory of Les Bleus is a real boost for a nation that has been the repeated target of Islamist terror. Still it is not a magic solution to its many divisions.
France has brought home its second World Cup trophy, with a 4-2 victory over Croatia in the final in Moscow. For OneShot, we chose the image for the history books, accompanied by some locker-room singing … that maybe we should have left in the locker room!? [youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/a7T_w0sK5Go expand=1] World Cup Champion France, Frozen In Time — © Ulrik Pedersen / ZUMA / OneShot OneShot is a new digital format to tell the story of a single photograph in an immersive one-minute video. Follow OneShot:
Ask anybody with a minimum of knowledge about either the sport or the country, and they’ll tell you that soccer in Brazil is like a religion. This truism becomes all the more true every four years, at the FIFA World Cup. But some of us also know that Brazil is a very religious country as […]
The last time China made a World Cup appearance in 2002, the team lost all three group matches and went out without a single goal. While Chinese fans are mad about soccer, their own national team rarely gives them reason to rejoice. But there are grand pl
SÃO PAULO — Daniel Okamoto has bad memories of the 2014 World Cup, but not because of Brazil’s historical and humiliating 7-1 defeat to Germany. “My company went virtually bankrupt because of the World Cup,” the businessman says. The firm, Dahouse Events, won a modest bid for a 300,000-real contract ($83,000) to make costumes for […]
DUBAI — Unlike other places, where building a new subway line can wind up taking a decade or more, the United Arab Emirates offers a very different approach to major public project deadlines: It meets them. This Gulf metropolis has made itself a regional and global hub for commerce, financial services and investment, and virtually […]
The 2016 Summer Olympic Games start next Aug. 5 in Rio de Janeiro with too many projects behind schedule. One particular environmental hurdle looks insurmountable.
The widening corruption probe into FIFA looks like a devastating earthquake for the “beautiful game,” with the epicenter in Zurich, where police arrested seven senior officials of the world soccer body just two days before the controversial FIFA chief was set to be chosen for a record fifth term. But the reverberations of the U.S. […]
Media in emerging economies must start to challenge the dominant voice of the Western press, argues Xinhua News Agency chief Li Congjun in a guest column for America Economía.
The Mannschaft’s World Cup winning team was the perfect embodiment of what Germany hopes to be perceived as — a mix of artistry, perseverance, solidarity and individual freedom.
After its heart-stopping World Cup defeat to Germany, the expression of what the national team and the beautiful game mean to the people of Argentina.
Germany’s 1-0 win over Argentina was front-page news around the world. Here are some highlights: Argentina: Belgium: Brazil: Germany: Mexico: Spain: UK: Uruguay: U.S.: Venezuela:
With Pope Benedict XVI’s historic resignation last year, and the subsequent election of Pope Francis, the Catholic Church has the rare circumstance of two living pontiffs. (In the past, popes had almost always reigned until death.) Now, with the World Cup soccer final set between Benedict’s native Germany and Francis’ native Argentina, Worldcrunch’s photoshopping maestro […]
After the heartbreaking loss to host Brazil, a diehard Chile fan ponders the real meaning of the World Cup in a world with so much else to worry about.
The Sunni jihadist group ISIS continues to conquer territory in Iraq, while its leaders have declared an Islamic caliphate — in a bold bid for power across the Muslim world. But back in Syria, where ISIS has been a growing presence for more than a year, a citizen-reporter for an independent Syrian news site recounts […]
SAO PAULO — Asking “How are you?” in English was the way Igor Mendes, a 26-year-old car dealer, approached Marcela Paes one night in Vila Madalena, the “in” district for Brazilians and foreigners enjoying La Copa in Sao Paulo. Unaware that Marcela is a reporter and fluent in English, he presented himself as a Scot. […]
Newsmaking images that caught our eye.
A Latin American call for the global soccer chief to step aside amidst ongoing corruption investigations. Yet even a Blatter-less FIFA would still have a long road to rectitude.