DOHA, Qatar: A cold virus is running through the France squad ahead of the World Cup final against Argentina on Sunday, affecting at least three players in the squad

Coach Didier Deschamps said two players with symptoms, defender Dayot Upamecano and midfielder Adrien Rabiot, were isolated earlier this week and didn’t play in France’s 2-0 semifinal win over Morocco.

Rabiot wasn’t in the lineup in Wednesday’s match at Al Bayt stadium. Upamecano was in the lineup as a substitute but didn’t play. Deschamps said Upamecano was recovering from “three difficult days” since playing in the quarterfinals against England on Saturday.

“However, we have four days until the next game, so he should be available for Sunday,” the coach said, adding back-up winger Kingsley Coman had also felt feverish.

He insisted he expects all his players to be healthy for the final against Argentina.

“It’s ’flu season now, and in that sense, we have to be careful,” he said. “And also, the players have put in a huge shift and their immune system might be a little run down.”

France has been training outdoors in Qatar and Deschamps noted the “use of air conditioners may also affect” how the virus is circulating, echoing comments earlier in the tournament from the Brazil camp.

Seven of the eight World Cup stadiums cool the air at field level while interiors of buildings and transport in Qatar are routinely air-conditioned.

Switzerland also had an outbreak of heavy colds and had two starters missing for a decisive group-stage game against Serbia.

The daytime heat has settled at around 25-27 Celsius (77-81 Fahrenheit) for the final week of the month-long tournament which started with temperatures in the low-30s (high 80s).

The first World Cup to be played in November and December was moved from the usual scheduling in June and July when temperatures in Qatar routinely rise above 40 C (104 F)

“The temperatures have dropped in the last few days, and you always need to be careful,” Deschamps said. “Regarding the virus, we’re not worried, really.”

BEIJING: Facing a surge in COVID-19 cases, China is setting up more intensive care facilities and trying to strengthen hospitals as it rolls back anti-virus controls that confined millions of people to their homes, crushed economic growth and set off protests. 

President Xi Jinping’s government is officially committed to stopping virus transmission, the last major country to try. But the latest moves suggest the ruling Communist Party will tolerate more cases without quarantines or shutting down travel or businesses as it winds down its “zero-COVID” strategy.

A Cabinet meeting called Thursday for “full mobilization” of hospitals including adding staff to ensure their “combat effectiveness” and increasing drug supplies, according to state media. Officials were told to keep track of the health of everyone in their area aged 65 and older.

It isn’t clear how much infection numbers have increased since Beijing last week ended mandatory testing as often as once a day in many areas. But interviews and social media accounts say there are outbreaks in businesses and schools across the country. Some restaurants and other businesses have closed because too many employees are sick.

The virus testing site in Beijing’s Runfeng Shuishang neighbourhood shut down because all its employees were infected, the neighbourhood government said Saturday on its social media account. “Please be patient,” it said.

Official case numbers are falling, but those no longer cover large parts of the population after mandatory testing ended Wednesday in many areas. That was part of dramatic changes that confirmed Beijing was trying gradually to join the United States and other governments that ended travel and other restrictions and are trying to live with the virus.

On Sunday, the government reported 10,815 new cases, including 8,477 without symptoms. That was barely one-quarter of the previous week’s daily peak above 40,000 but only represents people who are tested after being admitted to hospitals or for jobs in schools and other higher-risk sites.

Shaanxi province in the west has set aside 22,000 hospital beds for COVID-19 and is ready to increase its intensive care capacity by 20% by converting other beds, the Shanghai news outlet The Paper reported, citing Yun Chunfu, an official of the provincial health commission. Yun said cities are “accelerating the upgrading” of hospitals for “critically ill patients.”

“Each city is required to designate a hospital with strong comprehensive strength and high treatment level” for COVID-19 cases, Yu was cited as saying at a news conference.

China has 138,000 intensive care beds, the general director of the Bureau of Medical Administration of the National Health Commission, Jiao Yahui, said at a news conference Friday. That is less than one for every 10,000 people.

Health resources are distributed unevenly. Hospital beds are concentrated in Beijing, Shanghai and other cities on the prosperous east coast. Thursday’s Cabinet statement told officials to make sure rural areas have “fair access” to treatment and drugs.

China’s controls kept its infection rate low but crushed already weak economic growth and prompted complaints about the rising human cost. The official death toll is 5,235, compared with 1.1 million in the United States.

China’s official total case count of 363,072 is up nearly 50% from the Oct. 1 level after a rash of outbreaks across the country.

Protests erupted on November 25 after 10 people died in a fire in Urumqi in the northwest. Internet users asked whether firefighters or people trying to escape were blocked by locked doors or other anti-virus measures. Authorities denied that, but the disaster became a focus of public anger.

Xi’s government promised to reduce the cost and disruption after the economy shrank by 2.6% from the previous quarter in the three months ending in June. That was after Shanghai and other industrial centres shut down for up to two months to fight outbreaks.

Forecasters say the economy probably is shrinking in the current quarter. Imports tumbled 10.9% from a year ago in November in a sign of weak demand. Some forecasters have cut their outlook for annual growth to below 3%, less than half of last year’s robust 8.1% expansion.

It isn’t clear whether any of the changes were a response to the protests.

In a show of official confidence, the No. 2 leader, Premier Li Keqiang, was shown by state media meeting with leaders of the International Monetary Fund and other financial institutions without masks last week in the eastern city of Huangshan. Earlier, Xi skipped a photo-taking session with Russian and Central Asian leaders during a summit in Uzbekistan in September at which the others wore no masks.

Still, health experts and economists say “zero COVID” is likely to stay in place at least through mid-2023 because millions of elderly people need to be vaccinated before restrictions that keep most visitors out of China be lifted. The government launched a campaign last week to vaccinate the elderly, a process that might take months.

Experts warn there still is a chance the ruling party might reverse course and reimpose restrictions if it worries hospitals might be overwhelmed.

Meanwhile, experts cited by state media called on the public to reduce the strain on hospitals by treating mild COVID-19 cases at home and putting off treatment for less serious problems.

Patients are standing in line for up to six hours to get into fever clinics. Accounts on social media say some hospitals turn away patients with problems deemed not serious enough to need urgent treatment.
“Blindly going to the hospital” is depleting resources and might delay treatment for serious cases, “resulting in serious risk,” the vice president of Ruijin Hospital in Shanghai, Chen Erzhen, told The Paper.

“We recommend trying to manage health at home,” Chen said. “Leave medical resources for people who really need treatment.”

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — The fortunes of Portugal’s national team have been inextricably linked with Cristiano Ronaldo for nearly two decades
Ronaldo was in tears as he made his way to the locker room following Portugal’s 1-0 loss to Morocco in the World Cup quarterfinals on Saturday. It remains to be seen if that was the last time the world saw Ronaldo on soccer’s international stage.

If it is, it marks a huge moment for the Portugal team, given Ronaldo is its captain, record scorer and greatest ever player. There’s a chance the team might also have a different coach for the first time since 2014 when qualification for the 2024 European Championship begins in March.

Reaching the quarterfinals was the minimum expected of Portugal considering the depth of talent in its squad. The team sailed through the group phase by winning its opening two games. Coach Fernando Santos rotated most of his starting lineup for the final group-stage match against South Korea, which won 2-1 on a late goal, and then thrashed Switzerland 6-1 in the round of 16.

Despite Morocco’s strong defence and status as the surprise of the tournament, Portugal was still expected to beat the North African nation in the quarterfinals so, in that sense, it is another missed opportunity and probably an overall underperformance by Ronaldo and his team.

The world is waiting to see if the 37-year-old Ronaldo retires from international duty after scoring 118 goals — a record in men’s soccer — and making 196 appearances in his 19 years with the national team. If Ronaldo does continue, most likely it’s only for Euro 2024 and not also for the 2026 World Cup, by which time he will be aged 41.

At 39, centre back Pepe is likely to have played his final major tournament. What’s more in doubt is the future of Santos, who took charge of Portugal in 2014 after four years at the helm of Greece’s national team. He has a contract through 2024 and repeatedly deflected any talk about leaving his post earlier after the loss to Morocco. “I will have a discussion with the (Portuguese soccer federation) president and when we go back to Portugal, we will deal with the issue of the contract,” Santos said.

A future without Ronaldo might be an alarming proposition but there’s talent coming through. Up front, there’s the 21-year-old Gonçalo Ramos, who scored a hat trick against Switzerland when standing in for Ronaldo in his first start for the national team.

There’s much excitement about the development of António Silva, a 19-year-old centre back at Benfica who seems the natural replacement for Pepe — a player more than twice Silva’s age. João Félix is only 23 so has time on his side, while full-backs Diogo Dalot and Nuno Mendes are only 23 and 20, respectively.

With or without Ronaldo, Portugal is the favourite in a kind-looking qualifying group for Euro 2024. Portugal opens group play in March with a home match against Liechtenstein. The other teams in Group J are Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Slovakia and Luxembourg. If Portugal reaches the tournament in Germany, expect the team to be among the favourites — even without its most famous player.

ADELAIDE: Australia completed a series sweep with a lopsided 419-run victory Sunday in the day-night test at the Adelaide Oval, with pace bowlers Mitchell Starc, Scott Boland and Michael Neser snaring three wickets apiece as the West Indies were bundled out for 77 chasing an unlikely 497 to win

West Indies resumed Day 4 at 38-4 with Devon Thomas and Jason Holder each on 8, still needing 459 for an unlikely win with six wickets in hand and six sessions remaining.

It was all over in the opening session, with the tourists losing six wickets for 39 runs. Australia won the first test in Perth by 164 runs and was even more convincing in the second test at the Adelaide Oval, where it remains unbeaten in day-night tests.

The Australians will play South Africa in a three-test series starting next Saturday at the Gabba in Brisbane.

The action was all one-sided on Sunday, with West Indies falling to their worst loss, in terms of runs, to Australia. The West Indies had only one scoring shot before Starc got an edge behind to end the 21-run fifth-wicket partnership by having Thomas (12) caught behind on the last ball of his fourth over.

The veteran left-arm paceman completed another maiden over next and struck again with the first ball of the following over to bowl former skipper Jason Holder (11) with a delivery that swung late and took out off stump as the West Indies slumped to 49-6.

Neser and wicketkeeper Alex Carey combined to take two wickets in an over as the West Indies fell to 76-8. Carey stood up at the stumps and gloved a deflected, juggling catch to remove Roston Chase (13) on the first ball of the over and was up again to catch Joshua Da Silva’s (15) thin edge on the last ball of the over.

Nathan Lyon bowled Alzarri Joseph for a second-ball duck to collect his 450th career test wicket before Neser and Carey combined again to remove No. 11 Marquino Mindley. It was Carey’s sixth catch of the innings.

“A disappointing second game for sure,” West Indies captain Kraigg Brathwaite said. “We thought in the first game we showed some fight … but very disappointing, we didn’t see the fight here at all.”

Brathwaite said the West Indies had the talent to challenge top-ranked Australia but needed to learn from the heavy loss. “It’s for us to believe in ourselves and learn from all the experiences, all the challenges you go through,” he said. “That is a key to going forward and getting better consistently as a test team. A lot of the guys, this was their first time to Australia so the experience would help.”

The West Indies hasn’t had a test win over Australia since 2003 and hasn’t won a test series against the Australians since 1992-93.

At Adelaide, the Australians dominated immediately after stand-in captain Steve Smith won the toss, with Travis Head (175) and Marnus Labuschagne (163) posting big hundreds to help the home team to 511-7 against an injury-depleted West Indies bowling attack before declaring on the second day. Labuschagne, who scored a double-century and a century in Perth last week, was voted player of the series.

Without skipper Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood in the Australian bowling unit, Neser and Boland stepped up, combining with Lyon and Starc to restrict West Indies to 214 in reply. Only Tagenarine Chanderpaul and Anderson Phillip, who were both run out on Day 3, showed genuine composure against the Australian attack in the first innings.

Set a target of 497 after Australia declared its second innings a 199-6, the West Indies’ top order crumbled under lights as Boland took three wickets in an over with the pink ball to have the visitors reeling at 15-3 late Saturday and Starc removed Chanderpaul before stumps.

While Australia’s batters dominated throughout the series, Smith said the bowling group “did the job for us like they’ve done so many times for us in the pink-ball games. We are undefeated and know how to play with the pink ball — it was another good week.”

One by one, Croatia’s players walked up to the spot that would decide their destiny. Find the net or go home. All four of them found the net with unerring accuracy. Alisson Becker had no chance. When the fourth Brazilian player walked up to take what was already a decisive sudden-death penalty, you could feel the tension, even on the TV screen

.Marquinhos had to score to keep Brazil’s dream alive. What stood between him and the dream, though, was the sizable frame of Dominik Livakovic, the man of the match. He had already thwarted multiple Brazilian attempts in normal time apart from keeping out Rodrygo’s first penalty out. The defender hit a daisy-cutter to the keeper’s right but it struck the foot of the post and rebounded safely to spark scenes of unspeakable joy among the Croatian players.Forget the dancing. Forget the dazzling interchange and movement of the previous match. Forget the recency bias. It was always going to be a struggle, like an appointment with a dentist to remove an errant tooth. It is what Croatia do. They suffer. Their opponents also, by extension, have to suffer. In the five knockout-out matches they have featured at the World Cup since 2018, four have gone to extra-time. Three of those, like the one against Japan a few nights ago, ended in penalties. So, it was no surprise that Croatia’s sixth knockout game since the beginning of the 2018 World Cup also went to extra-time. And penalties. In the shootout, Croatia did what they usually do: beat their opponents.

Brazil, this was another World Cup that has slipped away from them. This time, they had the players to win the whole thing. Heck, when they touched in Qatar, they were favourites not on tradition but because of form and the players they had at their disposal.They had displayed brief glimpses, the crowning glory being the 4-1 win over South Korea. But they wanted South Korea to be the starting point of a glorious sixth triumph. Instead, it will now be a footnote in another failed odyssey. The immediate post mortem points to a recent failing of the Selecao in not playing enough European sides.Now, each of their last five World Cup adventures have been cut short at the hands of elite European opposition. Since they beat Germany in the final of the 2002 World Cup, they have lost five times to as many sides. In 2006, it was France (0-1). In 2010, it was Netherlands (1-2). Germany’s 1-7 in 2014 was followed by Belgium’s 1-2 in 2018. Croatia, finalists four years before, came in with one of the most experienced sides. While they did turn up with Luka Modric, Marcelo Brozovic and Mateo Kovacic — arguably the midfield of the tournament — the squad had grown old. Yet, they triumphed.

Brazil had enough chances to win it in normal time but Livakovic kept coming up trumps. Then Neymar finally broke the deadlock with an insouciant piece of skill. Yet, with four minutes left on the clock, Bruno Petkovic found himself all alone on top of the D and his effort breached Alisson’s defences.
10 minutes later, it was all over. Ice in their veins. Brazil, though, were left mulling.

DOHA: The next World Cup will be the biggest ever after world soccer body FIFA took the leap from a 32-team field to 48 teams in 2026.

It means more of football’s so-called “little teams” that didn’t make it to Qatar will be given a chance of a lifetime when the tournament is hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico.

That could be great news for everyone who was entertained by Saudi Arabia’s stirring upset of Lionel Messi’s Argentina at this World Cup, Japan’s two wins over former champions Germany and Spain or Morocco’s humbling of star-studded Belgium and Spain on its way to an unexpected quarterfinal run. More surprises surely await in four years.

Still, it’s not clear to everyone that bigger is better.

While 48 teams might increase the chances of fairytale moments such as Saudi Arabia’s 2-1 win over Argentina in the group stage, there’s also a good chance of the opposite: more one-sided games that may take some of the shine off a tournament that is meant to be the best vs. the best.

Spain 7, Costa Rica 0 also happened at this World Cup. As did England’s 6-2 rout of Iran, France’s 4-1 dismantling of Australia and Qatar becoming the first host country to lose its three group stage matches. FIFA will need to dig even deeper into the lower levels of international football to get from 32 to 48.

“It means that we will have to find 16 more good teams,” said Arsene Wenger, FIFA’s Chief of Global Football Development and a central figure in making a 48-team World Cup workable.

FIFA is still promoting the expansion as an upgrade and good for the global game. All continents will have more slots and FIFA says opening soccer’s marquee event to more of its 211 member countries or territories should have an impact beyond the teams, with the prospect of even more eyes on TV screens and more kids inspired to kick balls across the globe.

“I am convinced that if the teams, the countries have more opportunities to go to the world stage, it will do more for (soccer) development inside that country,” Wenger said.

Qatar’s World Cup is the first in the Middle East and the furthest FIFA has ventured from the game’s heartlands in Europe and South America. That decision has provoked its own harsh criticism but the on-field action might have been a timely advert for the 48-team plan, which FIFA announced in 2017 and has had to defend ever since over doubts about what the exact format will be.

FIFA initially indicated it would be 16 groups of three teams, but that idea was widely criticized. Another option could be 12 groups of four teams. Wenger said FIFA’s decision-making council has not decided yet.

In Qatar, Japan was one of three Asian teams to qualify for the last 16, which had never happened before. African teams collected more points in the group stage than ever. Morocco topped a group containing 2018 World Cup runner-up Croatia and semifinalist Belgium and advanced to the quarterfinals by beating Spain on penalties on Tuesday. Cameroon signed off by beating Brazil, the first time an African team has conquered the five-time champion and soccer’s most celebrated team at a World Cup.

“Just look at how the World Cup is unfolding,” said Senegal coach Aliou Cisse. “It’s not like 30 years ago when the big fish were completely eating the little fish alive.”

Amid Japan’s run in Qatar, winger Takefusa Kubo said “they can’t underestimate Asia.” Ghana coach Otto Addo said Africa deserves its extra places and its teams now have a better chance of going further.
However, the expansion may not have much of an impact on the final outcome of the World Cup.

European and South American teams — the big fish Cisse referred to — have gobbled up every one of the 21 World Cup titles so far, with 12 for Europe and nine for South America. No teams from another continent have made a final in nearly 100 years of World Cup history. Eighty-two out of 84 semifinalists have been European or South American. The United States in 1930 and South Korea in 2002 are the exceptions.

In Qatar, while teams from outside Europe and South America did well in the group stage, only Morocco advanced to the quarterfinals, where it will face Portugal on Saturday. South Korea, Japan, Senegal, the United States and Australia were all eliminated in the round of 16.

Cisse’s Senegal are the African champions but were outclassed 3-0 by England. South Korea, ranked No. 3 in Asia, was knocked out 4-1 by Brazil. South Korea forward Son Heung-min, his country’s one star, said almost in envy: “Look at their players.”

A bigger World Cup does offer clear advancement opportunities for FIFA, though.

Just over 3.5 billion people, more than half the world’s population, watched the 2018 World Cup in Russia, according to FIFA, and the soccer body earned record revenues of $7.5 billion from commercial deals tied to the Qatar World Cup.

With those numbers in the bank from a 32-team tournament, 48 offers the obvious chance to sell World Cup aspirations to more people in more places.

The only significance June 13, 2014 holds for world football is that the 2014 FIFA World Cup began that day in Brazil. For a number of Croatian footballers though, it features the start of a journey that will come full circle when Croatia face Brazil on Friday. 

When Brazil kicked off a home World Cup with a routine 3-1 win against Croatia that day, the latter were but an afterthought. Yet looking back, it was the initiation of a number of members from Croatia’s second golden generation to World Cup football. Starting that day was Luka Modric, who had made the squad when Croatia last qualified for the World Cup in 2006, but had not started a game.

Also in the starters’ list were Ivan Perisic. who scored their only goal against Japan on Monday, Dejan Lovren and Mateo Kovacic. Another starter from Monday Marcelo Brozovic was on the bench while Domagoj Vida was an unused substitute in both matches. 

With the exception of Kovacic somehow, still only 28 every other name from that list will be playing the World Cup for the last time. And the journey in between, when they took Croatia from group stage also-rans to a serious threat to any team in the tournament, has been memorable. 

The highlight, of course, will always be that improbable run to the final of the 2018 edition, when they wore down opponents by taking every knockout game they played beyond regulation time. After two penalty shootout victories and an extra time winner over England, they fell in the final to an imperious France. Their penalty shootout victory against Japan one of the fittest teams of this tournament showed that their reputation for wearing down opponents over two hours is still intact. Brazil would do well to be weary.

Regardless of when their World Cup journey ends, this generation will have redefined what football means to Croatia. Football has always been part of the nation’s psyche the popular legend goes that the Yugoslav wars that birthed the modern Croatian state started with a particularly violent and riot-filled match between the Croatian club Dinamo Zagreb and the Serbian Red Star Belgrade.

Then, in 1998, the newly-formed nation, still finding its place in the world, celebrated with pride as the Croatian side led by Zvonimir Boban and Davor Suker reached the semifinals of the World Cup in France.

That 1998 side is the only competition that this generation faces in the debate over their place in history. “In terms of achievements, both the semi-final in 1998 and the final in 2018 were more than unexpected,” says Dario Brentin, a researcher in sports and politics in the Balkans.

“And both were celebrated equally in Croatia. Arguably, Croatia was politically in a much more difficult political situation compared to 2018 and hence that semi-final had additional political weight. On the other hand, a final is a final, so one could say simply by the fact of taking one step further that the 2018 generation usurped the 1998 generation in the overall hierarchy of Croatian sporting successes.”

One thing is unquestionable though. The current crop has influenced the notion of Croatian national identity every bit as much as that 1998 side. “Unquestionably both events influenced Croatian national identity and have become central in the way Croatians talk about themselves and their country,” says Brentin.

“It has become one of the sacred centres of society and whilst the generation of 1998 might have been instrumental in the establishment of that narrative, the generation of 2018 has made sure that this narrative will remain of significance for the foreseeable future.”

Of course, this debate could very well be set to rest by the time Qatar bids goodbye to the World Cup. All the Croatians need to do is extra-time their way to three more victories.