LAFC claims final spot in Club World Cup with 2-1 victory over Club América in play-in match
LOS ANGELES — Denis Bouanga scored late in extra time and Los Angeles FC dramatically secured the final spot in the FIFA Club World Cup with a 2-1 victory over Club América in a play-in match on Saturday night.
Igor Jesus tied it for LAFC in the 89th minute, slipping through traffic and converting a header for his first goal with his new club.
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Forbes
10 minutes ago
- Forbes
From Rio To The World: Flamengo Targets Global Spotlight In Expanded Club World Cup
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - JUNE 1: Flamengo players enter the pitch prior to the match between ... More Flamengo and Fortaleza as part of Brasileirao 2025 at Maracana Stadium on June 1, 2025 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Photo by) Ask any soccer supporter around the world which Brazilian club is the most famous, and the response will be unanimous: Santos - the seaside club where Pelé became a global star. It's an answer that Flamengo fans may not appreciate. Today, the Rio club is more than just a team, it's a cultural phenomenon - boasting a fan base of over 40 million that follows the team every step of the way. Flamengo is a way of life that transcends social classes, ethnicity, religion and divisions. The Rubro-Negro is considered sacrosanct. Yet abroad, Flamengo barely registers. Soccer fans will remember Flamengo from its 1-0 defeat in the final of the Club World Cup against Liverpool in 2019. That season, the club enjoyed unprecedented success under manager Jorge Jesus whose team played with an attacking flair rarely seen in the Brazilian top flight. Flamengo fans had hoped for a repeat of 1981 when Zico and co. swept past Liverpool, but there was to be no victory this time. 'It was a hell of a year because we won the Copa Libertadores Cup after 38 years,' Flamengo president Luiz Eduardo Baptista, nicknamed BAP, told me. 'So it was a magic year. We prepared ourselves for the Club World Cup in regular fashion. It was the end of the season, so it was pretty much excruciating after almost 75 games. It was hard for us to compete against Liverpool.' This summer, Flamengo returns to the spotlight, participating in the 32-team Club World Cup, a tournament that FIFA hopes will become a flagship tournament and a major source of revenue. While the competition has drawn criticism in Europe due to the congested match calendar and the implications of distributing a $1 billion prize pot, the view in Brazil is different. There, it's seen as a chance to build the Flamengo brand, generate revenue, and win a coveted title. Brazil's calendar is already congested, and the Club World Cup adds further strain. This year, Flamengo is competing in the national league, the Brazilian Cup and the Copa Libertadores. In the first half of the season, Flamengo featured in the local state championship. However, new Brazilian FA president Samir Xaud recently promised to reduce the number of match days in the state championships. In the U.S., Flamengo could play up to seven additional matches. Baptista said: 'The priority is the Brasileirao and Libertadores, but I don't see how the Club World Cup would compete against these other competitions. Flamengo this year may play 81 games. It's a lot. You need to have a bigger squad, different medical care, preparation, and so forth. It's more complicated than in other countries, and I don't believe it's sustainable.' The distribution of the $1 billion prize pool has exacerbated fears of financial inequality in the game in Europe and beyond. In Philadelphia, the Brazilians will face Chelsea in the group stage. The recent Conference League winner reported revenues of $633 million, dwarfing Flamengo's income of more than $173 million ($1 billion reais). In 2022, the club's revenue passed $1 billion reais for the first time, more than the revenues of Crystal Palace, Ajax, Sevilla, and Villarreal, the bottom four of Deloitte's 2022 Football Money League. Still, the gap with Europe's true elite remains huge. That disparity is reflected in the prize money on offer at the Club World Cup: European clubs will receive up to $38.19 million in the group stages while South American clubs get just $15.21 million. 'FIFA had to accommodate all these interests,' said Baptista. 'It's the first time FIFA is doing this. FIFA somehow tries to address the different realities of all these clubs. Considering the clubs and the size of the clubs, there must be a differentiation. Having said that, if the differentiation addressed by FIFA is the best one, you know, only time will tell.' Baptista downplayed the importance of the prize money. He pointed out that Brazil and the U.S. lack a bilateral tax agreement. Flamengo could be taxed twice in its earnings from the Club World Cup - up to 40% of its tournament revenue. The club has been struggling to understand and navigate the complexities of state and federal taxes in the U.S., but Flamengo expects to find a solution by the end of the week. 'The net impact on Flamengo is positive, but not critical. Nothing will change in our life because we are a profitable club in Brazil,' explained Baptista. 'We are probably the biggest club in terms of revenues in Latin America, and by far the number one in Brazil. This year, revenue will probably be 1.5 billion reais, which is roughly $270 to $280 million. The total debt will be between $25 to $30 million. The debt is pretty much under control. So from a liquidity standpoint, we have 6 or 7 months in terms of cash. So, from a financial standpoint, we are in a strong position.' The Club World Cup will boost that position. The 2022 Copa Libertadores winner and current Brazilian league leader also plays Esperance de Tunis and Los Angeles FC in Group D, but the ambitions of Flamengo, a club where braggadocio is part of the DNA, extend well beyond the group stages. European clubs will be at the end of their season, allowing Baptista and his club to dream. He concluded: 'We are excited about it. It's going to be tough, but I'm pretty confident. In every competition Flamengo enters, we hope to be the winner. So hopefully, Flamengo will reach the final and become champions.' In such a scenario, Flamengo would share in some of the global fame Santos still enjoys.
Bloomberg
13 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Trump Condemns Boulder Attack Targeting March to Support Israeli Hostages
President Donald Trump condemned Sunday's attack Boulder, Colorado that targeted a march being held in support of Israeli hostages taken by Hamas. 'Yesterday's horrific attack in Boulder, Colorado, WILL NOT BE TOLERATED in the United States of America,' Trump said Monday on his social-media platform. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shared Trump's thoughts with reporters Monday. One man is under arrest for the attack that injured eight people. (Source: Bloomberg)
Associated Press
13 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Book Review: Michael Luo tells the harrowing story of Chinese exclusion in America
The history of Chinese immigrants in America has always been about much more than one particular ethnic group. As Michael Luo's 'Strangers in the Land: Exclusion, Belonging and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America' demonstrates, understanding America's efforts to keep Chinese laborers out, and the violence enacted against those who stayed in, is essential to understanding the evolution of America's immigration system as we know it today. That's because restrictions against Chinese immigrants represented the first major flex in the modern era of the federal government's power to control its borders. Chinese laborers were the first group to be barred from the entire country based on national origin, and lawsuits involving this group were often major tests of constitutional liberties — most notably the Supreme Court case of Wong Kim Ark in 1898, which established the right to birthright citizenship. Time and time again, the treatment of this minority group served as a test of America's ability to live up to its own ideals of equality. As Massachusetts Sen. George Frisbie Hoar noted when he spoke out against the exclusionary legislation of the 1880s: 'We go boasting of our democracy, and our superiority, and our strength. The flag bears the stars of hope to all nations. A hundred thousand Chinese land in California and everything is changed.... The self-evident truth becomes a self-evident lie.' Luo's book covers over a century of history, from the 1840s to 1965. Immigration from China was largely unfettered at first, and Chinese laborers were essential to building the transcontinental railroad system — a truly epic part of the story, with thrilling descriptions of how men dangled in baskets off 2,000-foot precipices and set off charges that blasted open whole mountains. One witness wrote: 'When the debris had ceased to fall, the echoes were still reporting among the distant hills.' However, unemployment crises in the 1870s led white workers to jump on Chinese labor as the ultimate economic scapegoat. Chinese workers faced near-constant hate and harassment, ranging from the daily humiliation of stone-throwing children to outright massacres by angry mobs. Luo spends chapter after chapter meticulously documenting the disturbing details of 19th-century pogroms and race riots against Chinese communities in places like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver and Seattle. Despite the ugly violence, Luo also takes care to document the actions of good men and women who stood up to the mob. Take Charles Andrew Huntington, a 73-year-old reverend in Eureka, California, who helped stop a massacre against Chinese residents in 1885. He lectured an enraged crowd: 'If Chinamen have no character, white men ought to have some.' Fanatics still ran every Chinese person out of town. A Chinese Christian, Charley Way Lum, had stopped by Huntington's house to pray before he left, when men burst in and put a rope around his neck. Another minister, C.E. Rich, intervened: 'If you hang him, you'll hang him over my dead body.' Lum escaped on a ship to San Francisco. Anti-Chinese sentiment enjoyed widespread popularity among both parties and played a major role in national politics, as it was considered key to winning the electoral votes of the West Coast. Starting with the Page Act of 1875, Congress started passing Chinese exclusion laws that grew more draconian every year. The Page Act targeted Chinese women, several years earlier than Chinese men, due to the widespread prejudice that most of them were sex workers. Anti-Chinese fervor culminated in the 1892 Geary Act, which required every Chinese person in the U.S. to register with the government or be deported. Immigration restrictions began to ease only when China became an ally in World War II – showing how much the vagaries of the shifting geopolitical winds can blow back on people at home. One shortcoming of the book is that Luo devotes so many pages to documenting what was done to Chinese immigrants that there's comparatively little time spent on what they did for themselves, on who they were as individuals beyond victimhood. A few compelling portraits do stand out: men like Yung Wing, an avid football player and Yale graduate who devoted his life to helping boys from China receive a Western education; Joseph Tape, who fought for his daughter's right to enter public school in San Francisco; and Mamie Louise Leung of Los Angeles, the first Asian-American reporter to work at a major newspaper. The fact that Chinese-Americans remained in the United States at all, despite widespread prejudice and the whole force of federal immigration law working to keep them out at every turn, speaks to the incredible tenacity of the community. One anecdote encapsulates this determined spirit: a Chinese coal miner, Lao Chung, was shot during an 1885 attack in Rock Springs, Wyoming. He survived and continued working for decades, the bullet still lodged in his back. — Luo was a national writer at The Associated Press from 2001-03 but has not met the reviewer, who joined in 2022. ___ AP book reviews:
