Brazil beat Mexico 2-0 to reach quarter-finals

Newly appointed Brazil coach Dorival Junior said that the team needs to learn how to play without their injured star Neymar and also played down the past conflict he had with the player during his time as coach of Brazilian club Santos.

Dorival, who lost his job at Santos in 2010 after benching Neymar, was put in charge of the five-time world champions following the sacking of interim coach Fernando Diniz.

The new coach rated Neymar among the three best booters in the world but said the team needs to find a way to win without the Al-Hilal player.

Dorival, who lost his job at Santos in 2010 after benching Neymar, was put in charge of the five-time world champions following the sacking of interim coach Fernando Diniz.

"Brazil have to learn to move forward without Neymar because he is injured. We have one [Neymar] of the three greatest players in the world, and then we will count on him," Dorival said yesterday.

Brazil's all-time top scorer Neymar ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus in his left knee while on international duty in October and is not expected to be fit until August.

Dorival said he is eagerly waiting for the return of a fully fit Neymar and said he has already buried the hatchet with the player.

"Neymar is a very important player, as long as he is recovered, fit and fully focused," Dorival said.

Brazil's top scorer underwent surgery in November last year after suffering a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and meniscus in his left knee on international duty in October.

"I have no problems with Ney. The proportion that situation took [at Santos] was beyond what we expected, unnecessarily. The Santos board made a decision and I respected it. That's all. We never had any problems.

"Every time we have met it was a positive situation. In general, football is very dynamic. Heaven and hell are just a stone's throw away."

A Spanish court on Thursday sentenced former Brazil international Dani Alves to four and a half years in prison after finding him guilty of raping a young woman at a Barcelona nightclub in December 2022.

It also ordered the three-time Champions League winner to five years' probation after he serves his jail term, and demanded he pay 150,000 euros ($162,000) in compensation to the victim.

"The victim did not consent and there is evidence that, beyond the complainant's testimony, permits the rape to be considered proven," the Barcelona court wrote in a statement.

"The court considers as proven the fact that the defendant abruptly grabbed the complainant, threw her to the ground and penetrated her vaginally, preventing her from moving, while the complainant said no and wanted to leave."

Prosecutors had called for a nine-year jail sentence for the 40-year-old followed by 10 years of probation.

Alves, who maintains the sex with the woman was consensual, will appeal the ruling, his lawyer told reporters outside the court.

One of the world's most decorated footballers who played for Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain during a storied career, Alves went on trial earlier this month on charges of raping a woman at the Sutton nightclub in the early hours of December 31, 2022.

His accuser -- who testified behind a screen to protect her identity -- said Alves had violently forced her to have sex in a private bathroom of the nightclub despite her begging him to let her go, causing her "anguish and terror", according to prosecutors.

Police officers who attended the woman told the court about the victim's state of agitation and "shock" when they arrived at the nightclub, as well as her anxiety that "nobody would believe her" if she filed a complaint.

'She could have left' 

During the trial, his defence focused on trying to show that Alves was drunk when he met the woman.

Alves, who was present in court throughout his three-day trial, testified that his sexual encounter with the woman was consensual and denied hitting her and grabbing her hair.

"I am not that type of man, I am not violent," he told the court after his defence lawyer asked if he had forced her to have sex.

"If she wanted to leave, she could have left, she was not obligated to be there," he added.

But the court ruled that the injuries found on the victim's knees were "the result of the violence used by Mr. Alves", and said her testimony had been "consistent" throughout the proceedings.

Spain's leftist government in 2022 passed new legislation -- dubbed the "only yes means yes" law -- that strengthens the country's penal code against rape by requiring explicit consent for sex acts, a move long demanded by assault survivors and women's rights groups.

No 'carte blanche' 

The player's defence had argued that the young woman had danced "glued" to him at the nightclub, and there was "sexual tension" between the two.

But the court ruled that "these attitudes... do not mean giving 'carte blanche' to... a subsequent aggression".

Alves initially denied knowing the woman in a TV interview but later acknowledged having sex with her, saying it was consensual.

He told La Vanguardia newspaper in June that he had lied because he was afraid his wife would leave him.

The player has been in detention since he was arrested in Barcelona in January 2023. His requests to be released on bail have been repeatedly denied by the courts which considered him a flight risk.

Brazil does not extradite its own citizens when they are sentenced in other countries.

Alves is widely considered one of the greatest defenders of all time, winning 42 trophies during a highly successful career.

The peak of his career was with Barcelona between 2008 and 2016 when he won 23 trophies. At the time of his arrest, he was contracted to Mexican club Pumas UNAM. He was sacked soon after being detained.

Mario Zagallo, who won four football World Cups for Brazil as either player or coach, including the 1970 side considered by many to be the best ever, has died, according to a post on his official Instagram account on Saturday. He was 92.

A tough and talented left winger, Zagallo played on the team that won Brazil's first World Cup in 1958 and he kept his place in the side that retained the title four years later.

In 1970, he coached a Brazil squad that featured all-time greats like Pele, Jairzinho, Rivellino and Tostao - one that many consider to be the greatest national team ever to play the game. They won Brazil's third World Cup in Mexico.

That made Zagallo the first person in the sport to win a World Cup as both a player and a manager.

Later, he was assistant coach to Carlos Alberto Parreira when Brazil won their fourth title in 1994 in the United States.

His Brazilian fans loved him for his idiosyncratic personality and unapologetic nationalism. He liked to say he was born with victory at his side and was rarely shy to challenge those who said his teams were too defensive.

One of his most famous outbursts came after Brazil won the Copa America in Bolivia in 1997. His team were unfancied but when the final whistle went, an emotional Zagallo, his face red thanks to the rarified air of La Paz, screamed into the television cameras: "You're going to have to put up with me!"

The phrase is still frequently repeated by Brazilians in all walks of life celebrating vindication.

Zagallo was also known for being highly superstitious and believed the number 13 brought him luck. He liked to coin phrases that contained 13 letters, he got married on the 13th of the month, and once even joked he would retire from the game at 13:00 on July 13, 2013.

ACCIDENTAL FOOTBALLER

Nicknamed the Old Wolf, Mario Jorge Lobo Zagallo was born on Aug. 9, 1931, in Maceio on Brazil's impoverished northeastern coast. His family moved to Rio de Janeiro before his first birthday and it was there he fell in love with football.

His first dream was to be an airline pilot but he was forced to abandon that due to poor eyesight. Instead, he studied accountancy and played soccer in his spare time with local side America, then one of the biggest clubs in the city.

"My father didn't want me to be a football player, he wouldn't let me," Zagallo said in an interview published by the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF). "Back then it wasn't a profession that was respected, society didn't look kindly on it... That's why I say football came into my life by accident."

Zagallo started off as a left midfielder, wearing the No. 10 shirt, which back then, before Pele, had not yet assumed the significance it has today. But intuition told him he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"I saw it would be hard to get into the Brazil side wearing the No. 10 shirt as there were lots of great players in that position," he said. "So I moved from left midfield to left wing."

He also moved from America to Flamengo, where he won three Carioca state championship medals. The latter half of his career was spent at city rivals Botafogo, where he won two more state titles.

His first World Cup came in Sweden in 1958, where he started all six matches and played alongside Garrincha and Pele, who was then just 17.

"I was 27 and Pele was 17," he said. "That's why I say that I never played with him, but that he played with me."

Four years later in Chile he was champion again, but he only guaranteed his place after making some tactical alterations. Zagallo would hang back to help mark the rival full back and when his side won the ball he would roar up the wing. It was unusual for forwards to help out in defense and he is credited with changing the way wingers played the game.

MEXICO 1970

As coach, Zagallo led a string of Brazilian clubs, but he made his mark when he was drafted to replace the controversial Joao Saldanha as Brazil coach just months before the 1970 Mexico World Cup.

Brazil's form had been erratic and they were not fancied, but Zagallo pulled the star-studded team together, capping a tremendous show with a memorable 4-1 triumph over Italy in the final.

Zagallo stayed on until 1974, taking Brazil to fourth place in West Germany, but it was a disappointing performance that was followed by spells managing clubs back home and national sides in the Middle East.

He was an assistant to Parreira in 1994, when Brazil won their fourth title, and in 2006, when they were knocked out in the quarter-finals. And he was in charge in 1998 when Brazil lost 3-0 to hosts France in the final after star striker Ronaldo was hit by convulsions just hours before the match.

The 2006 denouement was a tough one for Zagallo, who had been unwell in the lead-up to the tournament. He was clearly finding management a strain, and retired from the game.

Always ebullient and ever popular, he did not disappear from public view, though, and often appeared on television, at gala awards and helping out at the CBF.

He married in 1955 to Alcina de Castro and remained with her until her death in 2012. The couple had four children.

France managed to overcome mistakes and imperfections in their World Cup final victory over Croatia with sheer mental strength to lift the trophy for the second time, coach Didier Deschamps said on Sunday.

France overpowered Croatia 4-2 to lift the trophy and Deschamps became only the third man, after Brazil's Mario Zagallo and German Franz Beckenbauer to win it both as player and coach.

But they were made to sweat for about an hour and needed an own goal and a penalty to take the lead.

"My greatest source of pride is they had the right state of mind," Deschamps, who had captained France to the 1998 title, told reporters.

"Today there were imperfections, we did not do everything right but we had those mental and psychological qualities which were decisive for this World Cup."

France took the lead from a Mario Mandzukic own goal and they had to soak up a sustained Croatian offensive, including a 28th-minute equaliser, before going in front with a penalty.

They then struck twice midway through the second half to put the game beyond the Croats.

Deschamps said 14 of his players were World Cup newcomers but were ready to work towards a common goal and were mentally more mature than their age.

"Talent is not sufficient. You need the psychological and mental aspects. Any team is then able to climb mountains," Deschamps said.

"Sometimes I can be hard very hard with them but I do it for them and even though they are young they usually do listen."

Among the newcomers are Kylian Mbappe who was voted young player of the tournament and scored France's fourth goal.

"The collective is always important but there are individual players who have made the difference," he said, naming Mbappe and man-of-the-match Antoine Griezmann.

"Those 23 players will now be linked forever whatever happens. They will go different paths but will forever be linked together and from today nothing will be the same professionally because they are world champions.

"We will realise what has happened tomorrow," he said after his players stormed the news conference twice to douse him with champagne. "At the moment they do not know what it is to be world champions."

The 49-year-old coach, who also led France to the Euro 2016 final only to lose in Paris to Portugal, said that defeat may have been key to winning the World Cup.

"Maybe if we were Euro champions we would not have been world champions today. I learned a lot from that defeat," he said.

"The Euro final was different. We tried to stay relaxed this time and the players knew what they had to do and what was at stake."

France were 2-1 ahead against Croatia at halftime in the World Cup final after a pulsating opening 45 minutes at the Luzhniki Stadium on Sunday.

France took the lead when Croatia forward Mario Mandzukic, who scored the extra-time winner over England in the semi-final, inadvertently headed home an Antoine Griezmann free-kick in the 18th minute for the first own goal in a World Cup final.

Croatia's Ivan Perisic, who had also scored in the semi-final, levelled with a powerful shot 10 minutes later after France had failed to clear a Luka Modric free-kick.

But Perisic was then responsible for conceding a penalty for handball that was give following a VAR decision and Griezmann coolly converted the spot-kick in the 38th to put the French back in front.

More to follow..