United News of Bangladesh

The Copa America final between Argentina and Colombia is underway after a delay of more than an hour on Sunday evening because of crowd issues, including fans breaching security gates. Hours before kickoff, fans got past the gates at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, one of the host sites for the 2026 World Cup. Video posted on social media showed fans, mostly wearing Colombia's yellow and red colors, jumping over security railings near the southwest entrance of the stadium and running past police officers and stadium attendants. Screams could be heard in the background. A handful of people could be seen receiving medical treatment and asking for water in the sweltering South Florida heat. Officers were able to push the crowd behind the gates and lock down the entrance so that no one could get inside, although plenty of fans with tickets had already made it to their seats before then. One young fan wearing an Argentina jersey was let inside the gate crying hysterically as the man who was with him and a police officer tried to comfort him. Security initially appeared to open gates slightly to allow only a handful a fans in at a time, while other angry attendees pushed against the railings. After reclosing the gates, security began letting fans reenter slowly around 8:10 p.m., with the new kickoff time set for 9:15 p.m., but the commotion did not stop. Fans again broke through the railings, so many filing in that security scanners rocked back and forth from the force. Fans wearing gear from both teams started running in multiple directions, some carrying children on their shoulders. Tickets were not being scanned and few police officers or stadium officials could be seen in the sea of people. Some fans started climbing over fences to get in. Three police officers were seen placing handcuffs on a fan with a Colombia flag on a ramp that leads to the stadium's seats. A fan named Claudio, who traveled to the game from Mendoza in Argentina, spoke of not being able to breathe as police attempted to subdue the chaos. “They can’t organize a World Cup! It’s impossible,” Claudio said in Spanish. "People stuck against the gate for hours, unable to breathe. There was a senior citizen, look at him, look at him (motioning at his young son), left without water. No water, nothing." Miami-Dade County's police department issued a statement on X following the scene, mentioning there were “several incidents” before the gates opened at the stadium. “These incidents have been a result of the unruly behavior of fans trying to access the stadium," the statement said. "We are asking everyone to be patient, and abide by the rules set by our officers and Hard Rock Stadium personnel. We are actively working with Hard Rock Stadium to ensure a safe environment for all those attending. Unruly behavior will get you ejected and/or arrested.” Players took the pitch at about 8:38 p.m. to begin warming up. Hard Rock Stadium also issued a statement, saying that “thousands of fans without tickets tried to forcibly enter the stadium.” “All fans without tickets MUST leave Hard Rock Stadium premises,” the statement said. “It is paramount to a successful and most importantly a safe match.” A sellout crowd of more than 65,000 was expected for the championship match of the South American tournament. There was a decent split between fans of Argentina and Colombia in the stands, though there appeared to be more yellow Colombia gear. It isn't clear which of the fans who gained entrance during the rushes had tickets to the match — CONMEBOL, South America's governing body, posted a statement on X a day before warning that fans must have tickets to even enter the parking lot of the venue. The Associated Press spoke with several people Sunday who had parked their cars in the parking lot of the stadium without tickets to the match. Standing near a tent that said “Those without entry” in Spanish was Víctor Cruz, an Argentina native of Mendoza who did not purchase tickets. “It doesn’t matter if we don’t go in, we’ll see it somewhere,” said Cruz, hours before kickoff. There were people still waiting to enter the game who had received tickets, along with those who did not have tickets, all of whom were held behind security gates close to the original 8 p.m. EDT start time. Copa America, in a post on X Sunday evening, said that only fans who have purchased tickets would be able to enter “once access is reopened.”  

Spain’s teenage phenom Lamine Yamal won the European Championship and the tournament’s best young player award just a day after he turned 17. Yamal earned it mostly while he was still 16, but he crowned his contribution to Spain’s success by setting up Nico Williams’ opening goal in a 2-1 win over England in the final on Sunday. “This is the best (birthday) gift I could have asked for. It’s a dream come true,” Yamal said. “It got tough when they tied the score, but I don’t know what this team is made of because we always fight back.” England substitute Cole Palmer had equalized for England, but Mikel Oyarzabal clinched Spain’s win in the 86th. Yamal set up Williams to score in the 47th by drifting inside Luke Shaw and playing the ball across to the left for the Athletic Bilbao winger to hit first time inside the far post. Yamal also brought two good saves from England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford. “Lamine is incredible, as you’ve all seen during this tournament,” Williams said. “The sky’s the limit for him. As well as being a good player, he’s also a great person.” Yamal became the youngest player to appear at the European Championship, the youngest to score in the tournament, and the youngest to play in a final. Yamal plays for Barcelona, following in the footsteps of his idol, Lionel Messi, after coming through the club’s famed La Masia training academy. He's also the youngest goalscorer in the Spanish league. He finished with four assists and one goal in his debut European Championship.

Jatrabari Jhotika Sangsad returned to a winning run in the Bashundhara Group Senior (First) Division Football League outplaying Uttar Baridhara Club by 3-0 goals at the Bir Shrestha Shaheed Shipahi Mohammad Mostafa Kamal Stadium in Dhaka's Kamalapur on Sunday. BFF U-18 Football: Abahani come close to league title beating Mohammedan In the day's match, Nur Alam Siddik netted twice for Jhotika Sangsad in the 19th and 45th minutes while Arbit Ray netted another goal in the added time (90+5 minutes) of the match. In another match, Kashaituly Samaj Kallyan Parishad defeated Nawabpur Krira Chakra by 2-1 goals at the same venue on Sunday afternoon. Sr Division Football: Mohakhali Ekadosh earn comfortable 3-1 victory over Motijheel T&T Ashiqur Rahman and Titas Kasur scored for the winners, one in each half while Sarjan Mia netted the lone goal for the losers in the 2nd half. The day's other match between East End Club and Jatrabari Krira Chakra ended in a goalless draw at the same venue Sunday afternoon. Sr. Division Football: Dhaka Junior SC earn facile victory over Little Friends Club

Spain and England will meet in the European Championship final on Sunday, with much of the focus on a teenage wonderkid and whether one of the world's most underachieving teams can end its decades-long wait for a title. The match is scheduled to start at 9 p.m. local time (1900 GMT) in Berlin and is expected to be attended by Prince William, Spain's King Felipe, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Keir Starmer, Britain’s new prime minister. Spain is bidding to win the Euros for a record fourth time, breaking a tie with Germany/West Germany, and for the first time since 2012. The team's new superstar is winger Lamine Yamal, a prodigy who turned 17 on Saturday. Suárez gets stoppage-time goal, Uruguay beats Canada 4-3 in shootout for 3rd place in Copa America England, who lays claim to be the birthplace of soccer, hasn't won a major title since the 1966 World Cup and that was on home soil. This is the team's second straight European Championship final, having lost in a penalty shootout in the final to Italy three years ago. The teams have taken different paths to the final, which will take place at Berlin's Olympiastadion — the 71,000-seat venue built for the 1936 Olympic Games and which hosted the 2006 World Cup final that featured Zinedine Zidane's infamous headbutt. Spain and England to contest Euro 2024 final in a former Nazi stadium where Jesse Owens won gold Spain has won all six of its matches and is widely regarded as the best team at Euro 2024, having seen off Germany and France in the knockout stage. England was unimpressive in the group stage and has shown resilience in coming from behind in all three of its knockout-stage games.

Spain and England will play the European Championship final on Sunday in an imposing stadium with a dark history. Built for the 1936 Olympic Games, Berlin's Olympic stadium still bears the scars of World War II and contains relics from its Nazi past. But the Olympiastadion, as it's known in German, is also associated with the rebirth of a democratic Germany after the war. It hosted matches during the 1974 World Cup in what was then West Germany and again at the 2006 World Cup, 16 years after German reunification. Hitler’s involvement Adolf Hitler was personally involved in the design and construction of the 100,000-seat track-and-field stadium after the Nazis assumed power in 1933, two years after Germany had been awarded the 1936 Games. Initially unenthused by the idea of hosting the Games, the Nazi dictator changed his mind after being convinced of their potential for propaganda. Plans to remodel the existing national stadium were quickly scrapped in favor of constructing a whole new sports complex, the Reich Sports Field, on the same site. Werner March is credited as the architect of Olympiastadion. Euro 2024 final: Spain goes for record 4th title, England looks to end 58-year wait for major trophy Drawing inspiration from the Colosseum in Rome, the stadium was designed to impress. The Olympic Square in front of the main entrance is tapered, with flagpoles and lines of trees on either side heightening the sense of perspective. The idea was to increase the dramatic effect, raising visitors’ expectations and making them feel part of the event. Up to 2,600 workers toiled on the Reich Sports Field at one stage to have it ready in time for the Games, which started Aug. 1, 1936. The Nazi regime's racist ideology deeply influenced the project as construction companies were told to only hire “complying, non-union workers of German citizenship and Aryan race.” A propaganda victory Hitler watched from his stadium-balcony as Jesse Owens, a Black American athlete, won four gold medals to become the star of the Games, dealing a blow to Hitler's notions of racial superiority. However, the Games also delivered a propaganda victory for Nazi Germany. It won more medals than any other country and presented to the world a carefully crafted image of peace and tolerance that Hitler and his associates wanted to show. It was arguably the world’s first major case of sportswashing. Olympiastadion was decked with hundreds of Nazi flags for the Games, and a swastika adorned one of the two towers holding the Olympic rings above the entrance. The swastika was removed in 1945. Members of the Nazi paramilitary SA, commonly known as the Brownshirts, were ordered to stop their attacks against Jews during July and August 1936. The Nazis were already pushing Jewish athletes out of German sports and there were only two whom the Nazis considered half-Jewish who were allowed compete on the German team — fencer Helene Mayer and hockey player Rudi Ball. “It was done to try and silence the critics a little bit,” said Ryan Balmer, a tour guide with degrees in modern history and literature who has lived in Berlin since 2008. The Nazis also used he Reich Sports Field complex after the Olympics. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini visited in 1937, when he was welcomed by thousands of torch-carrying Nazis on the May Field behind the stadium. Up to 800,000 people reportedly took part. Olympiastadion survives WWII Olympiastadion and the Reich Sports Field were damaged in the war, though the stadium escaped relatively unscathed compared to the devastation wrought by Allied bombers in more central areas of Berlin. Many surviving buildings were reused with their Nazi iconography removed. Olympiastadion fell in the British sector after the city was divided between the four victorious powers — the Soviet Union, the U.S., France and Britain. The British reopened the stadium in 1946 and maintained their military headquarters in the former Reich Sports Field until 1994. Spain phenom Lamine Yamal has electrified Euro 2024. In hometown, family and friends not surprised Little was done to Olympiastadion after the war. It and the former the Reich Sports Field were given protected status in 1966, when Hitler's balcony was shortened by 1 meter. The biggest renovations were made before Germany's 2006 World Cup, when the stadium was crowned with a roof. The stadium today There are no attempts to hide the stadium’s Nazi past — modern-day Germany is adamant that the atrocities of the Nazi era should not be forgotten. Information signs in English and German are placed around the stadium to inform visitors about the site’s history. While the swastikas have been removed, some Nazi relics remain. An eagle adorns a pillar beside what is now the training ground of Hertha Berlin, which plays its home games in the stadium. The old bell from the Bell Tower still displays a Nazi eagle and Olympic rings, but the swastika has been partially covered. In a sign of Germany's post-war rehabilitation, a large conference room in the stadium and a road running along the sports field's southern perimeter have been named after Owens. Visitors have mixed feelings about the stadium, which has a capacity of 71,000 during the European Championship. Many fans who attend matches at Olympiastadion are preoccupied with their respective teams' fortunes and pay little attention to the information signs. Balmer said the stadium could use "a more prominent reminder of how and why places like this were built.” Marian Wajselfisz, a Holocaust survivor who co-founded Jewish soccer club Makkabi Berlin in 1970, also rued that fans visiting the stadium — including Sunday’s final — are not made more aware of Nazi atrocities against Jews. “It's a constant reminder of 1936 and the Olympics,” he said.

Dhaka Abahani Limited came close to clinching the BFF Under-18 Football League's 2023-24 title, outplaying their traditional rivals, Dhaka Mohammedan SC, by 3-1 goals at the Armed Police Battalion field in Dhaka's Uttara on Saturday. Sr Division Football: Mohakhali Ekadosh earn comfortable 3-1 victory over Motijheel T&T With the day's well-deserved victory, the sky-blue Dhanmondi outfit Abahani almost assured the league crown, securing a full 18 points from their sixth consecutive win. After the day's 6th round matches, Fortis FC secured 13 points, BPL champions Bashundhara Kings nine points, Police FC eight points, and Mohammedan SC six points. Abahani Ltd, which made their title mission easier by beating Bashundhara Kings by 2-1 goals last Wednesday, now needed just a draw in their remaining two matches to be the champions. Sr. Division Football: Dhaka Junior SC earn facile victory over Little Friends Club Earlier, Dhaka Abahani beat Fortis FC 2-0, Sheikh Jamal DC 2-1, Brothers Union 2-0, and Rahmathanj MFS 4-1, apart from beating the Bashundhara Kings by 2-1 goals. In the day's vital match, Samuel Raksam, Yeasin Arafat, and Milon Hossain scored one each for Abahani, which dominated the first half 2-0. Sazid Ahmed netted the face-saving goal for the traditional black and white Mohammedan in the second half. In the day's other match, the season's treble winners, Bashundhara Kings, suffered their third defeat in the league, losing to Sheikh Russel KC by 1-0 at their home venue--practice ground of Bashundhara Kings Arena, on Saturday afternoon. Jomou scored the match winning goal for Sheikh Russel KC in the 49th minute. BFF U-18 Football: Abahani maintain all-win run beating holders Bashundhara Kings 2-1 The day's other match between Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi Club and Brothers Union Club ended in a 1-1 draw at the Mohammadpur Physical Education College ground on Saturday. Mohin put Sheikh Jamal DC ahead in the 26th minute, while Onik neutralised the margin in the added time of the first half (45+2 minutes).

Spain and England meet in the final of the European Championship on Sunday. Spain is seeking a record fourth title at the Euros to break a tie with Germany/West Germany, while England is bidding for a first major trophy in men's soccer since the 1966 World Cup. Kickoff is at 9 p.m. local (1900 GMT) in Berlin. Here’s what to know about the match: Match facts — Spain will start as the favorite after winning all six of its matches at Euro 2024 and being widely regarded as the best team at the tournament. Winning the title would continue a strong period of success for Spanish national teams, with the men having captured the UEFA Nations League in June last year and the women following that up by winning the World Cup two months later. — Lamine Yamal is Spain's new star having set up three goals before the semifinals, where he scored a spectacular long-range strike in the victory over France — all at the age of 16. He turned 17 on Saturday, the day before the final. It is a breakthrough major tournament for Yamal, much like it was for a 19-year-old Kylian Mbappé at the 2018 World Cup and a 17-year-old Pelé at the 1958 World Cup. — Spain last appeared in a final at a major tournament in 2012, when the team won the third of its European Championship titles by beating Italy 4-0. England played in the final of Euro 2020, which was played in 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic, and lost in a penalty shootout to Italy. — England has shown resilience by coming from behind in all three of its knockout-stage matches at Euro 2024. Jude Bellingham scored an equalizer from an overhead kick in the fifth minute of stoppage time in the extra-time win over Slovakia in the last 16, Bukayo Saka equalized in the 80th minute against Switzerland in the quarterfinals before England won a penalty shootout, and substitute Ollie Watkins scored a winner almost exactly on 90 minutes against the Netherlands in the semifinals. — England coach Gareth Southgate is often criticized for his in-game management but he has changed the culture inside the squad and is regularly getting the team deep at major tournaments. In Southgate's tenure that started in 2016, England has reached the World Cup semifinals in 2018 and now back-to-back European Championship finals.

In the working-class neighborhood where Spain’s teenage phenom Lamine Yamal grew up, there are two soccer fields divided by a chain-link fence. Next to the green carpet of the local soccer club, local lore has it that Yamal played with his friends on a small concrete slab where boys and girls now come daily to have a kickaround. Balls fly through the net-less goal frame and smack into a wall bearing the neighborhood's name in big graffiti-style letters: Rocafonda. But Yamal’s days of playing pickup games vanished as he blossomed into global soccer’s newest rising star. Now instead of watching him from a bench, his neighbors will gather around televisions, smart phones, or a large screen installed in a park come Sunday to root for Yamal to lead Spain to victory over England in the final of the European Championship. “He can no longer just take a walk down the street,” said Juan Carlos Serrano, the owner of small bar where Yamal’s father would bring him for breakfast before taking the 90-minute train ride south to practice with Barcelona, the club he joined at age 7. “The people are just all over him, and he is just 16 years old. He is just a kid,” Serrano said. “People are just now discovering him, but we knew long before that he was going to stand out.” The fervor caused by Yamal has also swept up his father, Mounir Nasraoui, who made a visit to see Serrano before going to Germany to celebrate his son’s 17th birthday on Saturday. “I am proud and happy,” Nasraoui told The Associated Press while sitting at a table under the framed shirt of Yamal's debut with Barcelona's reserve team, making him the youngest player to do so at age 15. Yamal quickly topped that with precocious debuts and scoring milestones for Barcelona’s senior team and for Spain. “I always thought he would get this far, but I kept that to myself," Nasraoui said. "Every father thinks that his son will be the best. Whether that will prove true, that depends on the destiny of each one of us.” As for Sunday’s final, his dad said: “We will win for sure.” Three-zero-four Yamal holds up three fingers and makes a circle with his index finger and thumb, while extending four fingers on the other hand. Arms crossed over this chest, he flashes a smile — glimpse of braces included — to put the finishing touch on his particular goal celebration. While undecipherable to millions of spectators, the peculiar hand sign Yamal made after scoring his first goals for club and country represented the last three digits of the postal code of Rocafonda: 304. Rocafonda is home to 10,000 of the 130,000 people who live in Mataro, a coastal town north of Barcelona. From the streets of the hilly area a blue strip of the Mediterranean Sea can be seen in the distance. The diversity of Rocafonda, and a patchwork of similar neighborhoods in cities across Spain, is reflected on the streets. Immigrants run several of the local shops. Kids from all backgrounds play soccer while men in Muslim gowns trickle past on their way to a nearby mosque. Son of a Moroccan father and a mother from Equatorial Guinea, Spain's former colony in sub-Saharan Africa, Yamal helps represent a new, multicultural Spain, a country undergoing a demographic shift where people immigrate while Spain’s birth rate plummets. “The (304 hand sign) has become popular across all the city, not just the Rocafonda neighborhood,” said Rocafonda alderman José Antonio Ricis. “People from different postal codes are equally thrilled that he remembers the city, his neighborhood, his people.” Anointed by MessiAfter being spotted by a scout, Yamal entered Barcelona's famed La Masia training academy, where he would follow in the footstep of his idol, Lionel Messi. The two players had already been linked by fate — or the soccer gods? — thanks to a photo shoot for a charity calendar that featured a long-haired Messi bathing a baby Yamal in a tiny plastic tub. The 2007 photo recently resurfaced after Yamal’s father posted it online, causing a huge stir in both professional and social media with many fans seeing the chance encounter as a sort of anointing by Messi of his heir apparent. “These are coincidences that happen in life, and later, it turns out this boy is good at soccer," Nasraoui called that twist of fate. "It is blessing from God.” Yamal went to live at Barcelona youth players’ residence at age 13 while he quickly moved up through its underage sides despite facing opponents sometimes three years older. And those slick, gliding moves, those dribbling details, precise crosses, that Yamal has used to dazzle rivals in Germany were already there. No tearsYamal's meteoric rise has actually been going on since he was old enough to kick a ball. He spent his earliest years between Mataro and another town less than a half-an-hour away, where his mother went to live when he was a toddler. Inocente Díez helps run the soccer program at Yamal’s first club, La Torreta FC, near where his mother resided. She would bring him to practice, and when she couldn’t, his father would. Or Díez said he would also pick him up sometimes because the child never wanted to miss practice. Now the summer camp run by La Torreta bears the name of “Campus Lamine Yamal.” Yamal’s picture is on the poster for the camp, and one family stopped to take a photo of the field with Yamal’s Spain shirt. Díez said that in his 50 years in soccer he has never seen a talent like Yamal. The youngster played with kids two or three years older and was the leader of a team that won their league title. “Lots of kids can at one given moment score a great goal or do something special, but he did it in every single game,” Díez said. “He was a very quiet kid, very respectful, formal, and committed to playing with the ball. “At that age it is normal for the kids to sometimes want to leave the field, then want to see their mom, they can sometimes cry. Not him. He only wanted to play and play.” Yamal was already one of the outstanding players of the Euro 2024 before he upstaged Kylian Mbappé — his soon-to-rival at Real Madrid next season — by scoring an exquisite curling strike from outside the area to help rally Spain past France 2-1 in the semifinals. “Ahh. I teared up,” Díez said about the goal that became an instant classic. “It was very emotional. Because he is from here.”

Mohakhali Ekadosh earned a comfortable 3-1 goal victory over Motijheel T&T Club in the Bashundhara Group Senior (First) Division Football League 2023-24 at the Bir Sherestha Shaheed Shipahi Mohammad Mostafa Kamal Stadium in Dhaka's Kamalapur on Saturday morning . Sabbir Hossain Apurba put Mohakhali Ekadosh ahead in the 31st minute (1-0), while Zakirul 1slam doubled the margin in the 44th minute (2-0). Sr Division Football: Jatrabari Jhotika Sangsad outplay Little Friends Club by 4-1 goals Anwar Hossain reduced the margin for T&T Club in the 64th minute (2-1), while Shahriar Ahmed Shuvo sealed the fate of the match by scoring one more goal for Mohakhali Ekadosh in the 77th minute (3-1). In the day's other league battle, two Arambagh clubs—Arambagh Krira Sangha and Arambagh Football Academy—shared points with each other in 1-1 affairs at the same venue on Saturday afternoon. Sr Division Football: Jatrabari Jhotika Sangsad beat Mugda Somaj Kallyan OKS After a barren first half, Shafiqul Islam scored for Arambagh KS in the 48th minute, while Mubarak Hossain levelled the margin for Arambagh FA in the 55th minute (1-1). In the day's last match, Bangladesh Boys Club beat Badda,Jagoroni Sangsad by a solitary goal scored by Rana Ahmed in the 65th minute at the same venue on Saturday afternoon. Sr Division Football: Badda Jagoroni Sangsad make a good start beating Sadharan Bima KS 3-0

Siddikbazar Dhaka Junior SC earned a facile 4-0 goals victory over Little Friends Club in the Bashundhara Group Senior (First) Division Football League at the Bir Shrestha Shaheed Shipahi Mohammad Mostafa Kamal Stadium in Kamalapur here on Friday. Sheik Ahmed, Ashraful Haq, Rashinchandra Tripura and Milon Islam scored one goal each for the Dhaka Junior SC, which dominated the first half by 2-0 goals. In the day's other match, Mugda Samaj Kallyan O Krira Sangsad defeated Bashabo Torun Sangha by 2-0 goals at the same venue on Friday. Mahbubul Biswas Manna and Arman Hasan scored for the Mugda team, one in each half.