Word: soccers
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When the English soccer team Chelsea took to the field in Moscow on May 21 for the final of UEFA's Champions League, Europe's biggest club competition, its West London roots were all but invisible. A Czech goalie backed up a Portuguese central defender. Players from France and Germany marshaled Chelsea's midfield. The lone striker was from Ivory Coast. In all, of the 11 players who kicked off that game at the Luzhniki Stadium, only four were English...
...Clearly, interest has been high, with 1,500 competitors entered in events ranging from soccer and cricket to volleyball, softball and arm-wrestling. The Games are staged according to strict Islamic codes, meaning that girls are separated from boys, staging their events in a large gymnasium. Inside, away from the eyes of men, some players remove their hijabs, but most prefer to keep their heads, and skin, covered...
...Friday's newspapers treated the event as if it were a soccer cup final. "What is Havel's Play Like?" runs a bold-type headline followed by five stars in Lidove Noviny, a daily not in the habit of running arts stories on its front pages. The business daily Hospodarske Noviny called the play the "theatrical event of the season" . "Sure, the fame of the author ? plays a role but it is an extraordinary experience nonetheless...
...Russia turned down British demands to extradite Andrei Lugovoi, prime suspect in the murder of former Russian security officer Aleksander Litvinenko. It would be premature, however, to judge the blanket visa approval as signaling a thaw in relations, rather than simply a necessary move to remain onside with European soccer authorities. This week, Russian security offficials again raided the Moscow headquarters of the British oil company BP, whose operation and holdings in Russia are coveted by Russia's hydrocarbon state...
...Despite issuing them visas, the Moscow authorities were not about to give some 42,000 British soccer fans - a group who have, rightly or wrongly, earned a questionable record for maintaining public order - the keys to the city. Some some 15,000 policemen were deployed to maintain crowd control, while the Chelsea and United fans were segregated both from one another and, as far as possible. Their charter flights landed at different airports, and most were taken directly to separate fan stockades connected to the stadium by special galleries to prevent any mixing. Alcohol sales at the stadium were banned...