london — Lionel Messi has been named FIFA’s best men’s player after moving from Paris Saint-Germain to Inter Miami and leading the David Beckham-owned team to a little-known Leagues Cup title — all while single-handedly elevating soccer’s relevance in the United States.

The 36-year-old Argentine on Monday was selected over Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland,  the same pair he beat for his eighth Ballon d’Or award last October. 

Messi was not in attendance at Hammersmith Apollo theater in west London. 

Moments later, World Cup champion Aitana Bonmati, 25, of Spain was named FIFA’s best women’s soccer player, building on her Ballon d’Or award last October, which followed a Union of European Football Associations award in August.

And that was after she led Spain to World Cup glory and Barcelona to the Champions League title. She was named player of the tournament for both competitions. 

Bonmati won Monday over Spain teammate Jenni Hermoso and Colombia star Linda Caicedo.

They were FIFA finalists in voting by a global panel of national team coaches and captains, selected journalists, plus fans online. The women’s eligibility period covered performances from August 1, 2022, through the World Cup final last August. 

Spain’s women won their first World Cup by beating England 1-0 in the final in Sydney, Australia. 

Messi secured the FIFA award for the eighth time in 15 years. He had won it last year, too, after leading Argentina to the 2022 World Cup title. 

The men’s award did not consider the World Cup, which ended 13 months ago. It recognized achievements from after the tournament through August 20. 

Messi and Mbappe helped PSG win the French league title, but the team underperformed in the Champions League and French Cup — exiting both competitions in the round of 16. 

That means Messi’s exploits in the United States surely swayed some voters. 

In rejecting Saudi Arabia for the MLS, Messi brought star power to a league that fights for relevance in an American sports landscape dominated by the NFL and NBA. 

LeBron James, Serena Williams and Kim Kardashian were all on hand in Fort Lauderdale for Messi’s debut on July 21, when the forward scored from a free kick goal in stoppage time to beat Cruz Azul 2-1. 

The goals kept coming — 10 in seven games to lead the MLS club to its first-ever trophy by winning the Leagues Cup final on August 19, one day before FIFA award eligibility period ended. 

Haaland and Mbappe could make good arguments that they deserved to win. 

Haaland scored 28 goals in 36 games in all club competitions from after the World Cup through the end of the 2022-23 season as a driving force in Manchester City winning the Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup. The 6-foot-4 striker then scored three goals in two appearances for Norway in June.

Mbappe scored at nearly a goal-per-game clip in the period of eligibility for PSG and then for France in European Championship qualifying in March and June. 

Messi’s figures in France after the World Cup were good but unspectacular: nine goals and six assists in 22 games across all competitions.
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Los Angeles — The time has finally come for a most unusual Emmys. 

The 75th Primetime Emmy Awards are arriving four months past their due date on Monday night at the Peacock Theater, coming after a year of historic Hollywood turbulence in an industry whose upheavals are evident everywhere. 

Strikes by both actors and writers, seismic shifts toward streaming, and the dismantling of the traditional TV calendar mean the envelopes opened during the Fox telecast hosted by Anthony Anderson on Martin Luther King Jr. Day will display winners that were decided months ago for shows that in some cases were completed years ago — and have a fraction of the audience they had a few decades ago. 

But for actors and others taking part in the ceremony, norms just aren’t a thing anymore in this business. 

“Since the pandemic it’s been really strange, you shoot something, then sometimes it’s another couple years until you see it, and a while longer until something like this,” actor Nick Offerman told The Associated Press last week after winning an early Emmy for “The Last of Us,” a show that is among Monday night’s top nominees along with “Succession,” “Ted Lasso” and “The Bear.” 

The Emmys will provide some respite and celebration after the strike and the troubles that spurred it, and with its 75th edition, will attempt to provide links to its past and to TV history. It will include a series of cast reunions and scene recreations from beloved shows including “Cheers,” “Game of Thrones,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Martin.” 

The nominations themselves provide one big link to Emmys past — the continuation of the decades-long dominance of HBO, which this year has the three most nominated shows with “Succession,” “The White Lotus” and “The Last of Us.” 

Anderson has been tasked with hosting at a time when emceeing awards shows is hardly a coveted job, especially after comic Jo Koy was widely roasted for his Golden Globes performance last weekend. 

But Anderson said he’s actually coming in relaxed and relieved, because for the first time in nearly a decade, he’s not a nominee. He never won an Emmy despite 11 nominations as a producer and actor for his former show, “black-ish.” 

“All the pressure is off of me now,” Anderson, now the host of Fox’s “We Are Family,” said during ceremony preparations. “I don’t have to sit there and wonder, am I going to win? Am I going to get it? What time are they going to get to this category? I just get to come up here and be myself.” 

How to watch 

The Emmys will air live on Fox starting at 8 p.m. Eastern, and available to stream starting Tuesday on Hulu. 

The ceremony is watchable in dozens of countries. The Television Academy website has a handy list of broadcasters and in some instances, air times. 

There are also many ways to watch the Emmys red carpet, which begins at 5 p.m., when E! kicks off its coverage. People and Entertainment Weekly are also hosting a red carpet show that will stream on their websites and YouTube pages. 

The nominees 

“Succession” got a leading 27 nominations. It’s the probable favorite to win its third best drama series Emmy and it has three men — Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong and Kieran Culkin — up for best actor with four more nominated for best supporting actor. 

But it won’t come away with the most wins. That’s because “The Last of Us,” second with 24 nominations, is coming in with eight via last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys, where “Succession” won none. Those include best guest acting awards for Offerman and Storm Reid, suggesting that voters may also favor its lead actors Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. Both could make history, with Pascal becoming the first Latino to win best actor in a drama and Ramsey the youngest to win best actress. 

The elite ensemble from “The White Lotus” is all over the supporting categories. It has five women up for best supporting actress in a drama, including Jennifer Coolidge and Aubrey Plaza. 

On the comedy side, the night could become a victory lap for the third and final season of “Ted Lasso,” the soccer-themed series that won best comedy for its first two seasons. 

Its main challenger comes from the kitchen. “The Bear,” about a chef struggling with his family’s legacy, will vie for best comedy, and its lead, Jeremy Allen White, could challenge Jason Sudeikis of “Ted Lasso” for best actor in a comedy. 

The long wait 

Last year’s two strikes meant the Emmys, normally held in September, made an unprecedented move to January, putting it in the heart of Hollywood’s awards season. 

Academy voting took place on the normal timetable, however, meaning the winners have been determined since late August. 

The wait and other quirks of the calendar make for some strange award circumstances. “The Bear” is up for Emmys for its first season, after having already won key Golden Globes for its second. 
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New York — Joyce Randolph, a veteran stage and television actress whose role as the savvy Trixie Norton on “The Honeymooners” provided the perfect foil to her dimwitted TV husband, has died. She was 99.

Randolph died of natural causes Saturday night at her home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, her son Randolph Charles told The Associated Press Sunday.

She was the last surviving main character of the beloved comedy from television’s golden age of the 1950s.

“The Honeymooners” was an affectionate look at Brooklyn tenement life, based in part on star Jackie Gleason’s childhood. Gleason played the blustering bus driver Ralph Kramden. Audrey Meadows was his wisecracking, strong-willed wife Alice, and Art Carney the cheerful sewer worker Ed Norton. Alice and Trixie often found themselves commiserating over their husbands’ various follies and mishaps, whether unknowingly marketing dogfood as a popular snack or trying in vain to resist a rent hike, or freezing in the winter as their heat is shut off.

Randolph would later cite a handful of favorite episodes, including one in which Ed is sleepwalking.

“And Carney calls out, ‘Thelma?!’ He never knew his wife’s real name,” she later told the Television Academy Foundation.

Originating in 1950 as a recurring skit on Gleason’s variety show, “Cavalcade of Stars,” “The Honeymooners” still ranks among the all-time favorites of television comedy. The show grew in popularity after Gleason switched networks with “The Jackie Gleason Show.” Later, for one season in 1955-56, it became a full-fledged series.

Those 39 episodes became a staple of syndicated programming aired all over the country and beyond.

In an interview with The New York Times in January 2007, Randolph said she received no compensation in residuals for those 39 episodes. She said she finally began getting royalties with the discovery of “lost” episodes from the variety hours.

After five years as a member of Gleason’s on-the-air repertory company, Randolph virtually retired, opting to focus full-time on marriage and motherhood.

“I didn’t miss a thing by not working all the time,” she said. “I didn’t want a nanny raising (my) wonderful son.”

But decades after leaving the show, Randolph still had many admirers and received dozens of letters a week. She was a regular into her 80s at the downstairs bar at Sardi’s, where she liked to sip her favorite White Cadillac concoction — Dewar’s and milk — and chat with patrons who recognized her from a portrait of the sitcom’s four characters over the bar.

Randolph said the show’s impact on television viewers didn’t dawn on her until the early 1980s.

“One year while (my son) was in college at Yale, he came home and said, ‘Did you know that guys and girls come up to me and ask, ‘Is your mom really Trixie?'” she told The San Antonio Express in 2000. “I guess he hadn’t paid much attention before then.”

Earlier, she had lamented that playing Trixie limited her career.

“For years after that role, directors would say: ‘No, we can’t use her. She’s too well-known as Trixie,'” Randolph told the Orlando Sentinel in 1993.

Gleason died in 1987 at age 71, followed by Meadows in 1996 and Carney in 2003. Gleason had revived “The Honeymooners” in the 1960s, with Jane Kean as Trixie.

Randolph was born Joyce Sirola in Detroit in 1924, and was around 19 when she joined a road company of “Stage Door.” From there she went to New York and performed in a number of Broadway shows.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, she was seen often on TV, appearing with such stars as Eddie Cantor, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Danny Thomas and Fred Allen.

Randolph met Gleason for the first time when she did a Clorets commercial on “Cavalcade of Stars,” and The Great One took a liking to her; she didn’t even have an agent at the time.

Randolph spent her retirement going to Broadway openings and fundraisers, being active with the U.S.O. and visiting other favorite Manhattan haunts, among them Angus, Chez Josephine and the Lambs Club.

Her husband, Richard Lincoln, a wealthy marketing executive who died in 1997, served as president at the Lambs, a theatrical club, and she reigned as “first lady.” They had one son, Charles.
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WASHINGTON — Archaeologists have uncovered a cluster of lost cities in the Amazon rainforest, an area that was home to at least 10,000 farmers around 2,000 years ago. 

A series of earthen mounds and buried roads in Ecuador was first noticed more than two decades ago by archaeologist Stephen Rostain. But at the time, ” I wasn’t sure how it all fit together,” said Rostain, one of the researchers who reported on the finding Thursday in the journal Science. 

Recent mapping by laser-sensor technology revealed those sites to be part of a dense network of settlements and connecting roadways, tucked into the forested foothills of the Andes, that lasted about 1,000 years. 

“It was a lost valley of cities,” said Rostain, who directs investigations at France’s National Center for Scientific Research. “It’s incredible.” 

The settlements were occupied by the Upano people between around 500 B.C. and 300 to 600 A.D. — a period roughly contemporaneous with the Roman Empire in Europe, the researchers found. 

Residential and ceremonial buildings erected on more than 6,000 earthen mounds were surrounded by agricultural fields with drainage canals. The largest roads were 33 feet (10 meters) wide and stretched for 6 to 12 miles (10 to 20 kilometers). 

While it’s difficult to estimate populations, the site was home to at least 10,000 inhabitants, and perhaps as many as 15,000 or 30,000 at its peak, said archaeologist Antoine Dorison, a study co-author at the same French institute. That’s comparable to the estimated population of Roman-era London, then Britain’s largest city. 

“This shows a very dense occupation and an extremely complicated society,” said University of Florida archaeologist Michael Heckenberger, who was not involved in the study. “For the region, it’s really in a class of its own in terms of how early it is.” 

Jose Iriarte, a University of Exeter archaeologist, said it would have required an elaborate system of organized labor to build the roads and thousands of earthen mounds. 

“The Incas and Mayans built with stone, but people in Amazonia didn’t usually have stone available to build — they built with mud. It’s still an immense amount of labor,” said Iriarte, who had no role in the research. 

The Amazon is often thought of as a “pristine wilderness with only small groups of people. But recent discoveries have shown us how much more complex the past really is,” he said. 

Scientists have recently also found evidence of intricate rainforest societies that predated European contact elsewhere in the Amazon, including in Bolivia and in Brazil. 

“There’s always been an incredible diversity of people and settlements in the Amazon, not only one way to live,” said Rostain. “We’re just learning more about them.”
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KYIV, Ukraine — Hundreds of people attended a ceremony Thursday honoring the memory of renowned Ukrainian poet Maksym Kryvtsov, who was killed in action while serving as a soldier in the war Russia started in Ukraine nearly two years ago.

A large crowd gathered in the courtyard of Kyiv’s St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery, where ceremonies are often held to honor soldiers killed in the war. People brought flowers adorned with blue and yellow ribbons — the colors of the Ukrainian flag — and patiently queued up to enter the monastery and pay their respects. A funeral was scheduled to be held in Kryvtsov’s hometown of Rivne on Friday.

Among those attending the memorial service were many fellow soldiers, including some who had served with Kryvtsov since 2014.

“He became a warrior right away, but he was very kind,” said a soldier who asked to be identified by his military call sign Grandpa. He said he finds it difficult to speak about Kryvtsov, saying that it feels like “a piece of the heart has been torn out.”

“He did not die,” Grandpa said. “We just gained another guardian angel. He will always be with us.”

Book earns high praise

Kryvtsov was killed on January 7 by artillery fire in the Kupiansk area of the Kharkiv region — one of the key fronts in Moscow’s winter offensive.

He was an active participant in the Revolution of Dignity, the uprising that unleashed a decade of momentous change for Ukraine, and joined the army in 2014 after Russia illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula. Several years later, he took a break from the war and focused on civil activities, including poetry.

His first and last book, “Poems from the Loophole,” published in 2023, received a warm reception and high praise within Ukraine’s cultural community. The published poems primarily reflect on the harsh reality imposed by the war.

With the onset of Russia’s invasion in 2022, Kryvtsov had re-enlisted.

The Ukrainian chapter of the International Association of Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, and Novelists, or PEN, included his book on its list of the best books of 2023. Earlier, Kryvtsov’s poems were also featured in collections with the works of other poets. The print run of the book has been swept from the shelves of bookstores.

Poet’s work goes viral

Kryvtsov’s death sparked a broad reaction on social media, where his poetry went viral for several days following his passing. Many drew parallels with Ukrainian cultural figures killed during the Soviet repression of artists of the 1920s and early 1930s, known in Ukrainian history as the “Executed Renaissance.”

“They kill our artists and then laugh in our faces,” wrote Ukrainian composer Yana Yaschuk on Facebook.

An assessment by the Ukrainian PEN found that 95 people in artistic professions have been killed in the war as of December 2023. Among them are actors, painters, sculptors, linguists, historians and others. PEN noted that the actual number could be higher.

Award-winning Ukrainian writer Viktoria Amelina was killed in a deadly Russian missile attack on a popular restaurant in Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region in July of last year.

Mourners kneel in respect

Many fans of Kryvtsov’s poetry also attended the memorial, some holding his book in their hands.

As the casket was carried out of the monastery, attendees in the crowded courtyard knelt to bid him farewell. An air raid siren announcing a possible missile threat went off but people continued to kneel, holding flowers and flags.

The crowd proceeded to Kyiv’s central square, where the second part of the memorial service took place. People on the streets stopped and some burst into tears as the column, led by the poet’s body, passed by.

“He left us not just his poems and testimonies of the era but his most powerful weapon, unique and innate,” said poet, volunteer and combat medic Olena Herasymiuk, who was a close friend of Kryvtsov. “It’s the kind of weapon that hits not a territory or an enemy but strikes at the human mind and soul.”

Many attended the memorial service with violets, a reference to his last poem, which was published on Facebook a few days before his death. The poem went viral and in it, he wrote, “my hands torn off will sprout violets in the spring.”
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FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Six-time National Football League champion Bill Belichick agreed to part ways as the coach of the New England Patriots, ending his 24-year tenure as the architect of the most decorated dynasty of the league’s Super Bowl era.

Belichick and team owner Robert Kraft announced the move to the media Thursday at Gillette Stadium. They didn’t take questions, though Kraft scheduled an availability for later in the day.

Belichick, 71, is just the third coach in NFL history to reach 300 career regular-season victories earlier this season, joining Hall of Famers Don Shula and George Halas. With 333 wins including the playoffs, Belichick trails only Shula (347) for the record for victories by a coach.

But the Patriots ended this season 4-13, Belichick’s worst record in 29 seasons as an NFL head coach. It supplanted the 5-11 mark he managed in his last year in Cleveland in 1995 and again in his first year in New England in 2000. Including the playoffs, he ends his Patriots tenure with a 333-178 overall record.

With his cutoff hoodies and ever-present scowl, Belichick teamed with quarterback Tom Brady to lead the Patriots to six Super Bowl victories, nine AFC titles and 17 division championships in 19 years. During a less successful — but also tumultuous — stint with the original Cleveland Browns, Belichick earned 37 of his career victories.

It’s not immediately clear who Kraft will tap to replace the future Hall of Famer.

Patriots linebackers coach Jerod Mayo won a Super Bowl ring playing under Belichick and has interviewed for multiple head coaching vacancies since becoming a New England assistant in 2019. Mayo turned down a few interviews last offseason before signing a contract extension to remain with the Patriots.

Mike Vrabel, who was fired earlier this week by the Tennessee Titans and won three Super Bowls with the Patriots, is also expected to be a candidate for the head coaching job.

Belichick had been grooming offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels to replace him before McDaniels left following the 2021 season to become the coach of the Raiders. He has since been fired by Las Vegas. Belichick’s two sons, Steve and Brian, are also on the coaching staff.

Belichick’s exit from the Patriots comes just a day after another legendary coach and his longtime friend Nick Saban announced he’d retire after winning seven college national championships. Saban worked for Belichick’s father, Steve, in the 1980s as a coach at Navy, and Bill Belichick hired Saban as his defensive coordinator when he became Cleveland’s head coach in 1991.

The six Super Bowl wins tie Belichick with pre-merger mentors Halas and Curly Lambeau for the most NFL championships. Belichick also won two rings as Bill Parcells’ defensive coordinator with the New York Giants.

But the Patriots have stumbled to a 29-38 record since Brady departed following the 2019 season and missed the playoffs in three of those four seasons. Beginning in 2001 when Brady became the starting quarterback, the Patriots missed the playoffs only once (2008) when Brady was injured. This marked New England’s fifth consecutive season without a playoff victory.

Belichick’s subsequent solutions at quarterback haven’t panned out.

Brady’s initial replacement, Cam Newton, didn’t resemble the player who won the 2015 MVP award and was cut after a 7-9 finish in 2020. Meanwhile Brady won his seventh Super Bowl ring with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers that same season.

Potential long-term replacement Mac Jones, a 2021 first-round draft choice, was a Pro Bowl selection as a rookie and led New England to the playoffs. But he regressed in Year 2 when Belichick put longtime defensive assistant Matt Patricia in charge of the offense. Jones didn’t fare much better this season when Bill O’Brien returned as offensive coordinator. He was benched four times before being replaced as starter by backup Bailey Zappe for the final six games.

That left the Patriots looking at a lengthy rebuild, with no candidate on the roster to bring stability to the sport’s most important position.

Belichick, who also served as the de facto general manager with final say on personnel decisions, was celebrated for his ingenuity managing the salary cap during the run of Super Bowl success. It included getting stars like Brady and others to accept cap-friendly contracts or adjust their deals to accommodate the signing of other players.

But that acclaim has waned in the years since Brady left, as a run of draft picks and high-priced free agents didn’t live up to expectations. In addition, Belichick has seen several members of his personnel and scouting departments leave for other jobs. The list includes his former player personnel director, Nick Caserio, who was hired as Houston’s general manager in 2021.

Now it won’t be Belichick making the decisions for the Patriots on or off the field.

The only child of a World War II veteran who spent three decades as a Navy assistant coach, Belichick is a football historian with an encyclopedic knowledge of strategy from the sport’s early days to current NFL trends. His players said his attention to detail never left them unprepared.

Belichick has been a master of the NFL rule book, unearthing loopholes in clock operations and offensive line formations that — though entirely legal — cemented his reputation as a mad genius.

But his legacy in New England also includes two major cheating investigations — and other, minor ones — that cost him and the team draft picks and more than $1 million in fines. Opponents accused the Patriots of everything from hacking their headsets to cutting corners on injury reports.

His friendship with former President Donald Trump, which Belichick insisted was not political, landed the coach on the list to receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom in the waning days of the administration. After the outcry against the U.S. Capitol siege, Belichick announced “the decision has been made not to move forward.”
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Los Angeles — Fresh from its wins at the Golden Globes, Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” on Wednesday topped the nominations for the influential Screen Actors Guild Awards, which are key to Oscars success.

The SAG Awards, voted on by Hollywood actors, are likely to enjoy a profile boost of their own this year as they are broadcast globally on Netflix — an awards show first for the world’s biggest streamer.

“Oppenheimer,” which tells the story of the inventor of the atomic bomb, earned nods for Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr. and Emily Blunt, as well as “outstanding performance by a cast” — the SAG Awards’ top prize.

Nolan’s three-hour epic, which earned nearly $1 billion and received rave reviews from critics, is rapidly becoming the clear favorite for the Academy Awards in March.

“Barbie,” the other half of last summer’s “Barbenheimer” box office phenomenon, and the year’s highest grossing film, picked up nominations for Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling and overall cast.

The surreal comedy based on the wildly popular doll also picked up an additional nomination for its stunt performers.

The other films with three acting nominations were Martin Scorsese’s epic “Killers of the Flower Moon” — despite Leonardo DiCaprio missing out — and scathing satire “American Fiction,” starring Jeffrey Wright.

Both movies are nominated for best cast, with musical remake “The Color Purple” closing out that category.

Elsewhere, Globes winners Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph picked up nods for “The Holdovers,” as did Emma Stone and her co-star Willem Dafoe for “Poor Things.”

Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan were nominated for Leonard Bernstein biopic “Maestro.”

But all three films missed out on nominations for outstanding cast.

The winner of that prize has gone on to win best picture at the Oscars in three of the past four years (“Parasite,” “CODA” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once”).

The SAG Awards also honor television, with “Succession” on top with five nods, followed by “The Bear,” “The Last of Us” and “Ted Lasso,” all on four.

The 30th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards will take place in Los Angeles on February 24.
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LONDON — Irish singer Sinead O’Connor, who was found unresponsive at an address in London in July last year, died of natural causes, the coroner said on Tuesday. 

O’Connor, known for her stirring voice, outspoken views and 1990 chart-topping hit “Nothing Compares 2 U,” was pronounced dead at the scene. Police had said her death, at the age of 56, was not being treated as suspicious. 

The coroner’s court said at the time that an autopsy would be conducted before a decision was made on whether to hold an inquest. 

“This is to confirm that Ms O’Connor died of natural causes. The coroner has therefore ceased their involvement in her death,” London Inner South Coroner’s Court said in a statement. 

Artists around the world reacted to the news of her death last year, with REM frontman Michael Stipe and U.S. musician Tori Amos among those who paid tribute to O’Connor’s fierce honesty, intense presence and uncompromising spirit. 

Thousands gathered outside O’Connor’s former seaside home to bid farewell to her when her funeral was held in August, some singing along to hits blasted from a vintage Volkswagen camper van and others showering her hearse with flowers. 
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Munich — Franz Beckenbauer, who won the World Cup both as player and coach and became one of Germany’s most beloved personalities with his easygoing charm, has died, news agency dpa reported Monday. He was 78.

“It is with deep sadness that we announce that my husband and our father, Franz Beckenbauer, passed away peacefully in his sleep yesterday, Sunday, surrounded by his family,” the family said in a statement to dpa, the German news agency. “We ask that we be allowed to grieve in peace and be spared any questions.”

The statement did not provide a cause of death. The former Bayern Munich great had struggled with health problems in recent years.

Beckenbauer was one of German soccer’s central figures. As a player, he reimagined the defender’s role in soccer and captained West Germany to the World Cup title in 1974 after it had lost to England in the 1966 final. He was the coach when West Germany won the tournament again in 1990, a symbolic moment for a country in the midst of reunification, months after the Berlin Wall fell.

Beckenbauer was also instrumental in bringing the highly successful 2006 World Cup to Germany, though his legacy was later tainted by charges that he only succeeded in winning the hosting rights with the help of bribery. He denied the allegations.

Beckenbauer and three other members of the committee were formally made criminal suspects that year by Swiss prosecutors who suspected fraud in the true purpose of multi-million euro (dollar) payments that connected the 2006 World Cup with FIFA. But he was eventually not indicted in 2019 for health reasons and the case ended without a judgment when the statute of limitations expired in 2020 amid delays to the court system caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The allegations damaged Beckenbauer’s standing in public perception for the first time. Until then, Beckenbauer had seemingly been unable to say or do anything wrong. Germans simply loved him.

The son of a post official from the working-class Munich district of Giesing, Beckenbauer became one of the greatest players to grace the game in a career that also included stints in the United States with the New York Cosmos in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Born on Sept. 11, 1945, months after Germany’s surrender in World War II, Beckenbauer studied to become an insurance salesman but he signed his first professional contract with Bayern when he was 18.

“You are not born to become a world star in Giesing. Football for me was a deliverance. Looking back, I can say: Everything went according to how I’d imagined my life. I had a perfect life,” Beckenbauer told the Sueddeutsche newspaper magazine in 2010.

Beckenbauer personalized the position of “libero,” the free-roaming nominal defender who often moved forward to threaten the opponent’s goal, a role now virtually disappeared from modern football and rarely seen before his days.

An elegant, cool player with vision, Beckenbauer defined as captain the Bayern Munich side that won three successive European Cup titles from 1974 to 1976.

In his first World Cup as player in 1966, West Germany lost the final to host England. Four years later, with his arm strapped to his body because of a shoulder injury, Germany lost a memorable semifinal to Italy.

Finally, in 1974 at home, Beckenbauer captained West Germany to the title.

Beckenbauer left Bayern for New York in 1977 to play for the Cosmos of the North American Soccer League. He missed the 1978 World Cup because the Germans decided not to invite players playing abroad. He returned to Germany in 1980, spent two seasons with Hamburger SV — and won another Bundesliga championship, his fifth — before returning for a final season with the Cosmos.

Although he had never coached before, Beckenbauer was hired to revive West Germany in 1984 after a flop at the European Championship.

West Germany made it to the final of the 1986 World Cup, losing to Diego Maradona’s Argentina in Mexico City. Although West Germany failed to win the 1988 Euros title at home, it went to the final of the 1990 World Cup and defeated Argentina in the final in Rome, another highlight in the year after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Later, at the news conference, he said he was “sorry for the rest of the world” because a united Germany would be unbeatable for years to come. But Germany had to wait 24 years before winning another World Cup title.

Beckenbauer retired from the West Germany job after coaching the team to the 1990 World Cup triumph. The final was the last tournament game played by a West Germany-only team.

He didn’t have much success at coaching Marseille but won the Bundesliga title with Bayern in 1994 and the UEFA Cup in 1996, both after taking over as coach late in the season. He later became Bayern’s president, until leaving most functions when he turned 65 in 2010.

Beckenbauer’s legal issues around the 2006 World Cup continued into his retirement, but he remained a much-loved figure in German soccer and society.
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BEVERLY HILLS, California — “Oppenheimer has dominated the Golden Globe Awards, taking home the night’s top honor. Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Poor Things” has won best comedy or musical at the 81st Golden Globes, an upset victory over the category favorite, “Barbie.” 

Emma Stone also won for her performance in “Poor Things.”

On the television side, “Succession” and “The Bear” are took multiple honors. Christopher Nolan’s epic American drama “Oppenheimer” picked up five big awards including best drama film, best director for Nolan, best actor for Cillian Murphy, best supporting actor for Robert Downey Jr. and for Ludwig Göransson’s score.

Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph both won for their performances in “The Holdovers.”

Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster biopic “Oppenheimer” dominated the 81st Golden Globes, winning five awards including best drama, while Yorgos Lanthimos’ Frankenstein riff “Poor Things” pulled off an upset victor over “Barbie” to triumph in the best comedy or musical category.

If awards season has been building toward a second match-up of Barbenheimer, this round went to “Oppenheimer.”

The film also won best director for Nolan, best drama actor for Cillian Murphy, best supporting actor for Robert Downey Jr. and for Ludwig Göransson’s score.

“I don’t think it was a no-brainer by any stretch of the imagination to make a three-hour talky movie — R-rated by the way — about one of the darkest developments in our history,” said producer Emma Thomas accepting the night’s final award and thanking Universal chief Donna Langley.

Along with best comedy or musical, “Poor Things” also won for Emma Stone’s performance as Bella, a Victorian-era woman experiencing a surreal sexual awakening.

“I see this as a rom-com,” said Stone. “But in the sense that Bella falls in love with life itself, rather than a person.

She accepts the good and the bad in equal measure, and that really made me look at life differently.”

Lily Gladstone won best actress in a dramatic film for Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Gladstone, who began her speech speaking the language of her native tribe, Blackfeet Nation, is the first Indigenous winner in the category.

“This is a historic win,” said Gladstone. “It doesn’t just belong to me.”

The Globes were in their ninth decade but facing a new and uncertain chapter. After a tumultuous few years of scandal, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association was dissolved, leaving a new Globes, on a new network (CBS), to try to regain its perch as the third biggest award show of the year, after the Oscars and Grammys. Even the menu (sushi from Nobu) was remade.

“Golden Globes journalists, thank you for changing your game, therefore changing your name,” said Downey in his acceptance speech.

It got off to a rocky start. Host Jo Koy took the stage at the Beverly Hilton International Ballroom in Beverly Hills, California.

The Filipino American stand-up hit on some expected topics: Ozempic, Meryl Streep’s knack for winning awards and the long-running “Oppenheimer.” (“I needed another hour.”)

After one joke flubbed, Koy, who was named host after some bigger names reportedly passed, also noted how fast he was thrust into the job.

“Yo, I got the gig 10 days ago. You want a perfect monologue?” said Koy. “I wrote some of these and they’re the ones you’re laughing at.”

Hi, Barbie

Downey’s win, his third Globe, denied one to “Kenergy.” Ryan Gosling had been seen as his stiffest competition, just one of the many head-to-head contests between “Oppenheimer” and Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie.”

The filmmakers faced each other in the best director category, where Nolan triumphed.

It was two hours before “Barbie,” the year’s biggest hit with more than $1.4 billion in ticket sales, won an award Sunday. Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” took best song, and swiftly after, “Barbie” took the Globes’ new honor for “cinematic and box office achievement.”

Some thought that award might go to Taylor Swift, whose “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” also set box-office records. Swift, though, remains winless in five Globe nods.

Margot Robbie, star and producer of “Barbie,” accepted the award in a pink gown modeled after 1977’s Superstar Barbie.

“We’d like to dedicate this to every single person on the planet who dressed up and went to the greatest place on Earth: the movie theaters,” said Robbie.

“Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” two blockbusters brought together by a common release date, also faced off in the best screenplay category.

But in an upset, Justine Triet and Arthur Harari won for the script to the French courtroom drama “Anatomy of a Fall.” Later, Triet’s film picked up best international film, too.

Though the Globes have no direct correlation with the Academy Awards, they can boost campaigns at a crucial juncture. Oscar nomination voting starts Thursday, and the twin sensations of Barbenheimer remain frontrunners.

Other contenders loom, though, like “Poor Things” and “The Holdovers.”

Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph both won for Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers.” Giamatti, reuniting with Payne two decades after “Sideways,” won best actor and Randolph won for her supporting performance as a grieving woman in the 1970s-set boarding school drama.

“Oh, Mary you have changed my life,” Randolph said of her character. “You have made me feel seen in so many ways that I have never imagined.”

Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron” won best animated film, an upset over “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.”

‘Succession,’  ‘The Bear’ Lead TV Winners

The final season of “Succession” cleaned up on the television side. It won best drama series for the third time, a mark that ties a record set by “Mad Men” and “The X-Files.” Three stars from the HBO series also won: Matt Macfadyen, Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin.

“It is bittersweet, but things like this make it rather sweeter,” said “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong.

Hulu’s “The Bear” also came away with a trio of awards, including best comedy series. Jeremy Allen White won for the second time, but this time he had company.

Ayo Edebiri won her first Globe for her leading performance in the Hulu show’s second season. She thanked the assistants of her agents and managers.

“To the people who answer my emails, you’re the real ones,” said Edebiri.

“Beef” won three awards: best limited series as well as acting awards for Ali Wong and Steven Yeun.

The Globes also added a new stand-up special award. That went, surprisingly, to Ricky Gervais, who didn’t attend the show he so often hosted. Some expected Chris Rock to win for “Selective Outrage,” his stand-up response to the Will Smith slap.

The Globes Comeback

A few years ago, the Golden Globes were on the cusp of collapse. After The Los Angeles Times reported that the HFPA had no Black members, Hollywood boycotted the organization.

The 2022 Globes were all but canceled and taken off TV. After reforms, the Globes returned to NBC last year in a one-year deal, but the show was booted to Tuesday evening.

With Jerrod Carmichael hosting, the telecast attracted 6.3 million viewers, a new low on NBC and a far cry from the 20 million that once tuned in.

The Golden Globes were acquired by Eldridge Industries and Dick Clark Productions, which Penske Media owns, and turned into a for-profit venture.

The HFPA (which typically numbered around 90 voters) was dissolved and a group of some 300 entertainment journalists from around the world now vote for the awards.

Questions still remain about the Globes’ long-term future, but their value to Hollywood studios remains providing a marketing boost to awards contenders. (The Oscars won’t be held until March 10.)

This year, because of the actors and writers strikes, the Globes are airing ahead of the Emmys, which were postponed to Jan. 15.

With movie ticket sales still 20% off the pre-pandemic pace and the industry facing a potentially perilous 2024 at the box office, Hollywood needed the Golden Globes as much as it ever has.

The most comical evaluation on the Globes came from presenters Will Ferrell and Kristin Wiig, who blamed the awards body for the constant interruption of a song they found irresistible while otherwise solemnly presenting best actor in a drama.

A furious, dancing Ferrell shouted: “The Golden Globes have not changed!”
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