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  • Embolo, Ndoye score and Switzerland moves on at the World Cup with a 2-0 win over Algeria

    Embolo, Ndoye score and Switzerland moves on at the World Cup with a 2-0 win over Algeria

    VANCOUVER, British Columbia – A clinical 2-0 victory over Algeria on Thursday night has carried Switzerland through to the World Cup’s knockout stage, with first-half striker Breel Embolo and second-half winger Dan Ndoye securing the decisive goals to set up a round-of-16 clash next Tuesday. The Swiss will face the winner of Friday’s Group H decider between Colombia and Ghana, with their next knockout fixture set to be hosted right here in Vancouver.

    Thursday’s result marks the fourth consecutive World Cup where Switzerland has advanced to the round of 16, a consistent run that hides a long-standing knockout-stage drought for the European side. The Swiss have not claimed a win in a knockout round fixture since the 1938 tournament held in France, though they did win a placement playoff in 1954 to punch their ticket to the quarterfinals. In their past three 32-team World Cup appearances, Switzerland reached the round of 16 each time but failed to progress any further, a monkey they will be eager to throw off next week.

    For Algeria, the defeat brings an early end to their first World Cup return since 2014. The North African side had broken a 10-year tournament drought to qualify for this year’s expanded 48-team field, and eight years ago they advanced to the knockout round before falling to eventual tournament champion Germany.

    The match unfolded with a surprising early momentum shift: Algeria controlled possession and created the majority of dangerous chances in the opening 10 minutes, but were caught out on a rapid Swiss counterattack. 20-year-old wing back Johan Manzambi broke free down the right flank, delivering a pinpoint low cross into the six-yard box that left Embolo with a simple tap-in to open the scoring. The finish marked Embolo’s 26th international goal, and the striker celebrated the opening tally with a sliding knee celebration in front of the traveling Swiss fan section.

    Less than 60 seconds into the second half, Switzerland doubled their advantage to put the game out of reach. Ndoye collected a loose clearance just outside the 18-yard box and hit a blistering full-volley that diving Algeria goalkeeper Luca Zidane could not reach, even with a full extension. The shot rocketed into the top corner, securing what would prove to be the final margin of victory.

    Switzerland came close to adding a third goal in the 81st minute, when Fabian Rieder found himself unmarked in front of an open goal for another tap-in. The midfielder’s effort skidded just wide of the far post, keeping the final scoreline 2-0.

    In a side note, FIFA President Gianni Infantino was in attendance for the fixture, his second match of the day after earlier watching Spain face off against Austria in Inglewood, California.

    Algeria secured their knockout stage spot earlier in the group stage as one of the tournament’s third-place qualifiers, coming out of a dramatic 3-3 draw with Austria last Saturday in Kansas City. The result sent both Algeria and Austria through to the knockout round, while eliminating Iran from contention. 35-year-old Algeria captain Riyad Mahrez proved pivotal in that draw, notching two goals to keep his side’s tournament hopes alive.

    For Switzerland, Thursday’s win follows a dramatic 2-1 victory over co-host Canada just one day earlier. Goals from Rubén Vargas and Manzambi spoiled Canada’s bid to become the first co-host to reach the knockout round on home soil, and instead earned the Swiss a return trip to Vancouver for their round-of-16 fixture. The side also benefited from a rare seven-day break after their final group stage match, which allowed the squad to return to their pre-tournament training base in San Diego to recover and prepare for knockout play.

    Manzambi has emerged as the breakout star of Switzerland’s tournament so far, with Thursday’s assist marking his fourth goal contribution of the competition – two goals and two assists overall. The young winger began the tournament coming off the bench as an impact substitute, but has earned a starting spot in the side’s last two consecutive matches after a string of standout performances.

    The fixture also carried a subplot of a homecoming for Algeria head coach Vladimir Petkovic, who managed the Swiss national team from 2014 to 2021. During his tenure, Petkovic led Switzerland to the knockout stage of the 2018 World Cup and guided the side to a historic quarterfinal run at the 2020 European Championships.

  • World Cup what to know: Messi looks to add to career goals lead when Argentina faces Cape Verde

    World Cup what to know: Messi looks to add to career goals lead when Argentina faces Cape Verde

    As the FIFA World Cup knockout stage kicks into high gear, three intriguing round of 32 matches are set to unfold across the United States on Friday, headlined by defending champion Argentina and superstar Lionel Messi squaring off against surprise qualifier Cape Verde at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. A win for the South American giants will book their spot in the tournament’s round of 16, continuing Messi’s quest for a second World Cup title.

    At 36, Messi continues to rewrite World Cup history, putting in a tournament performance for the ages. He currently sits level atop this tournament’s goal-scoring table with six strikes, tied with France’s Kylian Mbappé. With 19 career World Cup goals, Messi holds the all-time leading scorer mark, though Mbappé sits just one goal behind after his brace in France’s 3-0 group-stage rout of Sweden. Crucially, Messi has played one fewer match than Mbappé at this year’s tournament, giving him a clear path to extend his lead and strengthen his bid for the Golden Boot when Argentina faces a Cape Verde side lacking the big-name star power of the tournament’s elite.

    The matchup has widely been framed as soccer’s modern David vs. Goliath, but Cape Verde has already proven that underestimating the African side leads to trouble. The underdogs held Spain to a 0-0 draw in group play, a result that pushed them into the knockout round and sent two-time champion Uruguay packing earlier than expected. Even as massive underdogs, Cape Verde’s camp says they have no intention of simply showing up to make up the numbers.

    Calling this the most significant match in the nation’s soccer history, Cape Verde head coach Bubista emphasized that his side’s knockout berth was no fluke. “We did not reach this stage by chance. It was on our own merits and we want to show the world our qualities, our values, and that there is a lot of quality in Cape Verdean football,” he told reporters Thursday. Backup defender Stopira echoed that confidence, saying “I believe we can do a great thing here… this match is no exception.” A Cape Verde upset would send shockwaves across the global soccer community, but the side has already earned the respect of Argentina’s coaching staff.

    Argentina manager Lionel Scaloni said his side has no plans to overlook their opponents. “We are not surprised, to be honest. They are a good team. And they are not here by chance. We must respect them. And that’s what we will do,” Scaloni said.

    Friday’s action kicks off at 2 p.m. EDT at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, where Australia will face Egypt in the day’s first knockout tie. Egypt is holding out hope that star forward Mohamed Salah, who picked up a hamstring injury in the team’s 1-1 group-stage draw with Iran that secured their knockout spot, will be available. Salah came off in the 57th minute of that match and only participated in limited training sessions in the lead-up to the game, with head coach Hossam Hassan saying he is still unsure whether Salah will feature in the starting lineup.

    This is only Egypt’s fourth World Cup appearance, and just their first trip to the knockout round. One more goal from Salah will tie the Liverpool icon’s career national team tally at 69, equaling the Egyptian all-time record held by his current national team coach. For Australia, the Socceroos are chasing their first ever knockout round win, having fallen in their two previous appearances at this stage — including a 2-1 loss to Messi and Argentina in the 2022 Qatar World Cup round of 16. Australia advanced out of their group after a 2-0 win over Turkey, a 2-0 loss to the United States, and a conservative 0-0 draw with Paraguay that saw both sides protect their position to advance.

    The nightcap will be held at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri, where Colombia faces Ghana with a round of 16 spot on the line. Colombia enter the match as heavy favorites after a dominant group-stage run, where they picked up wins over Uzbekistan and Congo, and held Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal to a hard-fought 0-0 draw. Across three matches, Los Cafeteros only conceded one goal, and head coach Nestor Lorenzo’s side has carried quiet confidence into their final training sessions this week.

    Even Spain head coach Luis de la Fuente named Colombia as a legitimate contender to win the entire tournament. Lorenzo downplayed the favorite label, saying “I know that is a complement from Coach De La Fuente, and I thank him for saying so, but I prefer not to be considered a favorite. Every single time we’ve had to take over the reins, our team has done so. That’s shown growth on behalf of Colombia.” A win Friday will see Colombia advance to face the winner of Saturday’s Switzerland-Algeria matchup on July 7.

    For Ghana, the moment is already something of a surprise. The Black Stars failed to qualify for the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations for the first time in more than 20 years, but a win over Panama and a draw with England were enough to push them into the knockout round. Now they are aiming to reach the round of 16 for the first time since 2010, adding another chapter to this tournament’s run of upsets. “It’s very important,” Ghana center back Derrick Luckassen said. “We are through and that’s the most important, and we hope we can come even further. That is what we want. We will give our best to come through.”

    One of the biggest storylines entering Friday’s action remains Messi’s historic goal chase. While the Inter Miami star already holds the all-time career World Cup goal record, he remains far off the mark for the most goals scored in a single edition of the tournament: that 13-goal record set by France’s Just Fontaine all the way back at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden. Fontaine is one of only three men to hit double-digit goals in a single World Cup, alongside Hungary’s Sándor Kocsis (11 goals in 1954) and West Germany’s Gerd Müller (10 goals in 1970), and Fontaine’s record came in his only ever World Cup appearance — while Messi is playing in his sixth.

    The tournament’s round of 16 is set to begin Saturday, with eight more knockout ties scheduled to decide the quarterfinal field over the coming days. This story was compiled with reporting from AP Sports Writers Tim Reynolds, David Skretta and Schuyler Dixon.

  • Lionel Messi and Argentina await Cape Verde in the round of 32 at the World Cup

    Lionel Messi and Argentina await Cape Verde in the round of 32 at the World Cup

    MIAMI GARDENS, Florida — When the World Cup’s round of 32 kicks off at Hard Rock Stadium on Friday night, global soccer will witness one of the most dramatic underdog storylines in modern tournament history. On one side stands Argentina, the three-time World Cup title holder, led by widely regarded greatest-of-all-time Lionel Messi, boasting a century of decorated soccer history and a roster stacked with elite international talent. On the other steps Cape Verde, an undersized African island nation making an unprecedented run that no pundits predicted.

    For the Cape Verde side, there is zero pressure to deliver a result — no fanbase or pundit expects the tiny underdog to topple the defending champions. That freedom, however, has not dulled the squad’s belief that they can pull off one of the most stunning upsets the sport has ever seen. “I believe we can do a great thing here,” Cape Verde backup defender Stopira, full name Ianique dos Santos Tavares, told reporters Thursday through a translator. “And this is no exception. This match is no exception.”

    A Cape Verde victory would echo the magnitude of the 1980 “Miracle on Ice”, where a young amateur U.S. men’s hockey team upset the unbeatable Soviet Union at the Lake Placid Olympics en route to gold. In soccer terms, this underdog triumph would be remembered forever as the “Miracle on Grass”.

    When the tournament bracket was first finalized, Argentina’s squad fully expected to face either Spain or Uruguay, the two other decorated former champions in Group H, in this round of 32 matchup. As the Group J winner, Argentina was set to take on the Group H runner-up, and almost no one penciled Cape Verde into that spot. But the chaotic group stage defied all expectations: two-time champion Uruguay crashed out early, 2010 winner Spain advanced but finished second, and Cape Verde held on to claim the unlikely runner-up spot, setting up a showdown with Messi and his world-beating side.

    This underdog run did not come out of nowhere. Cape Verde turned heads early in group play by holding Spain to a surprising scoreless draw, cementing their defensive reputation ahead of the knockout stage. Their 40-year-old starting goalkeeper even captured global public attention when a story spread of community support that allowed his mother to travel to the U.S. to watch his group stage performances. Now, the tiny nation stands in the biggest match in its soccer history.

    “The most important match in our history,” Cape Verde head coach Bubista said of Friday’s clash. “So, we are being responsible and also trying to enjoy the match. We did not reach this stage by chance. It was on our own merits and we want to show the world our qualities, our values and that there’s a lot of quality in Cape Verdean football.”

    Cape Verde enters the knockout round with an unusual resume: it is the only team to advance to the round of 32 this tournament without registering a single win, having earned three consecutive draws across group play. By contrast, Argentina dominated its group, winning all three matches with Messi turning in standout performances in every fixture. Now, both teams enter a do-or-die knockout: win, and advance; lose, and go home.

    Even Argentina’s coaching staff and players are quick to emphasize that Cape Verde’s spot in the round of 32 is no fluke. “We are not surprised, to be honest,” Argentina manager Lionel Scaloni told reporters. “They are a good team. And they are not here by chance. We must respect them. And that’s what we will do.”

    Argentina midfielder Rodrigo de Paul echoed that respect, noting that the bracket always favored a more established nation to reach this matchup. “The truth is that when the draw was decided, the group that we would have to face … there were two world champions there,” he said.

    Cape Verde has already laid out its game plan for the biggest match in the nation’s history. The side will lean into its tested defensive structure, which only allowed two goals across three group matches and kept Spain off the scoresheet entirely. The underdogs plan to push aggressively on set pieces, fight for as much possession control as possible, and execute a unified game plan that targets the entire Argentine side, not just Messi. While no global side has cracked the code of stopping the Argentine star, Bubista says his squad is prepared for the full challenge Argentina presents.

    “We have our own strategy, not only against Messi, but the whole team,” Bubista said. “We know they are the current world champions, one of the best teams in the tournament. And we will play against the whole team, not just Messi.”

  • Rescue teams in Venezuela cling to hope as US rebuffs criticisms of government earthquake response

    Rescue teams in Venezuela cling to hope as US rebuffs criticisms of government earthquake response

    CATIA LA MAR, Venezuela – One week after a pair of devastating earthquakes ripped through Venezuela’s northern coastal region, the acrid stench of smoldering wreckage and decomposing human remains hangs heavy over the flattened neighborhoods of La Guaira state, where international rescue teams continue to cling to faint hopes of pulling more survivors from tons of concrete and rubble.

    On Thursday morning, that faint hope became a rare moment of joy cutting through the pervasive despair that has shrouded the hard-hit port city of Catia La Mar. After 100 consecutive hours of painstaking excavation by search-and-rescue teams from across the Americas, crews pulled 43-year-old Hernán Alberto Gil Flores alive from the collapsed ruins of a local shopping mall, where he had been trapped for nearly eight full days. Rescuers say a narrow, stable air pocket kept Gil Flores alive, and he was able to stay hydrated and nourished using supplies that teams lowered through gaps in the rubble before reaching him. As he was carried out on a stretcher and loaded into an awaiting ambulance, crowds of onlookers who had gathered at the site burst into cheers, marking one of the few unqualified victories for rescue teams amid a relentless, devastating recovery effort.

    The miracle rescue comes against a backdrop of staggering loss that has left the country reeling. As of Wednesday, Venezuelan government figures put the confirmed death toll at 2,295, with more than 11,000 people injured by the quakes. Thousands more remain unaccounted for, as desperate family members sift through wreckage searching for any sign of missing loved ones. Tens of thousands of displaced residents are now living in overcrowded emergency shelters or sleeping in the open air along the coast, a reality that has medical professionals sounding the alarm over a looming secondary public health crisis. With Venezuela’s already teetering national healthcare system stretched beyond its breaking point, untreated injuries and the spread of infectious disease threaten to push the death toll even higher in the coming weeks.

    Beyond the human catastrophe, the disaster has amplified already fierce political pressure on interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez, whose government is facing widespread backlash from Venezuelans over what critics call an inadequate, under-resourced official response to the quakes. On the ground, civilian volunteer teams and international rescue efforts have outpaced official government action, drawing sharp condemnation from citizens grappling with the aftermath.

    The criticism comes at a pivotal political moment for Rodríguez: her 180-day mandate as acting president was set to expire at the end of Thursday, leaving the country’s interim leadership status unclear amid a lack of transparency from government officials. Rodríguez, who previously served as vice president to Nicolás Maduro before Maduro was ousted by U.S.-backed opposition in January, has held the interim presidency with formal backing from the Trump administration. Under Venezuela’s constitution, an interim vice presidential appointment can only extend 90 days before requiring an additional 90-day extension from the National Assembly, which is controlled by Rodríguez’s party. If the seat is declared permanently vacant, the assembly has the authority to call a snap national election.

    Despite growing domestic discontent over the disaster response, the Trump administration reaffirmed its full support for Rodríguez’s government on Wednesday. U.S. officials confirmed that roughly 900 American military personnel are currently deployed in Venezuela to support rescue and humanitarian relief operations. John M. Barrett, U.S. chargé d’affaires to Venezuela, pushed back against claims that Rodríguez’s administration had politicized disaster response efforts during a press call with reporters. “The U.S. response does require a high level of coordination with local authorities to be successful,” Barrett said. “And what I can say with confidence is that the local authorities have fully complied with our requests and have accelerated this massive humanitarian response.”

    Gen. Francis Donovan, head of U.S. Southern Command, added that decades of systemic underinvestment in Venezuelan public infrastructure and social services had created pre-existing conditions that made responding to a disaster of this scale far more difficult for any sitting government. “It is a big problem for any leader to deal with a challenge of this magnitude,” Donovan noted.

    Janetsky reported from Mexico City. Associated Press journalist Ben Finley contributed reporting from Washington D.C.

  • Watch: Man rescued from rubble eight days after Venezuela earthquake

    Watch: Man rescued from rubble eight days after Venezuela earthquake

    In a stunning tale of survival that has captured global attention, a 43-year-old Venezuelan security guard has been pulled alive from the remains of a collapsed building eight full days after twin earthquakes rocked the South American nation.

    Rescue crews pulled Hernan Gil from the wreckage on Thursday, marking an extraordinary outcome for a search effort that many feared would only recover remains after more than a week trapped beneath fallen concrete and mangled infrastructure. The twin seismic events that struck Venezuela triggered the collapse of the multi-story structure where Gil was working, leaving him pinned and cut off from contact with the outside world.

    The dramatic rescue, captured on video by emergency responders on the scene, has already spread widely across social media, with many viewers hailing it as a rare moment of hope in the aftermath of a disaster that brought widespread destruction and loss of life across affected regions of the country. Rescue teams have not yet released details on how Gil survived eight days without food, water, or access to open air, but medical teams have already taken him to a local hospital to evaluate his condition.

  • Venezuelan security guard pulled alive from building basement 8 days after twin quakes

    Venezuelan security guard pulled alive from building basement 8 days after twin quakes

    Eight days after a devastating pair of back-to-back earthquakes shook northern Venezuela, an international coalition of rescue teams pulled off a miraculous early Thursday extraction, pulling a trapped 43-year-old security guard alive from the collapsed rubble of a coastal shopping center. The successful rescue of Hernán Alberto Gil Flores has become a powerful symbol of hope amid widespread destruction that left thousands dead and countless communities shattered.

    Gil Flores, a night-shift security guard stationed at the Galerías Playa Grande shopping center in Catia La Mar, a coastal town in the hard-hit La Guaira state, was inside his small on-duty cabin when the first magnitude 7.2 tremor struck on June 24. Just moments later, a second 7.5-magnitude quake hit, triggering the total collapse of the surrounding multi-story concrete structure. In a cruel twist of fate that saved his life, the small prefabricated security cabin remained intact, creating a narrow pocket of breathable air that shielded him from falling crushing debris for eight full days.

    Costa Rican Red Cross specialized rescue teams first detected faint signs of life and established contact with Gil Flores over the weekend, sparking a coordinated round-the-clock extraction effort. Led by Chilean urban search and rescue firefighters, the operation brought together expert teams from the United States, Portugal, Mexico and multiple other nations, all united by a shared commitment: leave no survivor behind. “We were never going to leave him here,” confirmed Costa Rican Red Cross rescuer Minyar Collado ahead of the final extraction.

    Rescue crews navigated a series of deadly hazards throughout the multi-day effort, including unstable, shifting structural rubble, torrential tropical downpours, and near-constant aftershocks that threatened to trigger further collapses. To keep Gil Flores stable as crews tunneled toward him, teams used a telescopic camera to maintain nonstop communication, and passed bottled water and liquid nutrients through a narrow drilled shaft to sustain him over the final three days of the operation. Veteran Chilean firefighter María Paz Campos talked the survivor through every step of the process, keeping him calm through the final agonizing hours of waiting. In pre-rescue footage released by Chilean firefighters, Gil Flores can be seen passing time sketching, before following instructions to put on protective goggles to shield his eyes from falling fine dust and concrete particles.

    In a poignant detail shared by Collado, when rescuers first made contact, Gil Flores asked them not to inform his wife he was alive, worried that she would suffer additional heartbreak if he did not survive the extraction. For his spouse, Gusbimar González, the days after the quakes were filled with unrelenting despair, until the moment she learned the news: “when I learned he was alive, I saw a ray of light in the darkness,” she told the Associated Press. The couple share two children, aged 8 and 10, who had waited anxiously for news of their father.

    When rescuers carried Gil Flores out on a stretcher covered with an orange protective tarp, teams from every participating nation broke into cheers, as crowds of onlookers lined the path to a waiting Red Cross ambulance. Members of the Costa Rican Red Cross team embraced each other, laughing through tears of relief at the successful outcome.

    The twin June 24 shallow earthquakes that triggered the disaster left an unprecedented trail of destruction across northern Venezuela. More than 2,200 people were killed, over 11,000 were injured, and tens of thousands of buildings across the region were damaged or destroyed. La Guaira state, where Catia La Mar is located, bore the brunt of the catastrophe, but this unlikely rescue has given a shattered community a rare moment of hope in the wake of overwhelming tragedy.

  • Survivor buried by Venezuela quakes eight days ago is cheering rescuers on

    Survivor buried by Venezuela quakes eight days ago is cheering rescuers on

    Eight days after a pair of devastating earthquakes ripped through central Venezuela, a rare story of survival is keeping hundreds of international rescue workers pushing forward against dangerous, unstable conditions. Rescuers from seven nations have spent more than 100 hours racing against the clock to extract 40-something security guard Hernán Gil, who remains alive 9 meters beneath the collapsed ruins of a multi-story car park adjacent to Catia La Mar’s Galerias Playa Grande shopping mall.

    The international response team, with personnel from Venezuela, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico, Portugal and the United States, first detected signs of life from Gil last Saturday. Wagner Leiva, head of emergency response for the Costa Rican Red Cross, recalled the moment his team confirmed the miracle: “We were cutting and removing concrete slabs when we got word there might be a survivor. We headed down to the basement, and after one of our members called out and listened closely, we heard someone answering back.”

    Gil had been on duty inside a small concrete booth in the parking lot’s basement when the twin quakes hit on June 24. The rigid booth structure acted as a protective shell, shielding him from the 140 tons of rubble that collapsed around it, leaving him uncrushed despite the catastrophic destruction above. “He told us he doesn’t even have a crushed nail,” shared Ricardo Arias of the Costa Rican Red Cross with local journalist Joan Camargo, confirming the 40-year-old’s unexpected good physical condition.

    For nearly three days after locating Gil, rescue crews worked cautiously to clear a narrow pathway to deliver his first sip of water, given the extreme instability of the surrounding debris. Access shafts dug by teams have collapsed multiple times during the operation, putting both rescuers and the survivor at constant risk. Just last night local time, crews achieved a critical milestone: they first made physical contact with Gil, and soon after established the first visual contact via a small inserted camera.

    Footage from the camera shows Gil with one bloodshot eye, wearing a dust mask that rescuers passed through a narrow opening earlier to protect him from flying debris. Rescuers have since provided him with water, intravenous hydration, and even the specific flavored electrolyte drinks he requested, with teams confirming he remains in stable condition.

    Far from being demoralized by his eight-day entrapment, Gil has become a source of motivation for the crews working to free him. “He’s a cheerful man, he even drives us on telling us to keep going,” said Marco Antonio Franco of the Mexican Red Cross told Mexican outlet Milenio. “He recognizes each team member, saying ‘how nice that you came back to be with me again.’ Rescuers and Gil have kept up steady conversation, talking about his family and the slow, challenging work of the rescue.”

    As of Tuesday, 350 rescuers are continuing their meticulous, slow-moving extraction effort, with the goal of pulling Gil to safety within the next 24 hours. The twin June 24 earthquakes have already claimed nearly 2,300 confirmed lives across Venezuela, with tens of thousands more still unaccounted for, making Gil’s survival all the more extraordinary for first responders and the victim’s family. His wife has already called his 8-day survival under the rubble “nothing short of a miracle.”

  • The US deported them to Venezuela – hours later earthquakes struck

    The US deported them to Venezuela – hours later earthquakes struck

    A chain of catastrophic events has left dozens of recently deported Venezuelans unaccounted for, after a pair of powerful earthquakes struck the country just hours after they arrived on a U.S. deportation flight, leaving hundreds dead and thousands displaced. Among the missing is 23-year-old Abelardo Rincón, who built a stable new life in Georgia over six years: he worked at a local car dealership, married, and was eagerly awaiting the birth of his first daughter. That future was cut short when U.S. immigration authorities detained him as part of a national immigration enforcement push, before putting him on a June deportation flight carrying more than 140 Venezuelan deportees.

    Rincón landed in Venezuela on June 24, and while still in government custody, he managed to place a call to his family back in Atlanta, telling them he was being housed at a coastal hotel in La Guaira alongside the other flight passengers. Just hours after that call, twin earthquakes tore through central and coastal Venezuela. Official counts put the death toll at over 2,200, with more than 10,000 injured; United Nations data estimates as many as 50,000 people are still missing across the disaster zone. Rincón and dozens of other deportees from that flight, designated Flight 164, are among those unaccounted for, leaving their already fractured families reeling from a cascade of unthinkable loss: arrest, forced separation from their lives in the U.S., deportation, and now disappearance in a catastrophic natural disaster.

    When contacted by the BBC for comment on the cases, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees immigration enforcement agencies including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), issued a generic statement that provided no specific details about Rincón or other passengers on the flight. “This flight safely reached Venezuela and all illegal aliens on board were returned home,” a DHS spokesperson said Tuesday. “When an individual is no longer in ICE custody, ICE is no longer responsible for them.” It remains unclear whether the deportees were removed for illegal border crossing or other immigration violations. Venezuelan authorities have set up public information hotlines for disaster inquiries, but widespread infrastructure damage has left information extremely scarce in the days after the quakes.

    All 140-plus passengers on Flight 164, which included 19 women and seven children, underwent medical screening and processing after landing, then were placed in Hotel Santuario La Llanada in La Guaira, one of the regions hit hardest by the earthquakes. The coastal city suffered widespread building collapses and massive destruction, reducing the hotel where the deportees stayed to rubble. Many of the returnees managed to contact their families to announce they had landed safely, only for the disaster to strike before families could process the news of their return.

    Jose Rincón, Abelardo’s grandfather, told BBC Mundo he has examined more than 200 bodies across morgues in Caracas, still searching for any trace of his grandson. He attempted to reach the collapsed hotel site to search for himself, but Venezuelan authorities blocked access, telling him there were no survivors left at the location. “If we could just see what we need to see — if I could see the rubble, I’d be satisfied — but days have gone by and I still haven’t found him, alive or dead… So what am I supposed to do?” the grandfather said.

    Another passenger, 35-year-old Darwin Eliecer Serrano Lopez, called his cousin at 5:32 a.m. local time to tell his family he had returned to Venezuela after four years living in the U.S. The first earthquake struck less than 30 minutes later. Serrano Lopez had been detained in Chicago and held in four separate detention centers before being placed on the deportation flight, relatives said. After nearly a week of fruitless searching, his cousin Paola Chacón said the family has resigned itself to the likelihood he did not survive. “So many days have passed… we aren’t getting any answers,” she said, adding that the family will not leave the search effort until they can bring his body home for burial.

    Mildrey Sarazo, Serrano Lopez’s wife, had not seen her husband in three years, and as of earlier this week had not told their two daughters, ages 9 and 15, what has happened. “He didn’t want to come back yet” from the U.S., she said, adding that the family only wants confirmation and the chance to lay their loved one to rest. “We want to bury our relatives. We want them to hand him over so we can identify him and be certain.”

    The family of 28-year-old Daniel Alejandro Nunez, another Flight 164 passenger who called his mother shortly after landing, is also grappling with conflicting reports and no clear answers. “We’ve searched for him in hospitals, in morgues – everywhere,” his stepfather Jose Alejandro Abache told BBC Mundo. For families already torn apart by years of separation due to immigration status, the potential loss of their loved ones immediately after their forced return to Venezuela is an unthinkable tragedy.

    Not all passengers on the flight have been counted among the missing, however. A small number survived the collapse of the hotel, and have spoken of the surreal horror of escaping rubble in a country they had left years before. Fifty-eight-year-old Lisbeth Portillo, who was sharing a second-floor room with 16 other women when the building collapsed, told the Associated Press she saw the woman beside her fall as the structure gave way, with everyone screaming for help. “I was born again — God gave me a second chance,” she said.

    For some families, word of a loved one’s survival has come only days after the disaster, often accompanied by devastating news of permanent injury. Twenty-two-year-old Anderson Daniel Salcedo, who had lived in the U.S. for three years and sent money home to support his family, was trapped under rubble for nearly 40 hours before he was rescued, Reuters reported. By the time his family located him at a university hospital in Caracas, doctors had already amputated both of his legs. Because he had no identification on him after the collapse, hospital staff could not identify him or contact his family for days, his grandmother Marlene Lozano told Reuters. “He spent 40 hours in that hole, he didn’t have an ID, they couldn’t account for him because he had no documents. We had no way to communicate with him and didn’t know anything,” Lozano said. Even as the family grapples with the permanent change to Anderson’s life, they remain grateful he is alive. “Here we are praying, asking God to give him strength and courage. We know he won’t be the same anymore — he’s missing his legs — but we love him, just the way is.”

  • What you need to know about England’s last-16 opponents Mexico

    What you need to know about England’s last-16 opponents Mexico

    As the 2026 FIFA World Cup enters its knockout phase, co-host Mexico will lock horns with England in the round of 16, fresh off ending a 40-year dry spell of knockout stage victories and riding a wave of newfound momentum. For a nation with deep footballing roots at the world’s biggest sporting tournament, this clash carries far more than just progression stakes: it offers El Tri the chance to exorcise long-running generational curses and repeat the quarter-final runs they pulled off as hosts in 1970 and 1986.\n\nThis iteration of Mexico’s national side is far from considered a vintage generation by historical standards. Only a small handful of its players plied their trade in Europe’s top five domestic leagues this season, and the team’s most recognizable name, 35-year-old striker Raul Jimenez, is deep into the twilight of his professional career. In the lead-up to this World Cup, public opinion of the team’s tactical approach was muted at best; segments of fans even booed the side during pre-tournament goalless draws against Uruguay and Portugal. But the partisan home support across the tournament has shifted the mood entirely, with head coach Javier Aguirre describing the crowd backing as “a driving force” behind Mexico’s current four-match winning run that has also seen them keep every opponent off the scoresheet.\n\nAguirre, a 67-year-old veteran of Mexican football who represented his country as a player at the 1986 home World Cup, has built his current gameplan on defensive pragmatism. He typically lines up with a compact front three, relying on overlapping full-backs to provide attacking width out wide, and instructs his side to work relentlessly to win back possession immediately after losing it. As co-hosts, Mexico also hold key tangible advantages: they are playing at altitude in Mexico City, where thinner air gradually drains opposing teams of energy, and have benefitted from extra recovery time between matches. Their defensive solidity has already been on display in pre-tournament draws against elite sides Portugal and Belgium, and center-back pairing Johan Vasquez and Cesar Montes have formed an extremely effective complementary partnership that makes breaking Mexico down a major challenge for any attack. At 6ft 3in, Montes – who joined Lokomotiv Moscow in 2024 after an 18-month spell in La Liga – is a dominant physical presence in both penalty areas, and notched three goals during Mexico’s 2025 Gold Cup title run.\n\nWhere the side has struggled, however, is in finding consistent attacking fluency. Though they have notched eight goals through the tournament so far, most of those came against lower-ranked opposition. Tactical analysts note that if England can cut off Mexico’s central passing lanes and disrupt their structured attacking movements, El Tri could struggle to adapt with alternative gameplans.\n\nMexico’s lack of elite global star power has put early focus on 17-year-old creative midfielder Gilberto Mora, who many hope will emerge as the breakout talisman the side has been searching for. The Tijuana talent is the youngest player in Mexico’s World Cup history, and is also the youngest player from any nation to start a knockout stage match since Brazilian legend Pele lined up in 1958. Mora already has experience in high-stakes matches, too: he started Mexico’s 2025 Gold Cup final win over the United States at just 16 years old.\n\nVeteran Jimenez, who has agreed a summer transfer to return to Wolverhampton Wanderers from Fulham, remains the side’s clutch performer when it matters most. He delivered the match-tying goal in that same Gold Cup final against the US, helping Mexico secure a 2-1 comeback victory, and has already doubled his total World Cup goal tally in this tournament: he went scoreless across the previous three editions, but has two goals to his name already in 2026.\n\nThis current World Cup run marks Mexico’s ninth consecutive World Cup appearance, and a record third time hosting or co-hosting the tournament. Their path to the round of 16 was a smooth one: they won all three Group A matches against South Africa, South Korea and the Czech Republic, then secured a comfortable 2-0 win over Ecuador in the round of 32 to end that 40-year knockout win drought – a result that has lifted confidence ahead of facing England.\n\nFor generations, Mexican football has been haunted by the curse of the “quinto partido”, or fifth game: the side exited the round of 16 at seven consecutive World Cups between 1994 and 2018, then broke that sequence in the worst possible fashion by crashing out in the group stage at the 2022 Qatar World Cup. After that disappointment, the Mexican Football Federation hired and fired two head coaches before turning to Aguirre for his third spell in charge in 2024. The vastly experienced manager left no stone unturned in his preparations: El Tri played 22 warm-up matches in the 12 months leading up to the tournament, allowing Aguirre to experiment widely with tactics and personnel. He called up 54 different players across those matches, with fewer than half earning a spot in the final 26-man squad. The domestic-based players, who make up 12 of the final squad, were ordered to report for pre-tournament training as early as May 6, meaning some had been in camp for five full weeks by the time the World Cup kicked off. The hard work has paid off: Aguirre has restored both competitiveness and team harmony to the side, even if some fans still remain unimpressed with his pragmatic, defense-first approach. After this tournament, assistant coach Rafa Marquez – the only player in history to captain a nation at five separate World Cups – will take over as the full-time head coach.\n\nThe match between Mexico and England will kick off at 01:00 BST on Monday 6 July, with full coverage available across BBC platforms, including live television on BBC One and iPlayer, radio on 5 Live and BBC Sounds, and live text coverage via the BBC Sport website and app.\n\nAs a footballing nation, Mexico holds a unique place in World Cup history: it is a near-ever-present at the tournament, but holds the unwanted record of having played more World Cup matches (64 total) than any other side that has never lifted the trophy. Supporters have historically been demanding, but expectations heading into this tournament were fairly modest – a far cry from the confidence now coursing through the camp after ending that four-decade knockout drought. If they can beat England, they will not only secure a long-awaited quarter-final spot, they will match the historic achievements of the 1970 and 1986 host sides.

  • Aunt of Venezuelan boy pulled from rubble tells BBC she will give him ‘mother’s warmth’

    Aunt of Venezuelan boy pulled from rubble tells BBC she will give him ‘mother’s warmth’

    In the wake of two devastating earthquakes that ripped through Venezuela last week, a remarkable story of survival has emerged from the rubble, offering a flicker of hope to a nation reeling from catastrophic loss. Two-year-old Kleiber Moran was pulled alive from the collapsed remains of his family home in northern Venezuela’s La Guaira state by a Jordanian search and rescue team in the early hours of Tuesday, six full days after the disaster struck. Now, recovering in a Caracas hospital, the toddler is in the care of his 23-year-old aunt Andreína Sarmiento, who opened up exclusively to the BBC about her overwhelming joy at reuniting with her nephew — and her unwavering hope that Kleiber’s parents, still missing beneath the wreckage, will be found alive too.

    Sarmiento, sitting at her nephew’s hospital bedside clutching his hand, recalled the moment she learned of the rescue that stunned the nation. When a friend called from La Guaira with the news, she collapsed to the floor, screaming and crying with a flood of shock and relief, before rushing immediately to meet the toddler. She confirmed that British rescue teams had also made attempts to reach Kleiber before the Jordanian operation ultimately succeeded, a collaborative effort that underscores the global response to Venezuela’s tragedy.

    When Sarmiento and Kleiber finally came face to face, the 2-year-old looked up at his aunt and immediately recognized her, saying softly, “Auntie.” In those first hours after rescue, the little boy was in a state of severe shock, crying uncontrollably as he was admitted to the hospital. But after a full night of rest, his condition improved dramatically: by Wednesday, he had stabilized, and now he is playful and responsive, giving his aunt small kisses and telling her when he feels discomfort. As Sarmiento spoke to reporters, Kleiber lay beside her, tucked under a Spiderman blanket, surrounded by donated toys, and occupied with pushing a small toy car across the hospital bed. He shares his ward with other child survivors of the earthquakes, and surprisingly, he suffered no major injuries — only minor scratches on his arms and legs, with no fractures to be found.

    For Sarmiento, however, joy is tinged with deep grief and longing. She has committed to raising Kleiber with the same warmth a mother would give, until her sister — Kleiber’s mother Ana Luz — can be found, a outcome she still prays for every day. “I pray to God to give me strength, because he is only two years old and I am not a mother,” she told the BBC. “It hurts me so much, because my sister always used to tell me he was like my son, and now it feels like she’s handing him to me, saying ‘this is your son, this is your responsibility.’”

    Sarmiento described an unbreakable bond with her 31-year-old sister, saying the pair spoke every day over video call, and Ana Luz never went anywhere without Kleiber at her side. “Wherever she went, her son went too. Whatever Kleiber wanted, she would do everything to give it to him. If she didn’t have the money, she would call me and say Kleiber wanted this or needed that,” Sarmiento recalled. “She was the person I trusted with all my problems, and every time we spoke on video, Kleiber was right there beside her.” Sarmiento says she is certain Ana Luz stayed by her son’s side through the collapse, and still holds out hope that both she and Kleiber’s father Carlos will be pulled from the rubble alive, just like their little boy.

    As the nation grapples with the scale of the disaster, official records already put the confirmed death toll at 2,295 — a number that experts warn will climb far higher in the coming days and weeks. Tens of thousands of people remain unaccounted for, and the United Nations has confirmed it is arranging to deliver 10,000 body bags to support the country’s response efforts. Search and rescue operations are continuing across the hardest-hit regions, even as hopes of finding more survivors fade for most.

    Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s interim President, has called Kleiber’s rescue “a source of hope for our people” at a time of overwhelming national sorrow. For Sarmiento, that hope remains personal: “Just as they found my nephew, I have faith that they are going to find my sister and my brother-in-law,” she said. Looking down at her playful, recovering nephew, she added that she believes the toddler survived for a reason: “He has a purpose in the world. When this child grows up, God willing, this will be his story.”