Category World News

The Brazilian forward, who was at Fluminense from age 10 until leaving for Watford in 2020, curled his new club in front at MetLife Stadium on Tuesday from the left side of the box in the 18th minute.

The 24-year-old, who joined the Londoners from Brighton for $81.5m last week, sealed the win in the drilled effort that went in off the underside of the bar early in the second half.

The Blues will face the winner of Real Madrid against Paris Saint-Germain, who play in the second semifinal on Wednesday.

Temperatures were soaring in New Jersey, which will stage next summer’s FIFA 2026 World Cup, ahead of the 3pm kickoff.

A crowd of 70, 556, which was only 10-15 percent short of capacity, attended the game, despite the 34 degrees Celsius (93F) &nbsp, at kickoff, with humidity that made it feel like 40C (104F).

FIFA had, however, cut ticket prices from $473.90 to $13.40 last week.

It did not take long for the action on the field to reach similarly heated levels soon after Pedro’s opener, when Chelsea defender Trevoh Chalobah handled in his own area.

Video Referee Assistant (VAR) intervened, and the original awarding of the penalty was overturned. Fluminense were incensed, but Chalobah’s arm was in a natural position by his side.

Fluminense’s best opening came moments earlier, when Marc Cucurella was forced to clear Hercules’s shot off the line in the 27th minute.

Former Chelsea defender Tiago Silva, who appeared 113 times for Brazil, lined up against his former club since departing the London club last October.

The 40-year-old was far busier than his former teammates in their defensive lines, with his keeper, Fabio, drawn into a number of saves.

There was little the oldest player in the tournament, at 44, could do about either of Pedro’s strikes, the second a brilliant finish following a counterattack early in the 56th minute. Cole Palmer set the move in motion by dribbling past three players before laying off for Enzo Fernandez, who in turn laid on to Pedro.

Much like his first goal, where he took two steps to start to celebrate, then stopped and clasped his hands, Pedro showed respect to his former club by muting his response to both strikes.

Chelsea will now seek to secure a second FIFA Club World Cup, following their 2021 victory.

European teams will win their 12th straight Club World Cup title, and 17th in 18 tries, the lone exception a 2012 victory by Brazil’s Corinthians over Chelsea.

According to the Tunis Afrique Press (TAP) news agency, a Tunisian court has sentenced 21 well-known politicians and former top officials, including opposition leader Rached Ghannouchi, to jail terms.

The rulings on Tuesday represent President Kais Saied’s most recent expansion of his crackdown on critics and political opponents.

Ghannouchi, the Ennahdha party leader, was given a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison. Former prime minister Youssef Chahed and former minister of foreign affairs Rafik Abdessalem Bouchlaka were among the others who received a 35-year absentia sentence.

Nadia Akacha, Saied’s former chief of staff, was also given a 35-year prison term in absentia, the TAP reported.

The defendants are accused of conspiring against internal state security and forming and forming a “terrorist” organization.

The former foreign minister, Bouchlaka, criticized the sentences on Tuesday, saying that the Tunisian government has “becomedy in front of the world with its immaturity, recklessness, and craziness.”

In a social media post, Bouchlaka wrote that “this lying, deceptive coup regime will leave like the dictators, tyrants, and fraudsters that left before it.”

Since Saied suspended the elected parliament and formally ruled by decree in 2021, many opposition leaders, journalists, and critics of him have been imprisoned, according to the opposition.

Said has been accused of using the police and the judiciary to harm his political rivals by critics. Many warn that the democratic gains made in the Arab Spring’s birthplace since the revolution that overthrew Tunisian leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011 are being steadily resisted.

Saied refutes the accusations and claims that his actions are legitimate and intended to end years of chaos and widespread corruption.

Ennahdha disputes the group’s accusations. After the uprising of 2011, Ghannouchi and former President Beji Caid Essebsi reached a power-sharing agreement to bring Tunisia back to democracy.

Ennahda’s Tunisian headquarters was shut down by the Tunisian government last year. Gannouchi, 84, is already serving time in prison for political-related offenses.

He was given a 22-year sentence in February for “plotting against state security.”