Poor air quality due to wildfire smoke from Canada has forced Thursday’s Major League Soccer game between the Vancouver Whitecaps and Fire at Chicago’s Soldier Field, along with a scheduled postgame concert, to be postponed.
The game, which was expected to draw 40,000, will be made up on Oct. 6.
Heavy, pungent wildfire smoke darkened skies in the U.S. from the Great Lakes to parts of the East Coast, reducing visibility and prompting warnings that breathing the air outside could be dangerous.
Officials in many cities urged residents to stay inside or wear masks outside as air quality reached unhealthy to hazardous levels, meaning it’s unhealthy for anyone, regardless of health conditions. The National Weather Service said a lingering high pressure system has trapped the smoke close to the ground.
Trinity Rodman, a member of the United States women’s national team, said the smokey sky was difficult to deal with during Wednesday night’s NWSL game between the Washington Spirit and Gotham FC at New York’s Citi Field.
Rodman said she wasn’t a fan of the hydration breaks every 15 minutes in the game as the temperature reached into the 90s.
“Air quality was rough,” Rodman was quoted as saying by The Athletic. “Not to make excuses at all, but I think on both sides we were all like, ‘another break, another break, another break.'”
A crowd of more than 42,000 attended the rematch of teams in last season’s NWSL title game. The crowd was a record for a women’s sporting event in New York City.
“If we have to have a hydration break every 15 minutes, then we shouldn’t be playing the game, and that’s my opinion,” Rodman said. “But at the end of the day, there’s 40,000 people. It’s a whole event, so it’s really tough. It’s just a really hard situation for everyone to work around.”
The jersey Pelé wore during Brazil‘s 5-2 victory over hosts Sweden in the 1958 FIFA World Cup final sold at Sotheby’s for $4.88 million on Thursday.
That’s the most ever paid for a Pelé collectible, surpassing the $1.33 million private sale of a Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) 9 1958 Alifabologet Pelé rookie card in 2022, soccer’s first $1 million card.
The jersey was worn by a then-17-year-old Pelé — still the youngest player to appear and score in a FIFA World Cup final after he found the net in the 55th and 90th minutes.
It was gifted to his teammate Dida following the 1958 final, who donated it to the Museu dos Esportes in Rio de Janeiro. The museum consigned the jersey to a Christie’s auction in 2004, where it last sold for $105,600. (The Sotheby’s lot includes conclusive photo-matching paperwork from SIA Photo Match.)
“This shirt is not only a lasting reminder of one of the most important moments in football history, but is principally connected to the very moment that catapulted Pelé into a global sporting icon,” Sotheby’s head of sports strategy and development, Brendan Hawkes, said in a statement.
“Ahead of the World Cup final this weekend, it feels especially fitting to see such strong enthusiasm for the shirt worn as Pelé scored both goals that day more than six decades ago.”
Worn during Brazil’s first of a record five FIFA World Cup titles, it is now the second-most expensive soccer jersey of all-time behind Diego Maradona’s $9.28 million “Hand of God” jersey from the 1986 FIFA World Cup.
Maradona’s shirt from the quarterfinal win over England is the most expensive soccer collectible and third most expensive sports jersey of all-time behind Babe Ruth’s “called shot” ($24 million) and Michael Jordan’s “Last Dance” ($10.1 million) jerseys.
In the same Sotheby’s auction, Maradona’s 1986 FIFA World Cup captain’s armband, conclusively photo-matched to the “Hand of God” and “Goal of the Century” quarterfinal against England and victorious final against West Germany, sold for $512,000. The armband is also “an apparent match” to Argentina’s Round of 16 match against Uruguay.
