WEDNESDAY PUZZLE — New York City is currently a nexus for two major sporting events. One is basketball (with the obligatory “Go Knicks!”) and the other makes up the theme of today’s crossword, constructed by the grandfather-grandson team of David J. Kahn and Ethan Quigley. (This is also Mr. Quigley’s New York Times Crossword debut.)

As someone who doesn’t watch soccer — there are only so many hours in a day to catch games — I struggled with some of the trivia. Even so, I’m confident that everyone will net out OK. Just remember that, unlike competitive sports, crossword solving is a leisure activity. Whether this is your first Wednesday solve or your 50th, having fun is, ahem, the goal.

Today’s Theme

The circled letters in the grid represent “country codes.” Forgot to memorize those? Fret not: By sheer coincidence, these codes also happen to be the first letters of the countries they refer to. The clues for the entries that contain these letters seem relatively straightforward: 4A’s [Big dust-up], for instance, solves to BRAWL, and the [“Lady Bird” director Greta] at 43A is GERWIG. But there are also lists of years that appear bracketed beside each clue. At 4A, these are 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994 and 2002; at 43A, 1954, 1974, 1990 and 2014.

The constructors leave us guessing about what to do next, but I imagine soccer fans will have no trouble making the connection: These countries belong to 7D’s [Global “club” with only eight members] of WORLD CUP WINNERS. The years, a quick check confirms, are when each of the countries won. Brazil, country code BRA, was a winner in the years at 4A. GER is for Germany, which took the title in 1954, 1974 and 1990 as West Germany, and then again in 2014.

I leave the other relevant entries for you to tackle (which apparently means something different in soccer than it does in American football).

Tricky Clues

18A. Though it’s technically a theme entry, [Big dust-up [1998, 2018]] deserves a mention here, because the word AFFRAY is less likely to come up in everyday conversation now than it was in, say, the mid-19th century.

34A. The same can be said of NOWISE, an old word for [Not at all] that seems to have fallen out of fashion around two centuries ago. The term’s most recent appearance in The Times — outside of a Revolutionary War quotation or a crossword, that is — was in a 1982 essay by John Barth. “The news was nowise traumatic, but it was as unequivocal as a high-jump bar that others clear with ease or difficulty but you can’t even approach.”

44A. The [Dog in “The Thin Man”] was a wire fox terrier named ASTA, née Skippy.

58A. [Used one] looks like an action happening in past tense, but we’re actually solving for the “one” who gets used to achieve someone else’s aims: a PAWN.

3D. As part of a category that includes [Fluffy slippers, e.g.], FOOT WARMERS are just barely in bounds. It’s an odd debut, as entries go, but I’m feeling warm and fuzzy enough to allow it.

34D. I hope the constructors will forgive me for being unmotivated to refer to a [Motivator, of a sort] as a NUDGER.

Constructor Notes

David Kahn: Ethan Quigley, who co-authored this puzzle, is my grandson. Ethan’s a student at City Tech in New York City studying game design. He’s also a big soccer fan and plays in a recreational league. Needless to say, we got a big “kick” out of working together on this one. In our first draft, although four of the eight countries appeared in answers crossing WORLD CUP WINNERS, we thought it would be really cool if all eight did. And for a change, the crossword gods complied.

In 1998, Ethan’s mom, Hillary B. Kahn, and I co-authored a Sunday Times crossword titled “Green Eggs and Hamlet.” So I’m happy to say that the long list of Times puzzle constructors now includes three generations of the Kahn family.

Improve Your Crossword Solving

Work your way through our guide “How to Solve the New York Times Crossword.” It contains an explanation of most of the types of clues you will see in the puzzles and a practice Mini at the end of each section.

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