Danilo da Silva header secures Flamengo Copa Libertadores triumph over Palmeiras

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Former Juventus defender Danilo scored a second-half goal and Flamengo downed Palmeiras 1-0 to win the Copa Libertadores final on Saturday.

Danilo, who also spent time in Europe with Real Madrid and Manchester City, scored on a header in the 67th minute.

“I scored the goal for the team of my life,” said Danilo, who joined the Rio de Janeiro club this year after a 14-season career in Europe. “I knew we were going to have a set-piece opportunity and I was able to take advantage of it.”

Danilo, became the first player to win twice both the Copa Libertadores and the UEFA Champions League.

“They are all very difficult. I don’t remember much about the previous ones, but this one has been very difficult,” said the 34-year-old defender, who won the Libertadores in 2011 with Santos (also scoring in the second leg of the final against Peñarol) and the Champions League with Real Madrid in 2016 and 2017.

Midfielder Jorginho, who won the Champions League with Chelsea in 2021, joined the list of 18 players who have won both tournaments.

Flamengo won its fourth Copa Libertadores crown and its first since 2022. It also won in 1981 and 2019.

Brazil has 25 Copa titles, tying Argentina’s tally as the winningest nation in the tournament.

The Rio de Janeiro team became the first Brazilian four-time champion, surpassing the record held by Palmeiras, São Paulo, Santos, and Grêmio. With this victory, they tied Argentine clubs River Plate and Estudiantes de La Plata. Only Independiente (7), Boca Juniors (6), and Peñarol (5) have more Libertadores titles.

Flamengo took home $24 million and a place in the 2029 Club World Cup. It will also play in the Recopa against Lanús, which won the Copa Sudamericana last Saturday. The runner-up receives $7 million.

Brazilian teams have won the Copa Libertadores seven years in a row. Argentina’s River Plate was the last non-Brazilian team to win the tournament when it defeated Boca Juniors in 2018.

Flamengo — which avenged its loss to Palmeiras in the 2021 final — could extend their celebration, as they are also close to winning the Brazilian championship. It leads with 75 points, five more than Verdao, with two matches to play.

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Players of Brazil's Flamengo celebrate with the trophy after defeating Brazil's Palmeiras in the Copa Libertadores final soccer match in Lima, Peru, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

Fans of Brazil's Flamengo celebrate a goal as they watch the Copa Libertadores final soccer match against Brazil's Palmeiras, being played in Lima, Peru, on a giant screen set up at Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

Fans of Brazil's Flamengo celebrate a goal as they watch the Copa Libertadores final soccer match against Brazil's Palmeiras, being played in Lima, Peru, on a giant screen set up at Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

Danilo of Brazil's Flamengo, center, celebrates after scoring his side's opening goal against Brazil's Palmeiras during a Copa Libertadores final soccer match in Lima, Peru, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Guadalupe Pardo)

Danilo of Brazil's Flamengo, center, celebrates after scoring his side's opening goal against Brazil's Palmeiras during a Copa Libertadores final soccer match in Lima, Peru, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

Danilo of Brazil's Flamengo celebrates after scoring his side's opening goal against Brazil's Palmeiras during a Copa Libertadores final soccer match in Lima, Peru, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025.(AP Photo/Guadalupe Pardo)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump sought on Wednesday to explain his rationale for the war against Iran at a pivotal moment at home and abroad, but he offered few new details as he amasses extraordinary executive authority to prosecute the military operation.

The war is fast becoming a signature of his second-term agenda and the speech was a capstone to a remarkable day flexing presidential power.

Trump started the morning as the first sitting president to show up for a U.S. Supreme Court hearing, a stunning reach of the executive into the affairs of the judicial branch. He ended with his first primetime address from the White House about a war he launched on his own, bulldozing past Congress.

On an early spring night when many Americans may have been looking upward as Artemis II astronauts lifted off for NASA's return to the moon, Trump gave a nod to that historic milestone. Then he quickly refocused attention back to him — and to the conflict with Iran that has killed more than a dozen U.S. service members and appears to have no easy exit in sight.

"America, as it has been for five years under my presidency is winning — and now winning bigger than ever before," Trump said.

“We’re going to finish the job and were going to finish it very fast," he added.

The president said at the top of his address that he wanted to “discuss why Operation Epic Fury is necessary for the safety of America and the security of the free world,” showing that part of the goal for Wednesday’s speech was to take on the confusion that has persisted as he and his administration have shifted their reasons for launching the mission and its objectives.

But Wednesday night, Trump did not offer any new explanations.

He maintained that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, calling such a prospect “an intolerable threat.”

Though he and his administration insisted that the U.S. and Israel obliterated Iran’s nuclear program in strikes last summer, he said Wednesday that Iran sought to rebuild its nuclear program after those strikes at a new different location. He did not offer details but said it indicated Iran was not backing away from its nuclear ambitions. He also said Iran was building a vast arsenal of ballistic missiles that were a threat to America’s homeland.

While he said Iran’s ballistic missile capacity was greatly reduced, he didn’t explain how the operation had headed off Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

He instead painted the threats from Iran generally as having been wiped away, though he didn’t back up that assertion, especially as multiple competing factions of power remain within Iran’s theocracy.

Iran long has insisted its nuclear program was peaceful. It had, however, been enriching uranium up to 60% purity, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels. Before the war, U.S. intelligence agencies assessed that Iran had yet to begin a weapons program, but had “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.”

Thousands of additional U.S. troops are heading to the Middle East. Gulf allies are urging Trump to finish the fight, arguing that Tehran hasn’t been weakened enough.

And yet Trump himself has predicted the U.S. will be done “within maybe two weeks."

He said the “core strategic objectives are nearing completion" and did not signal any preparations for a ground invasion by American troops — to retrieve Iran's enriched uranium or secure the Strait of Hormuz, where a chokehold by Iran has sent energy prices soaring.

But Trump offered few details about next steps. At one point he told allies to simply reopen the waterway critical to oil shipments themselves — “take it," he implored.

Trump is fast approaching the 60-day mark when he must seek approval from Congress under the War Powers Act to continue any military operations.

Trump did not announce the imminent start of peace talks or any other diplomatic effort to end the war.

Instead he recounted the long wars in Korea and Vietnam and vowed the U.S. would be better off because of this one.

“This is a true investment for your children and your grandchildren’s future,” he said.

Trump has berated U.S. allies for not doing their part in the conflict, even as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he would convene a diplomatic summit to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz after the fighting ends.

Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have suggested that NATO will need to be reconsidered once the Iran war is over. But Trump did not mention NATO by name during the speech.

Trump has gone so far as to say he is “seriously considering” withdrawing from the military alliance, which has been a bulwark of transatlantic unity and security since the end of World War II.

But he cannot simply withdraw from NATO on his own without a legal fight.

“We’re going to have to re-examine the value of NATO and that alliance for our country,” Rubio said Tuesday in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity. “Ultimately, that’s a decision for the president to make, and he’ll have to make it.”

Trump, who ran as the “America First” president vowing not to drag the country into endless wars, has yet to fully address the political pushback he faces from his own base of supporters over the Iran conflict.

The U.S. economy is roiling, the financial markets are swinging with Trump's various pronouncements about the war effort, and Americans are facing pain at the pump as the cost of living rises.

While the president often describes the inflationary high prices as a momentary setback, it's all feeding into a rocky November midterm election.

Some of the sharpest criticism he’s faced in the early days of the Iran war has come from once-loyal media figures in the MAGA-universe, including Tucker Carlson.

President Donald Trump speaks about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

President Donald Trump gestures after speaking about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House before signing an executive order Tuesday, March 31, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)