Seldom has a competitive fixture between the two most successful nations in European championship history sneaked so quietly on to the calendar.
Germany versus Spain, in Stuttgart on Thursday, ought to act as a drumroll, announcing international football is back. But in the disordered schedule of 2020, with all games behind closed doors, it almost feels like an imposition.
Had there been no global pandemic, a new set of European championship winners would be parading their medals in club dressing-rooms this month.
A Copa America would have taken place, too, and perhaps provided an alternative set of headlines for Lionel Messi.
Instead, country-versus-country football stepped aside, left the summer clear for domestic leagues to catch up, tentatively, on time lost during the height of the Covid-19 crisis.
It will be a while before internationals are back in fashion, because travel across borders is still constrained.
It remains hard to imagine the original Euro 2020 format, with 12 host cities in a dozen different countries, and fans flying from Baku to Bilbao to Bucharest, being plausible even by June 2021, the new date for the tournament. But, whatever the scenario, managers must make their plans around that target date.
Most have not met with their players since November 2019. That would seem a very long time ago for, say, Ansu Fati, who should make his debut for Spain in this round of Uefa Nations League matches, either against Germany or Ukraine on Sunday.
Fati is 17, has been a Spanish citizen for less than a year, although the Guinea-Bissau-born player moved to Spain when he was six. He scored his first goal for Barcelona a year ago on Monday.
His rise from there to a first cap for Spain would have been even swifter had there been no interruptions to the course of the season.
“This is the squad I would choose if we were playing the Euros today,” said Luis Enrique, the Spain manager, as he called up Fati for the first time, and asked the teenager to score goals for him.
Luis Enrique has been careful to avoid over-hyping the diminutive Fati, but rather named the prodigy as one of a group of attacking players from whom he expects the sort of creative flair that helped make Spain European champions in 2008 and 2012 and won them the World Cup in 2010.
“With a classic target-man at centre-forward, we don’t tend to score a lot of goals,” said the Spain manager. “So it’s about getting goals from the players just behind the front line.”
Fati , who likes to cut in from wide positions, is one. Another, hoping for a first senior cap, is Wolverhampton Wanderers’ Adama Traore, as is Ferran Torres, the 20-year-old winger who has just joined Manchester City from Valencia.
As for the winger who this summer left Manchester City, Leroy Sane, his involvement with Germany this week will also seem like a milestone.
Sane, 24, who signed for European club champions Bayern Munich in July, has played barely 10 minutes of competitive football in over a year, because of the cruciate ligament injury he sustained in the 2019 Community Shield.
He has two targets over the coming nine months: to establish himself as a first-choice winger at Bayern, where there is already abundant talent down the flanks, and to be part of Joachim Low’s Germany starting XI by the Euros.
Kai Havertz, whose transfer to Chelsea from Bayern Leverkusen is close to completion, has a similar ambition, and, at 21, will calculate that the postponing of the European Championship may have helped his chances of making an impression. He will be more mature and more worldly by next June.
So might France’s Eduardo Camavinga, 17 and called up by the World Cup-holders ahead of their Nations League match against Sweden.
Didier Deschamps, the French national coach, admits “this has come to him very quickly, maybe too quickly, but I’m convinced he has the potential to establish himself in the France side.”
England, world champions at under-20 level in 2017, and European under-19 champions the same year, have three potential senior debutants in the squad to play Iceland on Friday.
Mason Greenwood, the 18-year-old striker from Manchester United, Phil Foden, of Manchester City, 20, and Arsenal’s Ainsley Maitland-Niles, 23 could all earn their first senior cap.
“We know the impact they have had with their clubs and our junior teams,” said Gareth Southgate, the England manager.
“The question is at what point do you give them the step up?”
His answer is now, after a long, unforeseen pause in the calendar, for the relaunch of international football.
Company Profile:
Name: The Protein Bakeshop
Date of start: 2013
Founders: Rashi Chowdhary and Saad Umerani
Based: Dubai
Size, number of employees: 12
Funding/investors: $400,000 (2018)
Dubai works towards better air quality by 2021
Dubai is on a mission to record good air quality for 90 per cent of the year – up from 86 per cent annually today – by 2021.
The municipality plans to have seven mobile air-monitoring stations by 2020 to capture more accurate data in hourly and daily trends of pollution.
These will be on the Palm Jumeirah, Al Qusais, Muhaisnah, Rashidiyah, Al Wasl, Al Quoz and Dubai Investment Park.
“It will allow real-time responding for emergency cases,” said Khaldoon Al Daraji, first environment safety officer at the municipality.
“We’re in a good position except for the cases that are out of our hands, such as sandstorms.
“Sandstorms are our main concern because the UAE is just a receiver.
“The hotspots are Iran, Saudi Arabia and southern Iraq, but we’re working hard with the region to reduce the cycle of sandstorm generation.”
Mr Al Daraji said monitoring as it stood covered 47 per cent of Dubai.
There are 12 fixed stations in the emirate, but Dubai also receives information from monitors belonging to other entities.
“There are 25 stations in total,” Mr Al Daraji said.
“We added new technology and equipment used for the first time for the detection of heavy metals.
“A hundred parameters can be detected but we want to expand it to make sure that the data captured can allow a baseline study in some areas to ensure they are well positioned.”
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Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
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- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
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Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
How much of your income do you need to save?
The more you save, the sooner you can retire. Tuan Phan, a board member of SimplyFI.com, says if you save just 5 per cent of your salary, you can expect to work for another 66 years before you are able to retire without too large a drop in income.
In other words, you will not save enough to retire comfortably. If you save 15 per cent, you can forward to another 43 working years. Up that to 40 per cent of your income, and your remaining working life drops to just 22 years. (see table)
Obviously, this is only a rough guide. How much you save will depend on variables, not least your salary and how much you already have in your pension pot. But it shows what you need to do to achieve financial independence.
House-hunting
Top 10 locations for inquiries from US house hunters, according to Rightmove
- Edinburgh, Scotland
- Westminster, London
- Camden, London
- Glasgow, Scotland
- Islington, London
- Kensington and Chelsea, London
- Highlands, Scotland
- Argyll and Bute, Scotland
- Fife, Scotland
- Tower Hamlets, London
RESULT
Wolves 1 (Traore 67')
Tottenham 2 (Moura 8', Vertonghen 90 1')
Man of the Match: Adama Traore (Wolves)
WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?
1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull
2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight
3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge
4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own
5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed
HWJN
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FIXTURES
Monday, January 28
Iran v Japan, Hazza bin Zayed Stadium (6pm)
Tuesday, January 29
UAEv Qatar, Mohamed Bin Zayed Stadium (6pm)
Friday, February 1
Final, Zayed Sports City Stadium (6pm)
The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
RESULTS
Argentina 4 Haiti 0
Peru 2 Scotland 0
Panama 0 Northern Ireland 0
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Our legal consultants
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
The five pillars of Islam
The story in numbers
18
This is how many recognised sects Lebanon is home to, along with about four million citizens
450,000
More than this many Palestinian refugees are registered with UNRWA in Lebanon, with about 45 per cent of them living in the country’s 12 refugee camps
1.5 million
There are just under 1 million Syrian refugees registered with the UN, although the government puts the figure upwards of 1.5m
73
The percentage of stateless people in Lebanon, who are not of Palestinian origin, born to a Lebanese mother, according to a 2012-2013 study by human rights organisation Frontiers Ruwad Association
18,000
The number of marriages recorded between Lebanese women and foreigners between the years 1995 and 2008, according to a 2009 study backed by the UN Development Programme
77,400
The number of people believed to be affected by the current nationality law, according to the 2009 UN study
4,926
This is how many Lebanese-Palestinian households there were in Lebanon in 2016, according to a census by the Lebanese-Palestinian dialogue committee
THE SPECS
Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo
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Power: 258hp at 5,000-6,500rpm
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Fuel economy, combined: 6.4L/100km
Price, base: from D215,000 (Dh230,000 as tested)
On sale: now
How to watch Ireland v Pakistan in UAE
When: The one-off Test starts on Friday, May 11
What time: Each day’s play is scheduled to start at 2pm UAE time.
TV: The match will be broadcast on OSN Sports Cricket HD. Subscribers to the channel can also stream the action live on OSN Play.
