On the site where Villarreal now have their training pitches, orange trees used to grow. The soil and the climate in this part of coastal Spain are helpful to citrus fruit, although, as with all the best produce, it takes careful seeding and hard work to put it to good use.
Villarreal have an excellent, envied playing surface at the Ceramica stadium, meticulously tended because smooth, slick grass is important for the type of football they like to play.
The stadium is no skyscraper. There’s room for 23,000, which is utterly disproportionate to the town. Vila-real’s population barely reaches 50,000, though the reach of the fanbase extends across the region and has swelled in very quick time.
Until the late 1990s, Villarreal had never featured in the top division of Spanish football, and although they have suffered two relegations since then, they bounced back to keep on gatecrashing the elite. In this century so far, Villarreal have been in five major European semi-finals.
Against Arsenal earlier this month, they finally triumphed in one, and the reward, on Wednesday in Gdansk, is a Europa League final that could hardly present a sharper contrast of scale.
“Manchester United are a giant,” said the Villarreal central defender, Raul Albiol. Old Trafford could accommodate every citizen of Vila-real and still have more than 25,000 tickets left spare. The trophy room at Villarreal houses a third division championship and some runners-up prizes; Manchester United have been English champions 20 times, and among their full set of Uefa trophies are three European Cups.
Suffice to say that when, in April, the controversial and now defunct plans for a European Super League were being drawn up by 12 superclubs, with United among the ringleaders, Villarreal’s president, a very successful local businessman named Fernando Roig, was not phoned to see if he fancied joining. Roig has funded his club generously; he has not turned them into a global corporate juggernaut.
Instead of an aura, Villarreal have expertise, and for Wednesday’s task they have a made-to-measure specialist. Head coach Unai Emery, who guided Arsenal to the Europa League final in 2019 before being sacked a few months later, answered Roig’s summons last summer. The club’s place in Europe was part of the attraction: Emery won the Europa League three times as manager of Sevilla.
He set about this season’s campaign with the same studious care as Villarreal’s groundsmen attend to the pitch at the Ceramica. “We’re proud of our Europa League journey,” Emery said. “We’ve been consistent, serious and credible. We set out to win the group, and after that you know you will have to eliminate big clubs, or else clubs who have themselves knocked out big clubs, like Dinamo Zagreb did.”
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Arsenal v Villarreal player ratings
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The Croatian side, who had beaten Tottenham Hotspur, ran into Emery's fine-tuned knockout experts in the quarter-finals, where Villarreal recorded their 11th and 12th wins of their European run. They have lost none, and drawn only twice, holding Arsenal goalless in London in the second leg of the semi-final, enough to preserve their 2-1 first-leg advantage.
Albiol scored what turned out to be the winning goal in that tie. Emery leans on his vast experience. The defender will be 36 in September, and has been around major finals for half a lifetime. He won two European championships and a World Cup with Spain, in addition to a Liga title and a Spanish Cup with Real Madrid and a Coppa Italia with Napoli, from whom Villarreal signed him two summers ago.
For Albiol, a classic duel with United’s veteran centre-forward is in prospect: the Spanish warrior against the thoroughbred 34-year-old Uruguayan, Edinson Cavani, once of Napoli, and until last October of Paris Saint-Germain.
“We all know what a great player Cavani is,” said Albiol, “and what a great goalscorer. I know how loved he was in Naples. He’s someone who plays football from the soul and it is no surprise to me that, whatever his age, he is still scoring goals. The only thing that surprised me last year was that, after he left Paris, he was without a club for any time at all. But he’s found the right club to go to.
“When you reach a final, you expect to come up against the best strikers. The key is keeping up your concentration, finding the right level of tension and we’ve had a good Europa League in terms of conceding few goals.”
In the eight knockout matches, they have let in just three.
“People will obviously make United the favourites, because of their history, the financial differences between our clubs,” Albiol conceded. “But we’ve really grown this season and we know our strengths.”
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- 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
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
The biog
Profession: Senior sports presenter and producer
Marital status: Single
Favourite book: Al Nabi by Jibran Khalil Jibran
Favourite food: Italian and Lebanese food
Favourite football player: Cristiano Ronaldo
Languages: Arabic, French, English, Portuguese and some Spanish
Website: www.liliane-tannoury.com
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The specs: 2018 Chevrolet Equinox
Price, base / as tested: Dh76,900 / Dh110,900
Engine: 2.0L, turbocharged in-line four-cylinder
Gearbox: Nine-speed automatic
Power: 252hp @ 5,500rpm
Torque: Torque: 352Nm @ 2,500rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 8.5L / 100km
Ferrari 12Cilindri specs
Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
Power: 819hp
Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm
Price: From Dh1,700,000
Available: Now
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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
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RACE CARD
6.30pm: Maiden (TB) Dh82,500 (Dirt) 1,200m
7.05pm: Maiden (TB) Dh82,500 (D) 1,900m
7.40pm: Handicap (TB) Dh102,500 (D) 2,000m
8.15pm: Conditions (TB) Dh120,000 (D) 1,600m
8.50pm: Handicap (TB) Dh95,000 (D) 1,600m
9.25pm: Handicap (TB) Dh87,500 (D) 1,400m
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UK-EU trade at a glance
EU fishing vessels guaranteed access to UK waters for 12 years
Co-operation on security initiatives and procurement of defence products
Youth experience scheme to work, study or volunteer in UK and EU countries
Smoother border management with use of e-gates
Cutting red tape on import and export of food
How Filipinos in the UAE invest
A recent survey of 10,000 Filipino expatriates in the UAE found that 82 per cent have plans to invest, primarily in property. This is significantly higher than the 2014 poll showing only two out of 10 Filipinos planned to invest.
Fifty-five percent said they plan to invest in property, according to the poll conducted by the New Perspective Media Group, organiser of the Philippine Property and Investment Exhibition. Acquiring a franchised business or starting up a small business was preferred by 25 per cent and 15 per cent said they will invest in mutual funds. The rest said they are keen to invest in insurance (3 per cent) and gold (2 per cent).
Of the 5,500 respondents who preferred property as their primary investment, 54 per cent said they plan to make the purchase within the next year. Manila was the top location, preferred by 53 per cent.
What is graphene?
Graphene is extracted from graphite and is made up of pure carbon.
It is 200 times more resistant than steel and five times lighter than aluminum.
It conducts electricity better than any other material at room temperature.
It is thought that graphene could boost the useful life of batteries by 10 per cent.
Graphene can also detect cancer cells in the early stages of the disease.
The material was first discovered when Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were 'playing' with graphite at the University of Manchester in 2004.
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4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
TOURNAMENT INFO
Women’s World Twenty20 Qualifier
Jul 3- 14, in the Netherlands
The top two teams will qualify to play at the World T20 in the West Indies in November
UAE squad
Humaira Tasneem (captain), Chamani Seneviratne, Subha Srinivasan, Neha Sharma, Kavisha Kumari, Judit Cleetus, Chaya Mughal, Roopa Nagraj, Heena Hotchandani, Namita D’Souza, Ishani Senevirathne, Esha Oza, Nisha Ali, Udeni Kuruppuarachchi
How to improve Arabic reading in early years
One 45-minute class per week in Standard Arabic is not sufficient
The goal should be for grade 1 and 2 students to become fluent readers
Subjects like technology, social studies, science can be taught in later grades
Grade 1 curricula should include oral instruction in Standard Arabic
First graders must regularly practice individual letters and combinations
Time should be slotted in class to read longer passages in early grades
Improve the appearance of textbooks
Revision of curriculum should be undertaken as per research findings
Conjugations of most common verb forms should be taught
Systematic learning of Standard Arabic grammar
Isle of Dogs
Director: Wes Anderson
Starring: Bryan Cranston, Liev Schreiber, Ed Norton, Greta Gerwig, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Scarlett Johansson
Three stars
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CONCRETE COWBOY
Directed by: Ricky Staub
Starring: Idris Elba, Caleb McLaughlin, Jharrel Jerome
3.5/5 stars
Honeymoonish
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