From on the goalline at the south end of the Hermann Neuberger stadium, Daniel Batz looked straight ahead. To his right, the trees that line one side of the small arena were silhouetted against the night sky. Behind him, and to his left, a hush fell over the 6,000-odd packed across the uncovered terracing.
Batz was facing his 11th penalty of the evening. Four had been saved, one in ordinary time, and three more in a marathon shoot-out. Now Batz faced the umpteenth moment of suspense from two and half hours of epic Cup-tie.
Mathias ‘Zanka’ Jorgenson stepped up to take Fortuna Dusseldorf’s 10th penalty of the shoot-out. He needed to score. He aimed for the bottom left-hand corner of Batz’s goal, the keeper anticipated, and tipped the effort on to his post, and to safety.
With that, FC Saarbrucken, of Germany’s Southwest Regional League stepped joyously into history, the first club from the fourth tier to reach a German Cup semi-final in 85 years.
On Tuesday night, in the same rustic Hermann Neuberger stadium, they will meet Bayer Leverkusen, fifth in the Bundesliga, dreaming of a fairytale journey to Berlin next month for a final against Bayern Munich or Eintracht Frankfurt. Saarbrucken’s is the Cinderella story of the European football season so far.
But the bigger story of this sporting year has been driven by events, and a pandemic, which in the case of Saarbrucken, threatened to end their adventure a few days after the ousting of top-flight Dusseldorf on penalties, part four of a Cup run that has featured underdog triumphs against two clubs from the Bundesliga first division and another two from the second tier.
But for the Cup, Saarbrucken’s players would all be off duty by now. Their league season was declared closed weeks ago. They have not played a match since losing 1-0 in the Regional Southwest league to Walldorf on March 7, four days after Batz’s long night of heroics against Dusseldorf.
In between then and now, their footballers have shared a community’s fears. Saarbrucken is in Saarland, right on the border with France. That frontier was partially closed at the height of the coronavirus crisis, as French health services feared being overwhelmed by a climbing rate of infection. Germany contained the spread more effectively, but to be in Saarland was to know the very real dangers of the virus.
Last month, elite Bundesliga football returned, a global symbol of Germany's relative success at managing the disease. All team sport in France was meanwhile cancelled until at least August.
FC Saarbrucken learned that the return of ‘normal’ activity in Germany was limited; fourth division football ceased for 2019-20. Happily, they were leading the Regional Southwest division after their 23 completed games. That qualified them, under the emergency ruling, for promotion.
“It would have been better to do it on the pitch,” said Batz, 29. But he is entitled to feel Saarbucken have earned their rise to division three of the German pyramid. The club finished second in their league in 2015 and 2019, third in 2017, and topped the Regional Southwest table in 2018. Always, though, they were thwarted, in terms of promotion, by failure in the play-offs.
All which might have suggested that Saarbrucken have a problem with knockout ties. The magical Cup run has offered a firm answer to that idea. This is a team who can hold its nerve. Way back in August, Jahn Regensburg were beaten 3-2 via a last-minute goal, after Saarbrucken were 2-1 behind in the 77th minute. That earned the meeting with Cologne, who came back from 2-0 behind before Saarbrucken again won with a 90th minute goal.
The last-16 tie with Karlsruhe went to penalties; in the endless quarter-final with Dusseldorf, Saarbrucken conceded late in normal time, after Batz had saved his first penalty. By the time he had saved his fourth, in the tie-breaker, he knew how close it had been. Three of those saves were finger-tipped onto a post.
There can be no crowd for Leverkusen’s visit, because of Covid-19 restrictions. So the trees along the east perimeter of the Hermann Neuberger stadium will be lonely witnesses. Leverkusen will be far more match-ready, too, having played five Bundesliga games since the restart.
Saarbrucken have not played for more than three months. “I think that’s actually an advantage,” claims their manager, Lucas Kwasniok. “He’s always seeing the positive side,” smiles Batz, the lucky charm of a goalkeeper.
Emergency
Director: Kangana Ranaut
Stars: Kangana Ranaut, Anupam Kher, Shreyas Talpade, Milind Soman, Mahima Chaudhry
Rating: 2/5
Day 1 results:
Open Men (bonus points in brackets)
New Zealand 125 (1) beat UAE 111 (3)
India 111 (4) beat Singapore 75 (0)
South Africa 66 (2) beat Sri Lanka 57 (2)
Australia 126 (4) beat Malaysia -16 (0)
Open Women
New Zealand 64 (2) beat South Africa 57 (2)
England 69 (3) beat UAE 63 (1)
Australia 124 (4) beat UAE 23 (0)
New Zealand 74 (2) beat England 55 (2)
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 BIO
Bio Box
Role Model: Sheikh Zayed, God bless his soul
Favorite book: Zayed Biography of the leader
Favorite quote: To be or not to be, that is the question, from William Shakespeare's Hamlet
Favorite food: seafood
Favorite place to travel: Lebanon
Favorite movie: Braveheart
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Sheikh Zayed's poem
When it is unveiled at Abu Dhabi Art, the Standing Tall exhibition will appear as an interplay of poetry and art. The 100 scarves are 100 fragments surrounding five, figurative, female sculptures, and both sculptures and scarves are hand-embroidered by a group of refugee women artisans, who used the Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery art of tatreez. Fragments of Sheikh Zayed’s poem Your Love is Ruling My Heart, written in Arabic as a love poem to his nation, are embroidered onto both the sculptures and the scarves. Here is the English translation.
Your love is ruling over my heart
Your love is ruling over my heart, even a mountain can’t bear all of it
Woe for my heart of such a love, if it befell it and made it its home
You came on me like a gleaming sun, you are the cure for my soul of its sickness
Be lenient on me, oh tender one, and have mercy on who because of you is in ruins
You are like the Ajeed Al-reem [leader of the gazelle herd] for my country, the source of all of its knowledge
You waddle even when you stand still, with feet white like the blooming of the dates of the palm
Oh, who wishes to deprive me of sleep, the night has ended and I still have not seen you
You are the cure for my sickness and my support, you dried my throat up let me go and damp it
Help me, oh children of mine, for in his love my life will pass me by.
Sarfira
Director: Sudha Kongara Prasad
Starring: Akshay Kumar, Radhika Madan, Paresh Rawal
Rating: 2/5
The specs
Engine: Long-range single or dual motor with 200kW or 400kW battery
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Max touring range: 620km / 590km
Price: From Dh250,000 (estimated)
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
Company Profile
Founder: Omar Onsi
Launched: 2018
Employees: 35
Financing stage: Seed round ($12 million)
Investors: B&Y, Phoenician Funds, M1 Group, Shorooq Partners
Dr Afridi's warning signs of digital addiction
Spending an excessive amount of time on the phone.
Neglecting personal, social, or academic responsibilities.
Losing interest in other activities or hobbies that were once enjoyed.
Having withdrawal symptoms like feeling anxious, restless, or upset when the technology is not available.
Experiencing sleep disturbances or changes in sleep patterns.
What are the guidelines?
Under 18 months: Avoid screen time altogether, except for video chatting with family.
Aged 18-24 months: If screens are introduced, it should be high-quality content watched with a caregiver to help the child understand what they are seeing.
Aged 2-5 years: Limit to one-hour per day of high-quality programming, with co-viewing whenever possible.
Aged 6-12 years: Set consistent limits on screen time to ensure it does not interfere with sleep, physical activity, or social interactions.
Teenagers: Encourage a balanced approach – screens should not replace sleep, exercise, or face-to-face socialisation.
Source: American Paediatric Association
Read more about the coronavirus
'The worst thing you can eat'
Trans fat is typically found in fried and baked goods, but you may be consuming more than you think.
Powdered coffee creamer, microwave popcorn and virtually anything processed with a crust is likely to contain it, as this guide from Mayo Clinic outlines:
Baked goods - Most cakes, cookies, pie crusts and crackers contain shortening, which is usually made from partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. Ready-made frosting is another source of trans fat.
Snacks - Potato, corn and tortilla chips often contain trans fat. And while popcorn can be a healthy snack, many types of packaged or microwave popcorn use trans fat to help cook or flavour the popcorn.
Fried food - Foods that require deep frying — french fries, doughnuts and fried chicken — can contain trans fat from the oil used in the cooking process.
Refrigerator dough - Products such as canned biscuits and cinnamon rolls often contain trans fat, as do frozen pizza crusts.
Creamer and margarine - Nondairy coffee creamer and stick margarines also may contain partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.
Sholto Byrnes on Myanmar politics
Global state-owned investor ranking by size
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1.
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United States
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2.
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China
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3.
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UAE
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4.
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Japan
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5
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Norway
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6.
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Canada
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Singapore
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8.
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Australia
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Saudi Arabia
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South Korea
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More from Janine di Giovanni
Ain Dubai in numbers
126: The length in metres of the legs supporting the structure
1 football pitch: The length of each permanent spoke is longer than a professional soccer pitch
16 A380 Airbuses: The equivalent weight of the wheel rim.
9,000 tonnes: The amount of steel used to construct the project.
5 tonnes: The weight of each permanent spoke that is holding the wheel rim in place
192: The amount of cable wires used to create the wheel. They measure a distance of 2,4000km in total, the equivalent of the distance between Dubai and Cairo.
What can victims do?
Always use only regulated platforms
Stop all transactions and communication on suspicion
Save all evidence (screenshots, chat logs, transaction IDs)
Report to local authorities
Warn others to prevent further harm
Courtesy: Crystal Intelligence
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
The specs: 2018 Nissan Altima
Price, base / as tested: Dh78,000 / Dh97,650
Engine: 2.5-litre in-line four-cylinder
Power: 182hp @ 6,000rpm
Torque: 244Nm @ 4,000rpm
Transmission: Continuously variable tranmission
Fuel consumption, combined: 7.6L / 100km
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
MORE ON THE US DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES
