Manchester City and Chelsea both held press conference on Friday as the hours tick down to Saturday's all-English Champions League final, being played in Portugal.
City coach Pep Guardiola spoke about his confidence in his fully fit squad, the stress of telling players they are dropped and the need to suffer to win.
On pressure
"Everyone wants to win but to win, you have to play. Sometimes you want to play one way but the opponent in the final dictates another way and you have to adapt to circumstances.
"Some players go out and have more pressure, more tension. Better players can struggle but you have to handle this.
"I'm sure we will have to suffer to win the final. It'd be nice to go out and enjoy, but sometimes it is not possible.
"Most times in finals, you have to suffer. You have to be resilient and adjust to the bad moments in the game.
"In both games against Dortmund and PSG, we suffered but we stuck together.
"Here we'll not have 90 minutes when one side completely dominates. In the moments we suffer, we'll stick together and the moments we are going to have momentum try to use it."
On dropping players
Asked what it was like to have to break his selection news to the players, Guardiola said: "Terrible. It’s absolutely disaster, I advise you don’t be a manager in your life.
"I don't have any nice words to [give] relief to [those] guys but my advice is stay with the team as there are five or six substitutions and everybody will have a part.
"I feel incredibly sorry for those that don't play because they all deserve it but it is what it is. I have to be honest. The selection I do is to win the game, no alternative."
On staying at City
"The club gives the manager everything he needs.
"When we lose, they don't tell me that I'm responsible. We look to find a solution.
"I know, as a manager, that if we don't win, they are going to fire me, but this is the way we work here and this is why I extended the contract. I feel incredibly comfortable.
Most importantly, apart from the players - because in five or six teams in England and Spain, they have top players as well - I feel comfortable with my staff, the backroom staff, I have everything. I can't ask for more to do my job as best as I can do.
"It's simple as that. We are in the same line, we take decisions together, we share the mistakes together, we share the good things all together and this is the point.
"When we lose, they don't tell me that I'm responsible, we look to find a solution. I know as a manager that if we don't win, they are going to fire me, but they are going to do it in a friendly way.
"This is the way we work here and this is why I extended the contract here by two years and after two more years. I feel incredibly comfortable working, not only with the players, but all the departments in the club.
"That's why I decided to stay longer."
Chelsea hopes
Chelsea coach Thomas Tuchel spoke on penalty form going into Saturday's Champions League final, the competition with Guardiola and a clear injury list.
"We always practise penalties when we face a match where it's possible it could go to penalties.
"Can we simulate the pressure, the fatigue, the occasion, how it will feel tomorrow? No, we cannot.
"But still we believe we can take care about some patterns, and about a certain rhythm and certain habits during penalties. Which we did.
"And we have identified the guys who should take the penalties for us, but I don't know who in the end will be on the pitch.
"So, we need to be well aware, but we are prepared and if we go to penalties, we go in there together."
On injuries
"It's the best news ever: we have no injuries and let's hope it stays like this until after the training," said Tuchel.
On Pep Guardiola
"I would never suggest it's me against him, it's much more than that; because we don't have a match of tennis tomorrow.
"We arrive with our teams, and Pep will prepare his team and I will prepare my team, the best way possible.
"We have had two experiences now against them in different competitions, and two different matches, two different line-ups.
"And tomorrow will be a very different line-up, I think, from Man City.
"But nevertheless, we have the experience of how much we had to suffer, the experience of how brave, how courageous we need also to play in certain moments of the game. And for me, it's about this tomorrow.
"It's always tough to play against City, Bayern or Barcelona when Pep is at the sideline.
"They create and he creates this team with this huge belief, and this huge success, and continuously winning mentality.
"So, they are maybe at the moment the strongest team in Europe and maybe in the world, and they have a huge gap, they have built a huge gap between them and us in the league.
"But we closed the gap for 90 minutes in Wembley, we closed the gap for 90 minutes at City, and this is what we want to do tomorrow."
Our legal advisor
Ahmad El Sayed is Senior Associate at Charles Russell Speechlys, a law firm headquartered in London with offices in the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Hong Kong.
Experience: Commercial litigator who has assisted clients with overseas judgments before UAE courts. His specialties are cases related to banking, real estate, shareholder disputes, company liquidations and criminal matters as well as employment related litigation.
Education: Sagesse University, Beirut, Lebanon, in 2005.
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
ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
Rating: 4/5
The stats
Ship name: MSC Bellissima
Ship class: Meraviglia Class
Delivery date: February 27, 2019
Gross tonnage: 171,598 GT
Passenger capacity: 5,686
Crew members: 1,536
Number of cabins: 2,217
Length: 315.3 metres
Maximum speed: 22.7 knots (42kph)
Key facilities
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4,872 matches
1,942 teams
116 pitches
76 nations
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Scoreline:
Everton 4
Richarlison 13'), Sigurdsson 28', Digne 56', Walcott 64'
Manchester United 0
Man of the match: Gylfi Sigurdsson (Everton)
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