The seven days between February 27 and March 5 were ones to forget for Real Madrid fans.
They were defeated three times at home. Twice by Barcelona. The first knocking them out of the Copa del Rey, the second effectively ending their La Liga title hopes.
Then the final blow was being hammered 4-1 by Ajax, a result that ended their long reign as champions of Europe that stretched back to May 2016.
But this week has been a lot more positive.
Aside from the joyously received re-appointment of Zinedine Zidane, 284 days after he left the club, there was another sliver of happiness. Atletico Madrid will not be winning the Uefa Champions League in Madrid in June after Juventus came from behind to beat them 3-0 in Turin on Wednesday.
That Cristiano Ronaldo scored all three goals is bittersweet for Madrid fans.
Ronaldo was the man who scored the goals which powered Madrid to those four European Cup finals in five years.
Ronaldo was the main man for football’s most successful club in all nine seasons which he played there. They miss the Portuguese and his goals and they missed Zidane too. They also missed their captain Sergio Ramos against Ajax, a game he missed because he was deliberately booked in the first leg which Madrid won.
At least Ramos fronted up and admitted to mistakes this week on social media. He’s 33 this month and will likely stay, but Zidane returns rested and in a position of strength. He will likely have more say in the players Madrid sign and sell. Not that he gave any reason why he left in the first place last May beyond: “I went because I needed it for me and the squad needed a change after winning it all. We had to change at that moment, in my opinion.”
Zidane said that he had no had promises made to him. The Frenchman has long mastered the art of avoiding saying anything significant and prefers to be judged by the actions of his team on the pitch.
The first thing he did as manager was call Sergio Ramos. They played together and worked together well as captain and coach. They need each other.
Zidane was in charge of Madrid for less than three seasons and won three European Cups, but he had plenty of low points.
Barcelona may have been the best team in Spain season after season, but it was bearable because Madrid were the best team in the world.
Not now and not when Madrid crashed out of Europe last week to that fine young Ajax side and fans began calling for club president Florentino Perez to resign.
It is tough at the top, it is even tougher at the top at Madrid, a club who sacked Vicente del Bosque after he had won the Champions League in 2002.
Having replaced Santiago Solari, who lasted 119 days - and Solari replaced Julen Lopetegui who lasted only 138 - Zidane returned to Madrid’s Valdebebas training ground on Tuesday.
At his news conference on Monday he said what he was expected to say, he wore what he was not expected to wear – tight ripped and turned up jeans with trainers combined with a blazer.
It wasn’t a winning sartorial combination judging by the online reaction, but that is not what he’s there for.
Zidane has signed a contract until 2022 and has the 11 remaining games this season to figure out what he wants in the summer.
“We’ll change things,” he said. “We have to change things for next year but now it’s not about that. What matters is that I am back and we have time to talk about what we have to do. But today that’s not the issue. What we want is to finish well. I’m here because the president called me. I’m here, because I love this club.”
Those words resonate with fans who need to hear them right now. After winning so much and being football’s pre-eminent force for the last half decade, they’re facing the reality of normality. At least they can save some money for next season.
Specs
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Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
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EPL's youngest
- Ethan Nwaneri (Arsenal)
15 years, 181 days old
- Max Dowman (Arsenal)
15 years, 235 days old
- Jeremy Monga (Leicester)
15 years, 271 days old
- Harvey Elliott (Fulham)
16 years, 30 days old
- Matthew Briggs (Fulham)
16 years, 68 days old
A list of the animal rescue organisations in the UAE
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
MATCH INFO
Everton 2 Southampton 1
Everton: Walcott (15'), Richarlison (31' )
Southampton: Ings (54')
Man of the match: Theo Walcott (Everton)
'Tell the Machine Goodnight' by Katie Williams
Penguin Randomhouse
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Who is Mohammed Al Halbousi?
The new speaker of Iraq’s parliament Mohammed Al Halbousi is the youngest person ever to serve in the role.
The 37-year-old was born in Al Garmah in Anbar and studied civil engineering in Baghdad before going into business. His development company Al Hadeed undertook reconstruction contracts rebuilding parts of Fallujah’s infrastructure.
He entered parliament in 2014 and served as a member of the human rights and finance committees until 2017. In August last year he was appointed governor of Anbar, a role in which he has struggled to secure funding to provide services in the war-damaged province and to secure the withdrawal of Shia militias. He relinquished the post when he was sworn in as a member of parliament on September 3.
He is a member of the Al Hal Sunni-based political party and the Sunni-led Coalition of Iraqi Forces, which is Iraq’s largest Sunni alliance with 37 seats from the May 12 election.
He maintains good relations with former Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki’s State of Law Coaliton, Hadi Al Amiri’s Badr Organisation and Iranian officials.
Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
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Price: On request
Fight card
- Aliu Bamidele Lasisi (Nigeria) beat Artid Vamrungauea (Thailand) POINTS
- Julaidah Abdulfatah (Saudi Arabia) beat Martin Kabrhel (Czech Rep) POINTS
- Kem Ljungquist (Denmark) beat Mourad Omar (Egypt) TKO
- Michael Lawal (UK) beat Tamas Kozma (Hungary) KO
- Zuhayr Al Qahtani (Saudi Arabia) beat Mohammed Mahmoud (UK) POINTS
- Darren Surtees (UK) beat Kane Baker (UK) KO
- Chris Eubank Jr (UK) beat JJ McDonagh (Ireland) TKO
- Callum Smith (UK) beat George Groves (UK) KO
$1,000 award for 1,000 days on madrasa portal
Daily cash awards of $1,000 dollars will sweeten the Madrasa e-learning project by tempting more pupils to an education portal to deepen their understanding of math and sciences.
School children are required to watch an educational video each day and answer a question related to it. They then enter into a raffle draw for the $1,000 prize.
“We are targeting everyone who wants to learn. This will be $1,000 for 1,000 days so there will be a winner every day for 1,000 days,” said Sara Al Nuaimi, project manager of the Madrasa e-learning platform that was launched on Tuesday by the Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, to reach Arab pupils from kindergarten to grade 12 with educational videos.
“The objective of the Madrasa is to become the number one reference for all Arab students in the world. The 5,000 videos we have online is just the beginning, we have big ambitions. Today in the Arab world there are 50 million students. We want to reach everyone who is willing to learn.”
'Outclassed in Kuwait'
Taleb Alrefai,
HBKU Press
Nepotism is the name of the game
Salman Khan’s father, Salim Khan, is one of Bollywood’s most legendary screenwriters. Through his partnership with co-writer Javed Akhtar, Salim is credited with having paved the path for the Indian film industry’s blockbuster format in the 1970s. Something his son now rules the roost of. More importantly, the Salim-Javed duo also created the persona of the “angry young man” for Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan in the 1970s, reflecting the angst of the average Indian. In choosing to be the ordinary man’s “hero” as opposed to a thespian in new Bollywood, Salman Khan remains tightly linked to his father’s oeuvre. Thanks dad.
Scorline
Iraq 1-0 UAE
Iraq Hussein 28’
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
What is a robo-adviser?
Robo-advisers use an online sign-up process to gauge an investor’s risk tolerance by feeding information such as their age, income, saving goals and investment history into an algorithm, which then assigns them an investment portfolio, ranging from more conservative to higher risk ones.
These portfolios are made up of exchange traded funds (ETFs) with exposure to indices such as US and global equities, fixed-income products like bonds, though exposure to real estate, commodity ETFs or gold is also possible.
Investing in ETFs allows robo-advisers to offer fees far lower than traditional investments, such as actively managed mutual funds bought through a bank or broker. Investors can buy ETFs directly via a brokerage, but with robo-advisers they benefit from investment portfolios matched to their risk tolerance as well as being user friendly.
Many robo-advisers charge what are called wrap fees, meaning there are no additional fees such as subscription or withdrawal fees, success fees or fees for rebalancing.
Destroyer
Director: Karyn Kusama
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Toby Kebbell, Sebastian Stan
Rating: 3/5
UAE release: January 31
The biog
Name: Marie Byrne
Nationality: Irish
Favourite film: The Shawshank Redemption
Book: Seagull by Jonathan Livingston
Life lesson: A person is not old until regret takes the place of their dreams
