Injured Mbappé out for 3 weeks, will miss Bayern 1st leg

Injured Mbappé out for 3 weeks, will miss Bayern 1st leg
PSG’s French forward Kylian Mbappe lies on the ground after getting injured during their French L1 match against Montpellier Herault SC at Stade de la Mosson in Montpellier on February 1, 2023. (AFP)
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Updated 02 February 2023

Injured Mbappé out for 3 weeks, will miss Bayern 1st leg

Injured Mbappé out for 3 weeks, will miss Bayern 1st leg
  • PSG said in a statement Thursday that tests revealed a tear in his left thigh
  • The injury comes at a bad time for PSG as it enters a hectic period this month

PARIS: Kylian Mbappé has been ruled out for three weeks with a left-thigh tear and will miss the first leg of Paris Saint-Germain’s round-of-16 game against Bayern Munich in the Champions League.
Mbappé sustained the injury in the first half of PSG’s game at Montpellier on Wednesday and limped off the field. TV cameras also showed him rubbing the back of his left thigh as he walked to the dressing room.
PSG said in a statement Thursday that tests revealed a tear in his left thigh.
The injury comes at a bad time for PSG as they enter a hectic period this month. PSG play away at bitter rival Marseille in the French Cup and in the league, either side of the home game against Bayern on Feb. 14. They also have a league game at fourth-place Monaco.
Mbappé faces a race to be fit in time for the league game at second-place Marseille on Feb. 26. The return leg against Bayern is on March 8.
His injury also raises questions about his recent workload. Mbappé played and scored for PSG just 10 days after playing in the World Cup final for France on Dec. 18 — where he became only the second player to score a hat trick in the final.
PSG coach Christophe Galtier selected him to face Strasbourg on Dec. 28 and away to Lens on Jan. 1. The decision was taken in full agreement with Mbappé, who wanted to play in both games.


Benzema bids farewell to Real Madrid as he heads to Saudi Arabia

Benzema bids farewell to Real Madrid as he heads to Saudi Arabia
Updated 58 min 51 sec ago

Benzema bids farewell to Real Madrid as he heads to Saudi Arabia

Benzema bids farewell to Real Madrid as he heads to Saudi Arabia
  • The French striker, 35, will leave as a free agent in the close season
  • He is set to move to Saudi Arabian side Al Ittihad, signing a two-year deal estimated by media reports to be worth more than 100 million euros

MADRID: Ballon d’Or winner Karim Benzema said farewell to Real Madrid in a small, private ceremony closed to fans and media on Tuesday following a trophy-laden 14-year stay with the LaLiga club.
The French striker, 35, will leave as a free agent in the close season and is set to move to Saudi Arabian side Al-Ittihad, signing a two-year deal estimated by media reports to be worth more than 100 million euros ($106.93 million).
There were no tears in a ceremony that lasted less than 20 minutes and in which only players, family and close friends were allowed to attend.
“I will never forget Real Madrid. It’s impossible, it’s the best club in history. But I think today is the time to leave and to get to know another story,” Benzema told the small audience at Real’s training facilities.
“It’s difficult to talk with so many feelings, but I wanted to thank Real Madrid and my team mates. It was a good path in my life. I have been lucky enough to fulfil my childhood dream.”
Having joined Real in 2009 from Olympique Lyonnais, Benzema became the spearhead of the club’s attack and their main goal-scoring threat after Cristiano Ronaldo left for Juventus in 2018.
Benzema scored 354 goals for Real to sit second on the club’s all-time scoring list behind Ronaldo.
He had his best season in the 2021-22 campaign when he scored 44 times in all competitions to lead the side to a record-extending 14th European title as well as the LaLiga crown.
His pivotal role earned him the Ballon d’Or award, making him the first French player to win the trophy since Zinedine Zidane in 1998 and the fifth Frenchman overall.
Real Madrid president Florentino Perez praised Benzema for all he had done at the club.
“Karim, you have been an example of behavior and professionalism in our club,” Perez said.
“You have earned the right to decide your destiny. A future that only belongs to you and we must respect it.”


Iniesta says goodbye to old friends at Barcelona in friendly in Tokyo

Iniesta says goodbye to old friends at Barcelona in friendly in Tokyo
Updated 06 June 2023

Iniesta says goodbye to old friends at Barcelona in friendly in Tokyo

Iniesta says goodbye to old friends at Barcelona in friendly in Tokyo
  • Iniesta played 674 games for Barcelona from 2002-18, winning 30 trophies
  • Last month, he announced he was leaving the Japanese club after his final match on July 1 in the western city of Kobe

TOKYO: Andres Iniesta said goodbye to old friends as he played for his Japanese club Vissel Kobe against his former club Barcelona in a friendly at the National Stadium on Tuesday.
Barcelona won the match 2-0. Iniesta played 674 games for Barcelona from 2002-18, winning 30 trophies. He also scored the winning goal for Spain in the 2010 World Cup final.
Last month, he announced he was leaving the Japanese club after his final match on July 1 in the western city of Kobe.
Iniesta played five seasons with Vissel Kobe and has not announced his plans. The 39-year-old midfielder says he wants to keep playing, which he has not been doing much of this season.
Spanish champion Barcelona flew directly to Japan after their last Liga match on Sunday, and were expected to return by charter after the Kobe friendly.
Japanese online retailer Rakuten owns Kobe Vissel and is also its shirt sponsor. Rakuten was Barcelona’s shirt sponsor until several years ago. Rakuten is run by Japanese billionaire Hiroshi Mikitani.


Al-Ittihad fans hail possible signing of Karim Benzema

Al-Ittihad fans hail possible signing of Karim Benzema
Updated 06 June 2023

Al-Ittihad fans hail possible signing of Karim Benzema

Al-Ittihad fans hail possible signing of Karim Benzema
  • French striker leaving Real Madrid after 14 seasons
  • Announcement on deal expected ‘in coming days’

JEDDAH: The reigning champions of Saudi Arabia, Al-Ittihad, are reportedly edging ever closer to signing Karim Benzema from Real Madrid.

This comes in the wake of the Spanish club announcing on Sunday morning that the French forward is departing after 14 seasons.

The 35-year-old has been the subject of much speculation recently, with the striker expected to confirm his move in the coming days.

Benzema has reportedly received a lucrative offer from Al-Ittihad. He could become the latest major star to play in Saudi Arabia after his ex-teammate Cristiano Ronaldo joined Al-Nassr.

Reports started circulating after Benzema also confirmed on Sunday he would leave the Bernabeu this summer. There was also a report that Al-Ittihad’s president and vice president traveled to Madrid on Saturday morning, on a mission to sign the player.

Many Al-Ittihad supporters are hoping that the Saudi champions can get this deal sealed over the next few days.

Hamza Al-Sayed, a sports columnist, told Arab News that Benzema would be a coup for the Kingdom. “Benzema has been crucial for Real Madrid in their quest for Champions League glory in recent years, and now he is considered to be one of the legendary players (to have) played for Real Madrid.”

Al-Sayed said that if Benzema joins Al-Ittihad, it would be a move to one of the oldest football clubs in Saudi Arabia that has won nine Saudi league titles and holds 48 championship wins, three of which are in Asia.

It would be “simply, a great player joining a great club,” said Al-Sayed.

Omar Abu Al-Faraj, a big supporter of Al-Ittihad, who has been a season ticketholder since the age of 14, and hardly missed a game, said he was excited at the possibility.

“I think this year is holding great moments for us as Ittihad’s fans, winning the Saudi Premier League, the Saudi Super Cup, qualified to play among top clubs at the FIFA Club World Cup, and now we are getting very close to sign the great striker Benzema. It has been really a lucky year and we are having amazing achievements,” he said.

“Having the great striker Benzema with our squad is really a great addition and we really look forward to seeing him in Al-Ittihad’s shirt.”

Many Al-Ittihad fans have taken to Twitter to express their delight at the prospect of the Ballon d’Or winner joining the team.

Sara Aziz tweeted: “@benzema all eyes on you, cant wait to see you wearing black and yellow.”

Faisal Al-Harbi, another fan, tweeted: “Welcome ‘Benzema’ to the greatest club in the Middle East.”

Fan Walid Al-Sharari tweeted: “Whatever you expect, your luck is great … Benzema left a great football club in Europe and now coming to the greatest club in Asia.”

Al-Ittihad have also been linked with Chelsea’s N’Golo Kante, whose status at the English club is uncertain. The president and vice president of Al-Ittihad reportedly traveled to London on Monday to sign Kante.


Raheem Sterling: Manchester City ‘deserve’ Champions League glory

Raheem Sterling: Manchester City ‘deserve’ Champions League glory
Updated 06 June 2023

Raheem Sterling: Manchester City ‘deserve’ Champions League glory

Raheem Sterling: Manchester City ‘deserve’ Champions League glory
  • Chelsea star says his former club has everything it takes to finally get over the line against Inter Milan on Saturday

Raheem Sterling has backed former club Manchester City to round off their impressive campaign by achieving a historic Treble.

The Etihad outfit face Inter Milan in Saturday’s Champions League final, having already tasted Premier League and FA Cup success.

Sterling spent seven years at City, winning the league four times, and lifting the FA Cup and League Cup.

But the Champions League eluded the England winger and his team, with defeat to Chelsea — his current club — in 2021 the closest they came.

Manchester United are the only other English club to have achieved the Treble, back in 1999, and Sterling told Arab News exclusively: “I hope City do it.

“They’re a club that’s been fighting for the Champions League from my time there for many years and I think they are a club that deserves it.

“The quality that they have, they have been unlucky in previous years.

They’ve got the Premier League (and FA Cup) now and hopefully they can actually get the Champions League and finish it all off.”

The 28-year-old, who scored 131 goals for City — including 24 in the Champions League — before leaving for Chelsea last summer, added: “For me, it’s been the same at this club. First season I was there until now, it’s about consistency.

“For me, they are the best team — they’ve been the best for the last five, six years.

“I knew when I was leaving City, I knew they would be challenging or winning titles. They’re a great club, they’re the example for everyone in the Premier League.”

City have been contenders for European club football’s biggest prize since 2016 when they reached the semifinals under Manuel Pellegrini, but lost 1-0 on aggregate in the semis to Real Madrid.

Heartbreak has since followed for Pep Guardiola’s team, including a 2019 quarter-final tie with Tottenham Hotspur where Sterling had a dramatic injury-time goal disallowed by VAR.

It would have proved the winner, but Spurs instead went through on away goals after a 4-4 aggregate scoreline.

In last season’s semifinals, City conceded two goals in the 90th minute as Real Madrid forced extra time and then snatched a 5-4 aggregate success.

“They have had unlucky times in the past, but now they have got the luck and that’s all they needed,” added Sterling of City’s bid for a first European Cup.

“When we lost the final two years ago, it was hard but that’s gone, it’s in the past now. Hopefully they get across the line this time. Now they’ve got the big one to come and I believe they will do it.”


Newcastle United end-of-season awards: winners and losers from historic 2022/23 campaign

Newcastle United end-of-season awards: winners and losers from historic 2022/23 campaign
Updated 06 June 2023

Newcastle United end-of-season awards: winners and losers from historic 2022/23 campaign

Newcastle United end-of-season awards: winners and losers from historic 2022/23 campaign

NEWCASTLE: The wait for silverware goes on at St. James’ Park, but Champions League football has returned.

Having suffered the seemingly endless pain of one relegation battle after the next, this season has proven a welcome distraction for Newcastle United.

Under Eddie Howe, and with PIF at the helm, the days of feeding on scraps at the foot of the Premier League seem long gone. This very much feels like the era of progress and positivity on Tyneside.

The season that was full of highs, with the odd low along the way, but it all ended in success with a top-four finish in the bag and trips to Barcelona and Madrid in the offing, rather than fears of Preston and Barnsley.

Looking back, here’s our take on the highlights, lowlights and the standout performers across the season.

Player of the season
You know it’s been a remarkable campaign when you find it impossible to mention your 18-goal, Premier League fourth top-scorer for the season, Callum Wilson, in your top three players for the season. In fact, he might not even make the top five, such has been the competition at the top.

Honourable mentions must go to the likes of Bruno Guimaraes, Fabian Schar, Kieran Trippier and Nick Pope, who have all more than proven their value over the course of the season, but in my opinion, it is very difficult to look past the talents of last season’s official POTY, Joelinton. He’s a player who just keeps getting better and better.

Signed as a forward and used in a back-to-goal, central role on arrival, the big Brazilian looked like a fish out of water in the Premier League. It is easy to forget that it must have been hard to settle during the COVID-19 lockdown, not speaking the language, playing in a new country, new environment and being asked to perform a role that you had never played.

Those days, though, seem long gone. And while the shoots of recovery were evident in the latter days of the previous manager, Howe sprinkled some magic on the player in his opening weeks, dropping him into a deeper midfield role, with the switch paying instant dividends. From then, Joelinton has been used as a left forward or to the left side of a central midfield three, bursting forward to score goals and also provide cover to the backline with his physical, commanding style.

This season, playing largely in midfield, Joelinton had his most successful season in front of goal, netting eight — and from his deepest starting slot yet. Bigger than any Arab News player of the year gong, Joelinton received his maiden Brazil call last week, just reward for his outstanding form and growth under Howe.

Most improved player
Sean Longstaff. Always undervalued, never by Howe and his coaches, though.

In the space of a year, Longstaff transformed from a player who appeared to have lost his way under previous boss Steve Bruce and was heading for the Newcastle exit door. The North Shields native — a city suburb on the banks of the Tyne — never wanted to leave his boyhood heroes. However, his breakthrough under Rafa Benitez and big money links to Manchester United seemed a million miles away from the reality of this time last year.

And even after penning a new deal, one which saw his chronic underpayment readjusted, things in the garden weren’t exactly rosy for Longstaff, with Jonjo Shelvey ahead of him in the midfield pecking order, as well as usual suspects Joelinton, Joe Willock and Bruno Guimaraes. But a knock to Shelvey in pre-season in Portugal opened the door to the Geordie, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Makeshift left-back Dan Burn could easily make a case for unsung hero, too.

Young player of the year
Elliot Anderson had a brilliant breakthrough year, and bigger and better things are expected of the youngster next season, but this one is really a two-way shootout.

Sven Botman and Alexander Isak, both signed last summer, enjoyed sensational first seasons at the club, the latter despite a long, frustrating spell on the sidelines.

Isak, signed for a club record fee, broke on the scene with a flawless display on debut at Liverpool and looked set for great things, only for an injury, sustained while away with Sweden, to keep him out until the new year. But after his return, Isak displaced top-scorer Wilson as the club’s central striker and netted 10 goals in total himself. His most memorable contribution probably came on the blue half of Merseyside when he weaved in and out on the left to tee up Jacob Murphy. It was every bit a throwback to Thierry Henry at Arsenal. Rumour has it, Everton’s Michael Keane is still twisting and turning to this day.

Botman, on the other hand, has been Newcastle’s Mr. Consistent, a rock alongside Schar at the heart of the Magpies’ backline. And while he hasn’t put in the flashy shows like Isak, his solidity, in his debut campaign in the joint best defense in the division, means he gets the nod for me.

Underperformer for 2022/23
This one isn’t difficult. Allan Saint-Maximin. He started the campaign like a house on fire, but injury curtailed his blistering start, which saw Kyle Walker turned inside-out in a 3-3 draw with Manchester City as never seen before. It was a flash of the old Maxi. Sadly, flashes are all we get these days.

When fit — and that was rarely this season — Saint-Maximin struggled for gametime even though he showed a willingness to bend to Howe’s more disciplined tactical approach. It has never quite felt like enough, though. And even though more flashes were shown on the final day at Chelsea, you’d have to feel his time on Tyneside may well be up.

The player himself took to Instagram to post this very cryptic message on Monday. It read: “When I joined @nufc in 2019, nobody understood my choice. I always believed in this club, as soon as I step onto the pitch, the fans directly adopted me. Since then there has been highs and lows, when we were in the relegation zone, but I always believed in the team and trusted the project even if it was hard to stay in the PL, I knew that the club deserved much better and we had to prove it. I gave everything on the pitch to keep the team at the highest level. I am grateful that some people remember that.”

It continued: “I am now entering a turning point in my career and I will give everything until the end to achieve my dreams. It’s often said that human beings forget quickly, but me I won’t be able to forget everyone that love me for who I am and believe in me in difficult moments, it’s in these hard situations that we see the real supporters. Thanks to everyone for the support, whatever happens, I will always give everything when I have the chance to step onto the pitch. Thanks, God, for everything.”

It’s fair to say that message has got fans guessing.

Goal of the season
Newcastle had two contenders in the Premier League’s goal of the season competition, and both deserve a special mention.

Miguel Almiron’s cracker of a volley, which was stroked in at Fulham as it dropped over his shoulder, is up there with the best the league was graced with in the past 12 months, however, you would have to go a long way to see a better strike than the one produced by Saint-Maximin at Wolves.

The goal meant a lot, it rescued a point for Newcastle in their first real struggle of the season, but the technique in itself was worthy of winning any competition. Hit with such velocity, having dropped from so high, first time, in the 90th minute from 1-0 down, it was the pinnacle of the Frenchman’s ultimately disappointing season.

Result of the season
Spurs. It had to be: 21 minutes of unbridled mayhem, five goals and a team decimated without getting out of second gear.

This was one of the finest, most brutal, Premier League performances I’ve ever seen. Easily the most impressive period of play, in those opening exchanges, ever produced in the Premier League by a team in black and white.

Sitting in the St. James’ Park press box, we were swamped by fans falling off their seats and jumping with joy, time and time again that day. Jacob Murphy’s face told the story of the masses — no one could believe their eyes, particularly those furnished in sky blue. It was a long trip back, no doubt. Final score, Newcastle United 6, Tottenham Hotspur (Harry Kane alone) 1.

Moment of the campaign
In a campaign of many moments, for me, one stands above all. The final whistle at the end of the first leg of the Carabao Cup semifinal.

Newcastle United dominated their struggling opponents from near minute one to 90, and with just 20 minutes to go, edged themselves in front via Joelinton. The job wasn’t done yet, but still, at the halfway point, playing a side who’d go on to finish bottom of the top-flight last season, it felt the groundwork had been laid.

I was at Wembley — the old pre-development one — as a fan in 2000, the last time Newcastle played there in a cup competition. And as the whistle sounded, for the first time, a wave of realization swept over me that a return was on the cards.

That being said, the win over Brighton, which all but sealed a Champions League spot, was also up there in a close second. The outpouring of emotion that night, on and off the field, was a joy to behold.

The one big regret...
At almost any given time this season, Newcastle would have bettered Manchester United. But in front of 87,306 people on Feb. 28, they barely laid a glove on them. Sadly, for Howe and Newcastle, it was the most meaningful afternoon of the whole campaign.

Losing the Carabao Cup final was not really something alien to the club; they’ve lost final after final before. However, there was something a whole lot different this time around, yet so much remained the same.

This was not the Man United treble-chasing side of 1999, nor was it Arsene Wenger’s pre-Invincible, but near untouchable Gunners of 1998 — the last two teams to beat the Magpies in a showpiece finale. This was the fallible, very beatable Man United, one in transition, moving toward glory of old, but lacking belief that a win was an inevitability. That’s why losing it felt so painful.

The thing to take from this moment, though, and the whole season, is that these times will come again for Newcastle — but next time, they’ll be in a stronger position to grasp the opportunity — and silverware — with both hands.