At the scene of one of his Europa League final triumphs, the manager is setting targets to achieve success with Villa
For Unai Emery, there was a welcome air of familiarity upon arrival at Basel’s St Jakob-Park on Wednesday. It was a return to Switzerland and the scene of his third Europa League triumph with Sevilla in 2016, when his side overcame Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool, 3-1.
“This competition is so, so special for me,” the Aston Villa manager said. “We won here, it was a fantastic day and is a fantastic memory. To remember it is very good.” And then came a big but. Two, in fact. “I want to build a new moment, a new era, a new way with Aston Villa. I can remind myself of the moment I had here.”
Continue reading...
© Photograph: David Klein/Reuters
© Photograph: David Klein/Reuters
© Photograph: David Klein/Reuters
I’ve spent too many wet and windy Friday afternoons preparing set-piece routines and it’s not a pretty sight
Set pieces, eh, those brief but frequent interludes that sporadically pockmark our weekly sacrament, filling our heads with daydreams and fantasies of intricately worked ruses or 30-yard thunderbolts. Quite often the unintentional birth child of an ugly hacked clearance or theatrical swan dive, they ordinarily result in nothing more than a rudimentary blemish upon hallowed turf canvas but, sometimes, just sometimes, we are treated to strokes of genius that become as entrenched in the memory as is the Lord’s Prayer.
When asked to provide a dose of professional insight detailing the fastidious workings that go into each and every single stoppage in play, it got me to thinking: have we lost an element of ingenuity in the pursuit of perfection? My dad has always warned me against the pitfalls of starting a game slowly so, with that pearl of wisdom well heeded, I’ll get things under way with a bang, a no-nonsense punt into touch from the very first whistle, the sort that’s recently stormed back into fashion within the upper echelons of the English game, as world-renowned coaches such as Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta do their damndest at reinventing a century-old wheel.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Alan Rennie/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Alan Rennie/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Alan Rennie/Shutterstock
Marielle says being recorded is part of being her friend, but Beth is fed up of being a muse. Who should reel it in?
• Get a disagreement settled or become a YBTJ juror
Sometimes she films me while I’m eating. I’ll see myself on her Instagram – it’s like a jumpscare
I want Beth to see that the content we make together can get us a foot in the door
Continue reading...
© Illustration: Igor Bastidas/The Guardian
© Illustration: Igor Bastidas/The Guardian
© Illustration: Igor Bastidas/The Guardian
Dutch rising star has gone from not knowing ‘how to grip the dart’ to a dark horse for the PDC world championship
It’s the deciding leg of the European Championship final. Gian van Veen, the 23-year-old from the Netherlands chasing his first major title, has just missed two match darts to win 11-9. Luke Humphries, world No 1 at the time, starts the final leg with a 140.
“Oh, you’ve blown it here,” Van Veen replies when asked to describe his internal monologue during that moment in October. “Luke Humphries is not going to crumble under this pressure. Maybe it was a negative thought. But it also released some pressure for me, in a way.”
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images
© Photograph: Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images
© Photograph: Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images
After record flooding submerged Bor in South Sudan in 2020, the emergency response ended up turning it into a beacon of climate crisis adaptation
The three friends fill yellow jerrycans and help each other lift them on to their heads for the short walk home. Nyandong Chang lives five minutes from the water kiosk and is here up to six times a day. “It’s still hard work,” she says, “but at least nowadays water is available and clean.”
Until last year, women and children in Bor, the capital of South Sudan’s Jonglei state, faced a much tougher chore – going all the way to the filthy stretch of the White Nile that runs near the town to draw the family’s drinking, washing and cooking water and carry it back.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Florence Miettaux
© Photograph: Florence Miettaux
© Photograph: Florence Miettaux
This Trinidadian family saga blurs the line between real and imagined to create a multilayered history of an island and its people
Ever Since We Small opens in Bihar, India in 1899. Jayanti dreams of a woman offering her bracelets. Within days, her husband becomes sick and dies. Widowhood is not an option and Jayanti prepares for her own sati. Determined to apply the “godly might of English justice” and uphold a law banning the practice, an English doctor and magistrate muscle in to stop her. In an 11th-hour volte face, Jayanti, desiring life over the afterlife, allows herself to be saved. Triumphant, the magistrate suggests she become his mistress, but instead she opts to be shipped off to Trinidad. The island, she’s told, is a place where the shame of her choice will be forgotten.
Ever Since We Small, Celeste Mohammed’s second novel-in-stories, is a more cohesive work than Pleasantview, which won the Bocas prize for Caribbean literature in 2022. The opening chapter follows on from an academic introduction and Mohammed’s style is more reverent, less ballsy and humorous, than the warts-and-all portraits drawn in Pleasantview; but casting characters from the distant past often has that effect on novelists. The tone is appropriate, however; Mohammed here is the sober observer taking in the fate of women like Jayanti, who if they have choices at all, they are between bad and worse.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: by Marc Guitard/Getty Images
© Photograph: by Marc Guitard/Getty Images
© Photograph: by Marc Guitard/Getty Images
British government also rejects president’s claims on sovereignty over Falkland Islands as he suggests wanting to make Argentina a ‘world military power’
The British government has denied it is engaged in negotiations to lift a ban on selling arms to Argentina that has been in place since the Falklands war.
Javier Milei, the president of Argentina, told the Daily Telegraph his government had begun speaking to the UK about the restrictions.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Nicolás Aguilera/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Nicolás Aguilera/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Nicolás Aguilera/AFP/Getty Images
The hosts battled against Manchester City but a second successive home defeat pushes manager towards exit
On the night they were going to sack him, Xabi Alonso watched his team rise against their fate and perhaps his, but fall again. He listened to the fans whistle and the final whistle, embraced the man who had been his mentor and then, defeated for the second time in four days here, disappeared straight down the Bernabéu tunnel without looking back. Real Madrid had taken the game to Manchester City, going ahead first and chasing another comeback later. But in the end, in the words of Rodrygo, whose first goal in 33 games had given them hope, “it was not enough”.
The question now is whether it will be enough to rescue the coach Rodrygo had run to embrace, a gesture of solidarity on the edge of the abyss. Late last Sunday night in one of the offices here, some in the club’s hierarchy had been determined to get rid of the coach who had presided over two wins in seven. The sentence was suspended but this was set up as something of a final judgment and, having extended that run to an eighth game, there is no guarantee Alonso will be back. Nor though is there any guarantee that he won’t.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Kieran McManus/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Kieran McManus/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Kieran McManus/Shutterstock
Rory McIlroy, Chloe Kelly and Lando Norris are the leading frontrunners for the Sports Personality of the Year award
© Getty Images
Machado made a daring escape from Venezuela by boat and travelled to the Caribbean island of Curacao, from where she departed on a private plane for Norway
© AFP via Getty Images
© PA Archive
© PA Media
Fire-cracked flint and heated sediments have been found at a disused clay pit in Suffolk
© Jordan Mansfield/PA Wire
Connexion
