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Pochettino calls for patience with all-star PSG

AFP

The reaction in France to the all-star Paris Saint-Germain’s Champions League bow against Club Brugge in midweek has been unforgiving.

PSG, football’s new galacticos following the arrival of Lionel Messi, were dismissed as “ghost-like” by sports daily L’Equipe as they escaped with a 1-1 draw against the Belgian champions on what was the Argentine’s first start for his new club.

Messi teamed up with Kylian Mbappe and Neymar for the first time but, as Le Parisien put it, “the dream of seeing the ‘MNM’ together almost turned into a nightmare”.

A draw away to, on paper, the weakest team in their Champions League group puts Mauricio Pochettino’s side -– among the leading pre-tournament favourites to win European club football’s biggest prize -– up against it just to reach the last 16.

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They play Manchester City next and still have to face RB Leipzig, two teams that beat PSG in last season’s Champions League.

The game in Bruges served as a reminder that the Qatar-owned club cannot simply rely on Messi, Neymar and Mbappe to win games, even if the latter set up their goal for Ander Herrera.

They desperately missed the suspended Idrissa Gana Gueye and the injured Marco Verratti in midfield.

Angel di Maria was suspended. At the back, Sergio Ramos has still not played because of injury.

“We must improve, we know that,” said Pochettino.

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“We have a magnificent squad, but we need balance, to be creative going forward but solid at the back. We need time for that.”

It is concerning when compared with Pep Guardiola’s City, who thumped Leipzig 6-3 in midweek and come to Paris later this month.

By then Messi will at least have had three more matches to get used to his new team-mates, starting with Sunday’s home meeting with Lyon, PSG’s biggest test yet domestically.

PSG have a 100 percent record so far in Ligue 1 and have scored 16 goals in their five outings but they face a Lyon side that is in form and beat Rangers 2-0 in Glasgow in the Europa League on Thursday.

Player to watch: Jerome Boateng

The 33-year-old German World Cup-winning centre-back was a surprise signing by Lyon as the transfer window shut at the end of last month, penning a two-year contract after arriving from Bayern Munich on a free transfer.

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Boateng, who was a regular for Bayern last season, made his Lyon debut off the bench in their 3-1 win over Strasbourg last weekend and started against Rangers in Glasgow.

The former Manchester City player has had other issues to worry about it since arriving at his new club — last week he was given a 1.8 million-euro ($2m) fine by a German court for assaulting an ex-girlfriend three years ago.

Seeking to focus on football in the face of his legal woes, Boateng will come up against PSG’s superstar attack this weekend when Lyon go to the Parc des Princes.

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FBI Most Wanted Fugitive Arrested in Mexico and Deported to U.S.

Authorities in Mexico announced Thursday that Samuel Ramírez Jr., a U.S. citizen accused of murdering two women and listed among the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, was arrested in the northern state of Sinaloa.

Ramírez Jr., 33, was detained Tuesday in Culiacán just 1 hour and 13 minutes after being added to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Ten Most Wanted list, the agency said in a statement.

The suspect, who was born in California, has already been deported to the U.S. state of Washington, where he faces charges related to the fatal shooting of two women at a bar in Federal Way in May 2023.

A court issued an arrest warrant for Ramírez in November last year, and the FBI initially offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to his capture, later increasing the amount to up to $1 million.

“To protect individuals’ privacy and ensure continued cooperation from the public, the FBI does not confirm the identity of those who provide information,” the agency said in its statement.

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UN experts warn Nicaragua runs vast transnational network to monitor exiled dissidents

Nicaragua maintains an “extensive” transnational network to monitor and intimidate opposition figures living in exile, affecting “hundreds of thousands” of people, the United Nations Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua warned on Tuesday.

In a statement, the experts said their report “details an extensive transnational architecture of surveillance and intelligence used to monitor, intimidate and attack the hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans living abroad.”

The report, which will be presented on March 16 to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, states that the structure maintained by the government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo includes the army, the police, migration authorities and diplomatic missions.

According to the statement, “the government has arbitrarily stripped 452 Nicaraguans of their nationality, left thousands more exiled in a situation of de facto statelessness, and prevented many from returning to Nicaragua.”

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Trump: ‘We Think It’s True’ Amid Claims Iran’s Supreme Leader Was Killed

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he believes multiple reports claiming the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during the U.S. and Israeli offensive against the Islamic Republic are likely true, though he stopped short of confirming the news.

“We have a feeling that the information is correct,” he said, according to NBC News. “I don’t want to say anything definitive until I see it, but we think that’s the case. And many of their leaders have disappeared,” he added.

Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there were “many indications” that Khamenei had died in an attack on his residential compound.