Sin categoría
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.
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.
“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.
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.
International
Trump warns Hamas that they will be “eradicated” if they break the ceasefire with Israel in Gaza
The President of the United States, Donald Trump, urged Hamas again this Monday to stop the violence and take the terms of the peace plan it promotes with Israel in Gaza, warning that otherwise they could be “eradicated,” although in turn he ruled out the possible presence of soldiers from his country in the Strip.
“We have peace in the Middle East for the first time in history; we reached an agreement with Hamas for which they will be very good, they will behave well and they will be kind. And if not, we will go and we will eradicate them,” the president told the press during a meeting at the White House with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Trump clarified, however, that if that happened “there would be no American soldiers on the ground at all” because it would only be enough to ask several of the countries that supported the peace proposal to take charge of the Palestinian militant group: “Israel would intervene in two minutes,” he added.
“I could tell them to intervene (to the countries) and take care of it. But for now, we haven’t said it. We are going to give (Hamas) a small chance and, hopefully, there will be a little less violence,” said the president, whose plan received the support of Arab and European nations during a peace summit in Egypt.
The American insisted that the militant group “has been very violent, but no longer has the support of Iran. He no longer has the support of anyone. They have to behave well, and if they don’t, they will be eradicated,” he repeated.
Israel bombed several points in Gaza on Sunday and killed dozens of people, in response to what it interpreted as a “violation” of the agreement by Hamas, a week after the entry into force of the ceasefire promoted by the Trump Administration.
The bombings took place after clashes in the Rafah area, located in southern Gaza and controlled by the Israeli Army, which left two Israeli soldiers dead.
After these clashes, Israel claimed to have “resumed the application of the ceasefire”. Shortly after, Trump assured for his part that the truce “is still in force.”
The Republican president had already threatened last week to “kill” Hamas members if they did not comply with the ceasefire agreement with Israel and “continue to kill in Gaza.”
The militant group has mobilized in Gaza to regain control after the start of the ceasefire in the Strip, which has meant the withdrawal of Israeli troops from half of the territory. In the midst of this tense situation, there have also been clashes between Hamas and other local militias.
Several videos show summary executions of people whom Palestinian militants accuse of collaborating with Israel, which according to local sources, have occurred in Gaza City.
Sin categoría
Trump files $15 billion defamation suit against The New York Times
U.S. President Donald Trump has filed a $15 billion defamation and libel lawsuit against The New York Times, which denounced the legal move on Tuesday as an attempt to silence the press.
In this new stage of his presidency, the 79-year-old Republican leader has escalated his long-standing hostility toward traditional media, repeatedly attacking critical journalists, limiting their access, or taking them to court.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in Florida, seeks $15 billion in damages, along with additional punitive compensation “in an amount to be determined at trial.”
The New York Times had reported last week that Trump threatened legal action over articles concerning a birthday letter allegedly sent by him to financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The letter featured a typed message inside the outline of a nude woman. Trump denies that the accompanying signature is his.
“For too long, The New York Times has been allowed to lie, defame, and slander me freely — and that ends NOW!” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social.
Sin categoría
Maduro warns Venezuela would enter armed struggle if attacked by foreign forces
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro stated on Friday that if his country were attacked, it would enter a phase of armed struggle, amid his claims of “threats” from the United States, which is conducting a military deployment in Caribbean waters near Venezuela’s coast under the pretext of combating drug trafficking.
Maduro emphasized that Venezuela is currently in the non-armed phase, which he described as political, communicational, and institutional, but added that if the country were somehow aggressed, it would move to a planned, organized armed struggle involving the entire population, whether the threat is local, regional, or national.
“We would enter a stage of armed struggle, in defense of peace, territorial integrity, sovereignty, and our people,” Maduro said during an event activating citizen militias, broadcast on state channel Venezolana de Televisión (VTV).
He also noted that Venezuela is currently in a phase of readiness and preparation to defend the country and will proceed to the deployment of defensive capacities, including training and retraining of the entire Venezuelan population.
Maduro described the Venezuelan people as pacifist yet warrior-like, asserting that “no one will enslave us, neither today nor ever.”
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