With Cristiano Ronaldo’s future at Juventus in dooubt, Paris Saint-Germain star Neymar has admitted that he ‘wants to play with the Portuguese forward before the end of his career.
The Brazil international has taken to the pitch alongside some of the game’s all-time greats, and is currently spearheading Les Parisiens’ attack with fellow forward and starlet Kylian Mbappe.
But one footballer remains who he wishes to partner before his time on the big stage comes to a close.
Speaking to GQ France, Neymar confessed that he wishes to ‘play with Ronaldo’, in a statement which has only fuelled rumours of the 36-year-old’s potential departure from Juventus at the end of the season.
“I want to play with Cristiano Ronaldo,” he said. “I’ve already played with great players like Messi and [Kylian] Mbappe, but I haven’t played with Cristiano Ronaldo yet.”
Hamas militants have launched dozens of rockets at Israel after Israeli air strikes killed senior commanders and felled a multi-storey building in Gaza.
Reports say several locations in southern Israel were hit, killing a young child in Sderot.
The escalation of the fighting, which began on Monday, has prompted the UN to warn of a “full-scale war”.
At least 65 people in Gaza, including 14 children, and seven people in Israel have been killed since then.
The fighting erupted after weeks of rising Israeli-Palestinian tension in East Jerusalem which culminated in clashes at a holy site revered by Muslims and Jews.\
Further violence in towns in Israel with mixed Jewish and Arab populations has led to 374 more people being arrested on Wednesday evening, Israeli police said, and 36 officers being injured.
There were reports in Israeli media of both Jewish and Arab individuals being attacked by mobs in Israeli towns and cities. They include a Jewish man who suffered injuries at the hands of Arabs in the city of Acre, and an Arab man who was reportedly injured in Bat Yam.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking late on Wednesday night, said what had been happening in Israeli cities in recent days was “unbearable”.
“We will not accept anarchy,” he said.
“Nothing can justify an Arab mob assaulting Jews, and nothing can justify a Jewish mob assaulting Arabs,” he said in a video statement, as reported by the Times of Israel.
image captionViolent clashes continued in the town of Lod on Wednesday evening
Palestinian militants have been firing rockets into Israel since Monday night, and Israel has responded by hitting targets in the territory.
Hundreds of air strikes and rocket attacks have been carried out.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says that more than 360 people have been injured there since the conflict began, as well as the 65 who have died.
Mr Netanyahu said the government would use all its strength to protect Israel from enemies on the outside and rioters on the inside.
Militants in Gaza said they had fired 130 rockets into Israel in response to an Israeli aid raid which destroyed the al-Sharouk tower in Gaza City.
The tower, which is the third tall building to be destroyed by air strikes this week, housed al-Aqsa TV, the station run by Hamas.
image captionThis woman and child were evacuated from a building in Gaza
Israel said it had killed senior Hamas officials in Gaza, and was also targeting missile launching sites. Hamas confirmed a senior commander and “other leaders” had died.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said on Wednesday that their strikes on Gaza were the largest since the conflict in 2014.
Residents had been warned to evacuate the buildings before fighter jets attacked; however health officials said there were still civilian deaths.
Five members of one family were killed in an air strike on Tuesday, including two young brothers, according to AFP news agency.
“We were laughing and having fun when suddenly they began to bomb us. Everything around us caught fire,” their 14-year-old cousin, Ibrahim, said, breaking down in tears as he described their death.
Meanwhile millions of Israelis were in bomb shelters on Wednesday evening, according to the IDF, after sirens warning of rockets sounded across the country.
The child killed in the Israeli town of Sderot was named as Ido Avigal, aged six, who was caught in an attack on a block of flats.
Anna Ahronheim, the defence and security correspondent of the Jerusalem Post, described spending Tuesday night in a shelter with her five-month-old baby.
“To hear hundreds of interceptions and even to hear rockets fall near us was horrifying,” she told the BBC.
image captionIsrael’s Iron Dome anti-missile system – seen here over Ashkelon – aims to protect towns and cities from rockets
On Wednesday morning an Israeli soldier was killed by an anti-tank missile fired from Gaza into Israel, authorities said, while two Israeli Arabs died in Lod when a rocket hit their car.
How has the world responded?
United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said he was “gravely concerned” by the ongoing violence. The UN Security Council has met to discuss the issue, but has not issued a statement.
In a phone call to Mr Netanyahu, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned Hamas rocket attacks but said Israel had an obligation to avoid civilian casualties.
He said he had sent an envoy to the region to meet both sides.
Russia has called for an urgent meeting of the Middle East Quartet (the US, EU, UN and Russia).
A Russian foreign ministry statement quoted a Hamas spokesman as saying the movement was ready for a ceasefire if Israel stopped “violent acts” in East Jerusalem and “illegal measures in respect of its native Arab residents”.
What has caused the violence?
The fighting between Israel and Hamas was triggered by days of escalating clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police at a holy hilltop compound in East Jerusalem.
The site is revered by both Muslims, who call it the Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary), and Jews, for whom it is known as the Temple Mount. Hamas demanded Israel remove police from there and the nearby predominantly Arab district of Sheikh Jarrah, where Palestinian families face eviction by Jewish settlers. Hamas launched rockets when its ultimatum went unheeded.
Palestinian anger had already been stoked by weeks of rising tension in East Jerusalem, inflamed by a series of confrontations with police since the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in mid-April.
It was further fuelled by the threatened eviction of Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem by Jewish settlers and Israel’s annual celebration of its capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war, known as Jerusalem Day.
The fate of the city, with its deep religious and national significance to both sides, lies at the heart of the decades-old Israel-Palestinian conflict. Israel in effect annexed East Jerusalem in 1980 and considers the entire city its capital, though this is not recognised by the vast majority of other countries.
Palestinians claim the eastern half of Jerusalem as the capital of a hoped-for state of their own.
Yannick Carrasco put Atletico ahead when he collected Marcos Llorente’s ball over the top of the Sociedad defence and finished past Alex Remiro.
Angel Correa doubled the hosts’ lead with a first-time finish following Luis Suarez’s excellent through ball.
Igor Zubeldia scored late on for Sociedad but Atletico held on to win.
Atletico will win the Spanish title for the 11th time in their history if they win both their last two matches.
They play at home against 11th-placed Osasuna on Sunday, 16 May before ending the campaign a week later away at a Real Valladolid side that are 18th and in the relegation zone.
Martin Griffiths, the UN envoy struggling to end the bloody war in Yemen, was named Wednesday to be the global body’s humanitarian chief.
UN Yemen envoy named humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths, the UN envoy struggling to end the bloody war in Yemen, was named Wednesday to be the global body’s humanitarian chief.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ appointment of Griffiths as under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs keeps the prominent post in the hands of a British diplomat, succeeding Mark Lowcock.
Similarly, two other top positions, under-secretary-general for political affairs and under-secretary-general for peacekeeping, have stayed respectively with diplomats from the United States and France despite a 1992 General Assembly resolution that opposed the “monopoly” of the major powers in key jobs.
Griffiths, 69, has earned the appreciation of Security Council nations for persevering even in the most dire situations, including in the Yemen post that he assumed in 2018.
The United Nations has described Yemen as the world’s worst humanitarian situation, with 80 percent of the population relying on assistance as Saudi Arabia carries out a devastating campaign aimed at rooting out Huthi rebels who control much of the country.
Griffiths — like his predecessor as envoy, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed of Mauritania — failed to stop the conflict and suffered a rupture of relations with the Huthis, who are tied to Iran.
The United States last week denounced the Huthis for refusing to meet Griffiths as President Joe Biden’s administration steps up diplomacy to end the war.
“A mediator cannot force the parties to negotiate,” Griffiths told a Security Council meeting on Wednesday as he deplored the “relentless military escalation” by the Huthis as they try to take the last northern government stronghold of Marib.
It was not immediately clear who would take on the UN job on Yemen.
Lowcock, the outgoing under-secretary-general, earlier this year said he wanted to step down and rejoin his family in Britain.
Griffiths has long worked in humanitarian roles at the United Nations, including coordinating efforts in the Great Lakes region of Africa in the 1990s.
He also served as an adviser to former secretary general Kofi Annan during his bid to end Syria’s civil war and, before the Yemen job, led the European Institute of Peace in Brussels.
A jewellery set worn by French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte’s adopted daughter sold for $1.65 million in Geneva on Wednesday, soaring way above the pre-auction estimate.
Marking the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s death, Christie’s auction house sold the nine imperial jewels adorned with sapphires and diamonds, which were from the collection of his adopted daughter Stephanie de Beauharnais.
Some 38 sapphires from Sri Lanka were used to create the set in the early 1800s.
Offered as separate lots, the jewels had remained in the same family ever since they were offered to Beauharnais on her wedding to Charles, the grand duke of Baden, at the Tuileries Palace in Paris in 1806.
Besides their historical value, the jewels were also prized for their natural blue, as sapphires usually undergo heat treatment to accentuate the colour.
The nine pieces included a tiara, a necklace, a pair of earrings, two pendants, two brooches, a ring and a bracelet.
“There was a huge demand from collectors around the world, both in Asia and the Middle East, also Europe and the Americas,” auctioneer Max Fawcett told reporters at the Magnificent Jewels sale.
It was thought that the collection might fetch $475,000 in total, but the tiara alone went for $462,000. It contains octagonal step-cut and oval-shaped sapphires, rose and old-cut diamonds, and gold.
The sale also included a sapphire crown worn by queen Mary II of Portugal, who was twice the country’s reigning monarch before her death in 1853.
Set with a Burmese sapphire in the centre, the crown was estimated at $190,000-$385,000 but sold for far more, at $1.95 million.
The priciest item in the sale was the last of the 146 lots — a rectangular white 100.94-carat diamond called the Spectacle, which sold for $14.1 million.
The internally flawless diamond is the largest stone ever to have been cut in Russia and was cut from a rough stone unearthed in the remote northeastern Yakutia region in 2016.
The preparation and cutting process took a year and eight months.
A year ago, Pep Guardiola arrived at a pivotal moment with Manchester City. It was a crossroads he had experienced before.
Towards the end of his tenure with Barcelona, the Spaniard found himself in something of a quandary.
Barca had won 14 trophies in his four seasons in charge, becoming the best club side in the world. But he felt cracks were beginning to show.
He spoke to Sir Alex Ferguson and Rafael Benitez and asked them for their views on how to handle such a situation. Renew the squad or leave?
Both men were unequivocal in their advice. Stick to your beliefs, stay and renew the squad. Ferguson, a master of that approach, summed it up succinctly: “Recycle your squad, or before you know it you’ll find they have recycled you.”
Not for the first time Guardiola chose to disregard the advice given to him.
By the end of the 2011-12 season – his fourth at the club – an exhausted and thoroughly frustrated Guardiola realised he could no longer get what was needed from players who for so long had hung on his every word.
Enough was enough and, to the shock of everyone at Barcelona, he walked away to recharge his batteries with a one-year sabbatical in the United States.
Suitably refreshed, he returned a year later to take the reins at Bayern Munich but, despite three Bundesliga titles and two German Cups during his three-season spell at the club, he felt the movers and shakers did not fully understand what he was trying to do.
So to City – and more success.
But, with the Covid-19-ravaged 2019-20 season concluded and the Premier League title transferred to Liverpool, Guardiola had a decision to make about his contract.
And at that point the words of Benitez and Ferguson made a lot more sense than they had done almost a decade earlier.
Did Guardiola consider leaving Man City?
As it transpired, Guardiola signed a new contract and the mutual faith of both parties has been rewarded with a third Premier League title across his five years with City.
The deal, if he so wishes, could keep him at City for seven years, a sure sign there was never any sense the Spaniard was beginning to overstay his welcome.
From his perspective, he never remotely considered any of the overtures from Paris St-Germain. Nor will he ever go to the French club, not least because the Abu Dhabi owners of City would consider a move to a Qatar-owned club like PSG as nothing short of treachery.
City never forced him to accept an offer that was negotiated in fewer than 24 hours but had been on the table for the previous few months.
In fact, all they asked of Guardiola was that if he decided to leave, the club should be given plenty of notice.
The key moment in that period came on a trip Guardiola took to the Maldives in October to meet up with City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak, who convinced him to stay. “We have to keep going,” Guardiola was told. “We will keep winning, we will do what is required to continue competing at this level. You have to stay.”
The consistency of the message from his bosses, plus the fact he is comfortable and surrounded by people he trusts, did the rest of the job.
Renewed squad – but reinvented style
His agreement to continue with the club obliged them to think about renewing the squad.
At the end of last season and the beginning of the current one it became clear that changes were needed.
Immediate steps were taken, notably with the arrival of winger Ferran Torres and defender Ruben Dias. The Portuguese has been a hugely positive influence off the pitch, encouraging others but also demanding a lot of those around him on it, not just the defenders but also his team’s attackers (helped by the absence of fan noise).
The initial idea was just four or five from the ‘old guard’ would be deemed irreplaceable, although the re-evaluation of certain players like Joao Cancelo and John Stones, and how the market has been affected by the pandemic, made it apparent the assessment of who could be sold needed to be more rigorous than had previously been thought.
While the squad underwent minor renewal, it was the methods that received the biggest overhaul.
A 1-1 draw with West Brom on 15 December, with City sixth in the table, forced a deep reflection on the situation. The feeling was the team was bored, uninterested, lethargic and generally short of the enthusiasm required.
Clearly the lack of a proper break and the absence of mental freshness were having an impact and were exacerbating the situation.
Guardiola, drawing on his previous experiences at Barcelona and Bayern, started to think maybe his pupils were tired of hearing his words and opened the door so they could have greater contact with his assistant coaches, rather than with him directly.
After exhaustive analysis with his coaching team and honest chats with his second in command, Juan Manuel Lillo – someone who has become more of a mentor than a conventional assistant coach – Guardiola decided to return to the essence of his team’s game.
With forwards Phil Foden and Raheem Sterling in wider positions, more spaces were created inside.
Ilkay Gundogan, Bernardo Silva and Kevin de Bruyne, now free from injury, plus a Cancelo rediscovered as a wing-back who moves into midfield, were able to create a superiority of numbers in the middle of the pitch.
Calmness was applied to attack with more patience and passes and, as Guardiola realised he could no longer rely on Sergio Aguero’s fitness, he became obsessed with working out how to get more bodies into the box. He wanted wingers, midfielders and even full-backs to be a goal threat. That is how Gundogan started to score regularly and why Foden began delivering stats that were better than those produced by club legend David Silva in his first season in England.
The manager determined that his priority was players who gave fluidity, whose first touch and body positioning allowed the ball to be moved faster. That became a determining factor in his selections for big games.
An obsession with counters…
A side-effect of the new approach was the large number of players in front of the ball, and with it came the problem of how to minimise the threat of possible counter-attacks.
In Guardiola’s first year at City, they conceded five goals on the counter, and they looked weak when they lost the ball. From then on this became one of Guardiola’s obsessions.
For this season he decided there would be a line of four defenders behind the ball, consisting of the two centre-halves, a full-back (normally Cancelo) and a holding midfielder.
This season they have conceded just once from a rapid transition after conceding possession.
Also, Guardiola took on board that sometimes results have to be ground out as well as beautifully crafted and City started playing a different way, less brilliant than in the past but more consistent.
There was a crucial game in December, a 1-0 win against Southampton, which did not produce great football but allowed City to keep up with the big clubs. There was more relief than happiness at the end of that match.
If there was a ‘eureka’ moment it came on 3 January when City, eight points off leaders Liverpool at the time, blew away Chelsea with a 3-1 win.
With City 3-0 up by the 34th minute, everything Guardiola had been working towards was encapsulated in a first-half masterclass.
The 4-1 victory at Anfield in February, played, like at Stamford Bridge, without a classic number nine, meant they had established a successful formula for the big games. It was that structure Guardiola has used to such effect over recent weeks.
Within the context of a pandemic, the lack of rest in a busy calendar, and the need to change the dynamic of a season that had not started well, this can be considered the best example of team-building Guardiola has produced in his career. You only have to look at how difficult it has been for other contenders to keep the consistency necessary to challenge for the title.
Guardiola has moulded players and helped adapt new ones into a squad that is fully designed to suit his requirements – even De Bruyne, signed before the manager’s arrival, was recruited with his knowledge and approval.
He has come out the other side with a Premier League title and Carabao Cup, and could complete a treble when City face Chelsea in the Champions League final on 29 May.
Where will Guardiola strengthen next?
When Guardiola arrived at City he was given a clear brief. Dominate the domestic scene and achieve regular appearances in the semi-final stages of the Champions League.
With three league titles in five years, the domestic dominance is there, and this season was his first Champions League semi-final since arriving, He navigated it superbly, with a 4-1 aggregate victory over Paris St-Germain.
Those who look to diminish his achievements claim success has been achieved by spending a fortune in bringing in some of the best players in the world, a statement that is as true as it is an oversimplification.
Among the Premier League’s known ‘money-spenders’, there is not that much variation in the cost of their squads (City’s most-used XI this season could ultimately cost £499.8m, while Manchester United’s equivalent figure is £504.2m) and the only real difference is Guardiola has maximised and radically improved the assets available to him.
But there is room for more acquisitions.
With Aguero departing at the end of the season and Sterling and others looking like they have misplaced their accuracy in front of goal, far too many opportunities have been wasted.
City have looked enviously at other teams’ strikers and it is something the club will certainly attempt to address in the summer transfer window.
Barcelona’s Lionel Messi continues to be the ultimate dream for the club, although the absolute priority is to bring in a striker for the next five or six years, a youngster of great quality who can convert a higher percentage of the multiple chances this side can create.
Yes, City are one of the 14 teams who have shown interest in Erling Braut Haaland and hope to convince him to join the club.
They are all possibilities as Guardiola continues to lead the biggest rebuild of a team in his career, a group fully moulded on what he dreams of having on the pitch.
Britain will on Thursday unveil £55 million ($77.5 million, 64.2 million euros) in new funding to support education in developing countries, as part of its bid to get 40 million more girls into school in the next five years.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has come under fire for slashing Britain’s foreign aid budget in an attempt to reign in a spiralling deficit caused by coronavirus lockdowns.
But he will join former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard on a visit to a UK school on Thursday, where they will unveil the new aid for girls education to prevent what he said was a pandemic “lost generation”.
Johnson will take part in live classroom link-up with schoolchildren in Kenya to urge world leaders to invest in education, as he committed £55 million for a new programme “turbocharging efforts to get girls into school and learning”, his Downing Street office said.
The “What Works Hub for Global Education” will advise governments across Africa and Asia on the best ways to reform school systems and support female enrolment, which is also a key plank of Britain’s G7 presidency.
“Supporting girls to get 12 years of quality education is one of the smartest investments we can make as the world recovers from Covid-19,” Johnson said in a statement.
“Otherwise we risk creating a lost pandemic generation.
“Across the world there is a vast untapped resource -– girls whose education has been cut short or denied altogether, who could be leading efforts to pull their communities out of poverty.”
A joint UK-Kenya Global Education Summit in London in July aims to raise $5 billion over the next five years.
Experts have warned that the problem of teenage pregnancies in Kenya is worsening during the coronavirus pandemic, with some girls pushed into transactional sex to survive while others have more sex as they stay home from school.
Some children get free lunches or free sanitary towels at schools, which were closed by the virus.
Being home also places an added burden on parents who may have lost their jobs.
“So the young girls will turn to men who will be providing them with pocket money, money for pads,” Evelyne Opondo, senior Africa regional director at the Centre for Reproductive Rights, said last August.
Serena Williams saw the 1,000th match of her illustrious career end in a straight-set defeat by Argentina’s Nadia Podoroska at the Italian Open.
The 39-year-old American, playing her first competitive match since mid-February, was beaten 7-6 (8-6) 7-5.
Podoroska looked assured in her first meeting with the 23-time Grand Slam champion as she reached the last 16.
Naomi Osaka suffered a second straight defeat on clay, while Simona Halep’s title defence was ended by injury.
Japanese world number two Osaka lost 7-6 (7-2) 6-2 to American Jessica Pegula in a blow to her preparations for the French Open, which starts on 30 May.
Meanwhile, Halep’s participation in the clay-court Grand Slam – which she won in 2018 – is in the balance after a scan showed she has a tear in her left calf.
The Romanian world number three had to be helped off court because of the injury that forced her to retire against Germany’s Angelique Kerber.
Halep, leading 6-1 3-3 when she had to stop, was wincing in pain and looked close to tears as she hobbled back to her chair.
“I will get an MRI tomorrow to understand the injury in more detail, but at the moment we are unsure of recovery time,” the two-time Grand Slam champion tweeted on Wednesday evening.
It was, however, a more straightforward day for Australian world number one Ashleigh Barty, who reached the third round by beating Kazakhstan’s Yaroslava Shvedova 6-4 6-1.
Williams has work to do before Roland Garros
On a day where nine of the women’s top 10 were playing in Rome, most of the attention was focused on the return of Williams to match action.
The American’s last appearance came in the Australian Open semi-final defeat by Osaka on 18 February.
Being pitted against 44th-ranked Podoroska, who surprisingly reached the Roland Garros semi-finals last year, looked to be far from ideal in her bid to spend time on court in the Italian capital this week.
Eighth seed Williams lacked intensity and struggled on first serve throughout the match, landing just 48% of them, and was unable to take any of the three break opportunities which came her way.
Podoroska initially struggled to close out the match as Williams wiped out the Argentine’s 5-2 lead for 5-5 in the second set, before Podoroska regained her composure to beat a top-10 opponent for the third time in her career.
Williams is not scheduled to play again before the French Open starts but she hinted after this defeat that she could now look to add a tournament to her schedule.
“It was definitely kind of good to go the distance and to try to be out there, but clearly I can do legions better,” she told a news conference.
“Maybe I do need a few more matches, so I’m going to try to figure that out with my coach and my team and see what we would like to do.
“I have been training for months, but it feels definitely different on clay to make that last adjustment.”
Osaka’s body language illustrates clay concerns
Osaka hit 37 unforced errors as she lost to Pegula in one hour and 27 minutes
Osaka, who received a first-round bye, has often struggled on clay and negative body language – including when she smashed a racquet – showed her discomfort against a confident Pegula.
After a tight opener where she missed three set points, Osaka’s level dropped in the second and world number 31 Pegula took control.
Pegula, 27, kept her focus and discipline to take advantage of Osaka’s increasingly wayward hitting, breaking for 4-2 when the four-time Grand Slam champion walloped a wild volley wide and going on to seal the biggest win of her career.
For 23-year-old Osaka, this defeat followed a second-round loss at the Madrid Open earlier this month.
Former Ecuador and Manchester United skipper Antonio Valencia on Wednesday announced his retirement from football.
The 35-year-old, who was playing for Queretaro in Mexico, had been suffering from long-standing injury problems.
“I’m ending my career in Queretaro,” he wrote on Twitter. “I didn’t think this moment would come so soon, but my body has asked me to take this decision.”
He spent a decade at United from 2009-19 and ended his spell there as club captain after Michael Carrick retired in 2018.
Originally a dashing and explosive right winger, Valencia later played as a full-back.
He thanked his family and fans, adding that “if in this career I failed them, I’m sorry.
“I always tried to give my best. To my country and the national team: thank you for everything.”
Valencia suffered a badly broken ankle in 2010 and fractured his foot in 2015 but it was his left knee that forced his retirement.
“If I could have changed one thing, I would have changed my knee,” he said in a press conference streamed on Queretaro’s social media accounts on Wednesday morning.
Queretaro’s team doctor, Hugo Soriano Ramirez, who joined Valencia in the press conference, explained the player developed knee problems aged 29.
He said the injury “limits his movement and is intensely painful,” adding that treatment has been ineffective and an operation would offer no guarantees that he could play football to the necessary level.
Valencia began his career at Nacional de Quito in 2003 before moving to Villarreal in Spain in 2005 after winning the Ecuadorian league.
He joined Wigan Athletic a year later where he caught the eye of former United manager Alex Ferguson.
Valencia joined United in 2009 and went on to win two Premier League titles, the FA Cup, Europa League and the League Cup twice with the Red Devils.
“I was able to travel to Europe, something I would have never dreamed of,” added Valencia.
“I played for Villarreal and Recreativo de Huelva (on loan) to then arrive in my second home: England.
“Wigan was a unique experience and then God gave me the opportunity to arrive at Manchester United and be captain.”
In 2019 he returned home to join Liga de Quito, the only Ecuadoran side to ever win the Copa Libertadores (2008) and Copa Sudamericana (2009) — the respective equivalents of the Champions League and Europa League.
A year later, with the coronavirus pandemic wreaking havoc on South American club football competitions, Valencia switched to Queretaro.
He played 98 times for Ecuador, scoring 11 goals and represented his country at the World Cup in 2006 and 2014, and four Copa America tournaments.
He was awarded the National Order of Merit in 2019.
Arsenal dented Chelsea’s bid to finish in the Premier League’s top four as Emile Smith Rowe punished Jorginho’s blunder to seal a 1-0 win on Wednesday.
Midfielder Jorginho was guilty of a woefully misplaced back-pass that ended with Gunners youngster Smith Rowe slotting home early in the first half at Stamford Bridge.
Thomas Tuchel’s home side were bereft of quality in the final third as they succumbed to only a third defeat in their 26 matches in all competitions.
The Blues remain in fourth place, but their bid to qualify for next season’s Champions League via a top four finish is now on a knife edge.
They sit six points clear of fifth placed West Ham, who have a game in hand, and seven ahead of sixth placed Liverpool, who could be the biggest threat with two games in hand.
Chelsea’s tepid display was hardly ideal preparation for their attempt to win the first trophy of Tuchel’s reign in Saturday’s FA Cup final against Leicester at Wembley.
Beaten for the first time in six league games, Chelsea’s final two top-flight matches against the Foxes and Aston Villa next week now take on extra significance.
That will deny Tuchel the chance to rest players before the Champions League final against Manchester City on May 29.
Eighth-placed Arsenal’s first league double over Chelsea since 2003-04 was a rare bright spot in a turbulent season.
Gunners boss Mikel Arteta is fighting to persuade the Arsenal hierarchy to keep faith with him after their lacklustre Europa League semi-final exit against Villarreal.
The Spaniard insists his side “have made progress in many areas” this season, even though are likely to miss out on European football for the first time since 1995-96.
Against that troubled backdrop, beating in-form Chelsea was evidence that Arteta may yet to be able to revive Arsenal’s fortunes.
– Tenacious Arsenal –
Keeping one eye on the FA Cup final, Tuchel made seven changes from the side that won at Manchester City on Saturday.
Kai Havertz was one of those restored to the line-up and the German forward wasted a golden opportunity to put Chelsea ahead.
Havertz alertly caught Pablo Mari in possession near the half-way line when the Arsenal defender tried to take an extra touch rather than clear.
Sprinting through on goal, Havertz had just Bernd Leno to beat but fired high over the bar.
Arsenal made the most of that escape to take the lead thanks to Jorginho’s gift in the 16th minute.
Smith Rowe notched his first Premier League goal against West Bromwich Albion on Sunday and the 20-year-old’s second may prove to be one of the easiest he ever scores.
Jorginho carelessly failed to check where Kepa Arrizabalaga was positioned before passing well away from the Chelsea keeper from the edge of the area.
Kepa scrambled to claw the ball off the line, but Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang pounced and teed up Smith Rowe to tap into the empty net.
Mason Mount was denied when he ran onto Havertz’s pass and saw his shot turned away by Leno.
Chelsea kept creating but couldn’t find the final touch, with Christian Pulisic heading over from close-range after Kurt Zouma’s effort fell to him.
The Blues had lost their last eight league games at Stamford Bridge when trailing at half-time, last winning from that position in 2013.
Tuchel’s men dominated possession but Arsenal defended with a tenacity that eluded them for much of the season.
Pulisic thought he had equalised when he bundled home from Havertz’s flick on the hour, but the goal was correctly ruled out by VAR for offside.
Chelsea were inches away from equalising in the last minute when Zouma’s header was tipped onto the bar by Leno before Olivier Giroud’s follow-up cannoned off the woodwork.
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The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
