Champions League Draw Throws up Barcelona-Bayern Clash in Lisbon Winners Will Advance to the Final Eight
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Established 1961 15 Sunday, July 12, 2020 Sports Champions League draw throws up Barcelona-Bayern clash in Lisbon Winners will advance to the Final Eight PARIS: Barcelona and Bayern Munich will meet in a next two seasons for breaches of Financial Fair Play blockbuster Champions League quarter-final should rules, pending the outcome of an appeal to the both sides make it through, after Friday’s draw for Court of Arbitration for Sport. the latter stages of the competition which will be “We have to play against Madrid. If we think played out in Lisbon in August following a long sus- about the next step, the king of this competition — pension because of the coronavirus. Real Madrid — will put us out,” Guardiola said. Barca and Bayern, who have each won five Juventus must overturn a 1-0 deficit from the first European Cups, are hoping to be among the eight leg of their last-16 tie against Lyon. Postponed in teams who will head to the Portuguese capital for March as the pandemic took over, all remaining a ‘Final Eight’ mini tournament behind closed last 16 second legs are due to be played on August doors, with the final on August 23 at Benfica’s 7 and 8. Estadio da Luz. The winners will advance to the Final Eight, Bayern, who won their eighth straight German which will be held as a unique straight knockout Bundesliga title last month, already have one foot in tournament in Lisbon due to the difficulties caused the quarter-finals having won 3-0 away to Chelsea by the coronavirus. The draw threw up the possibil- in the first leg of their last-16 tie in March, while ity of a Clasico semi-final, with Barcelona and Barcelona have more work Madrid on a collision to do after a 1-1 draw with course to meet in the last Napoli in the first leg in four should both make it Italy. However, Bayern that far. chairman Karl-Heinz Other side Rummenigge had a warn- A NEW FACE IN THE ing for his team, who also of the draw FINAL? won the German Cup last The other side of the week. “After we won the is clearer draw is clearer. First-time double, there is already quarter-finalists RB BARCELONA: File photo shows Barcelona’s Spanish defender Jordi Alba (L) and Barcelona’s Argentine too much euphoria around. Leipzig of Germany will forward Lionel Messi warm up with teammates before the Spanish League football match between Now the focus is on meet Atletico Madrid, run- Barcelona and Espanyol at the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona on July 8, 2020. —AFP Chelsea, then we’ll see. But ners-up to city rivals Real of course in the quarter-finals there are only very the last time the Champions League final was strong opponents anyway,” he said. played in Lisbon in 2014. Atletico knocked out hold- final at the Estadio da Luz on August 12, with RB ing, with lockdown restrictions reimposed last week Meanwhile, if Manchester City can finish the ers Liverpool in the last 16. Leipzig facing Atletico at Sporting’s Estadio Jose on 19 neighbourhoods across the northern periph- job in their last-16 tie against record 13-time The winners of that quarter-final will face either Alvalade the following day. The other ties will be ery of the city as virus cases increase at a worrying European champions Real Madrid, Pep Paris Saint-Germain or Atalanta in the last four. played on August 14 and 15. The semi-finals are rate. However, UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin Guardiola’s team will go on to a quarter-final None of those teams have ever won the trophy, and scheduled for August 18 and 19. has dismissed fears that an alternative plan to com- against either Juventus or Lyon. only Atletico have been to the final before. All games are set to be played without specta- plete the tournament may be required, saying last City won 2-1 in Madrid in the first leg in March “It is a difficult draw. Atalanta are a team who tors after UEFA confirmed on Thursday that week “there is no need for a Plan B”. and are well placed to advance to the mini tourna- love to attack and score lots of goals,” said PSG “matches should take place behind closed doors This season’s final was initially supposed to be ment in Lisbon in what could be their last chance to coach Thomas Tuchel. “We still have a good few until further notice” because of the uncertain health played in Istanbul in late May before the COVID-19 win the coveted trophy for a while — they are due weeks to prepare. It’s exciting.” situation around Europe. crisis took hold. The Turkish city will now host the to be banned from the Champions League for the PSG against Atalanta will be the first quarter- The situation in Lisbon is particularly concern- 2021 final instead. —AFP trustees, I am ... overturning the advisory board’s and start purging lists of words.” In a letter to US Scrabble leader ruling and ensuring that the offensive slurs will be NASPA’s advisory board, published online last removed from our NASPA Word List by month, Chew had argued strongly for the removal September.” of the “N-word” from its word list, saying, “I don’t overrules panel Language has become a hotly debated topic think that this is the time for us to be contributing Arsenal threaten to after protests against racism following the death divisively to the world’s problems.” turn tide on Mourinho’s to ban slurs of George Floyd in US police custody on May 25, Hasbro, the American toy company which owns with bands, consumer brands, and buildings and the U.S. and Canadian trademark for the popular struggling Spurs NEW YORK: North American Scrabble competi- roads named after slave traders renamed. NASPA board game, had previously said that it was tors will no longer be able to play racist and represents competitive players in the United changing the official rules to make clear that slurs LONDON: The clash between Tottenham and homophobic slurs from the “N-word” to “bum- States and Canada and its list of permitted words are “not permissible in any form”. Arsenal today may lack the usual furore of a der- boy” and “poofs”, the head of the players’ associ- also features on many popular Scrabble apps. The company has not allowed offensive slurs in by, with no fans present and both sides seeming- ation has said, in an 11th-hour ruling that went The decision came after a poll of its about 2,000 Scrabble’s dictionary since 1994. However, techni- ly out of the race for a place in next season’s against his own advisory board. members and the general public showed members cally, Hasbro does not have control over the nearly Champions Leaague. John Chew, chief executive of the North were split over removing the “N-word”, but the 200,000 playable words used by the independent However, Jose Mourinho’s Spurs have a point American Scrabble Players Association (NASPA), public in favor of doing so. Stefan Fatsis, a US- association. to prove, with a rejuvenated Arsenal under Mikel said he was overturning a vote by the board based Scrabble player and author of “Word Freak” Scrabble, invented in 1933 by unemployed Arteta threatening to tip the balance of power in against the proposed change, and would remove a a non-fiction narrative of competitive Scrabble, was American architect Alfred Mosher Butts, is north London back in their favour. list of more than 230 offensive words from the against the removal of the offensive words. played competitively in North America by For 22 years between 1995 and 2017, Spurs game. “Language is different from a statue. You can almost 15,000 people, Chew told the Thomson failed to finish above their fiercest rivals in the “We cannot ... continue to look only inward or take down a statue of a confederate general, but Reuters Foundation earlier. The World English Premier League. Arsenal fans even came to think that how we feel about our vocabulary is you’re not going to make the ‘N-word’ disappear Language Scrabble Players Association (WES- christen the day each year they could no longer more important than broader social issues,” he by saying you can’t play it in a board game,” Fatsis PA), which runs international tournaments, is be caught by Spurs as “St Totteringham’s Day”. said in an emailed statement late on Thursday. told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. talking to its dictionary’s publisher, Collins, Yet, as the Gunners’ glory years under “Accordingly, on behalf of the executive com- “I’d rather people understood why these words about whether to remove the slurs, chairman Arsene Wenger faded away, Spurs became the mittee, and with the consent of our board of are so damaging than to get rid of them altogether Chris Lipe said. —Reuters dominant force. When goals from Dele Alli and Harry Kane won the final north London derby at White Hart Lane to ensure Tottenham would finish above Arsenal in the league three years ago, there were hopes Mauricio Pochettino Dowrich keeps could follow Wenger’s example to build a title- winning team to play in the club’s new state-of- the-art stadium. Windies on top Instead of an inspiration, the rising cost of the £1 billion ($1.3 billion) Tottenham Hotspur stadi- despite Stokes’ um weighed heavily. The Argentine boss worked wonders to keep Tottenham in the top four at Arsenal’s expense over the past two seasons four wickets despite precious little investment in the transfer SOUTHAMPTON: Shane Dowrich steered the market and a longer-than-expected spell at their West Indies into a commanding lead over temporary home of Wembley.