Manchester United return to Rotterdam on Thursday for their opening Europa League group game against Feyenoord.
It is where United won their second European trophy, the 1991 European Cup Winners’ Cup, against Johann Cruyff’s Barcelona.
Over 24,000 United fans travelled to Europe’s biggest port city for that game on a rainy May evening to play in Feyenoord’s De Kuip – “the Bowl” – famous for having the best atmosphere in the Netherlands.
See also:
• Uefa Europa League fixtures, TV in UAE
• Man United have 'no time to mourn' derby defeat as focus turns to Europa League opener
Alongside Ajax of Amsterdam, the 1970 European champions are the biggest, if not quite most successful, side in Dutch football. Even Ajax fans have a grudging respect for their support.
United fans, too, after four thousand of them made the same journey in 1997 when they were grouped with Feyenoord in a Uefa Champions League group game.
United were among the favourites to win the Champions League in 1997. Alex Ferguson’s side had reached the semi-final of the competition earlier in the year and been narrowly defeated by eventual winners Borussia Dortmund.
The side’s biggest star Eric Cantona announced his retirement from football soon after, which saw Andy Cole emerge as the main striker. Cole was the Premier League’s joint-top scorer with 18 goals, but United finished the season without a trophy, in spite of some great moments.
One was Cole’s hat-trick against Feyenoord away in a 3-1 win. United and Feyenoord hooligans clashed in Rotterdam city centre before the match and inside the stadium.
United fans had been advised not to wear club colours on this trip. “That was a good night, one of the standouts in my career,” remembers Cole.
“The atmosphere was vicious in Holland and Feyenoord are a big club. Their players were so up for that one. Paul Bosvelt tackled Denis Irwin with such ferocity that it could have been classed as assault.”
Ferguson recalled that “the Dutch tackling that night was a combination of desperation and brutality. There was always the likelihood that somebody would be badly hurt and there was dismay far beyond our club when it turned out to be Denis Irwin, who was viciously cut down by the flying studs of Paul Bosvelt. What Bosvelt did to him was a crime.”
Yet the experienced Hungarian referee, Sandor Puhl, did not even punish the Dutch midfielder with a yellow card. Not surprisingly, Uefa subsequently banned Bosvelt for the remainder of the competition.
“There was trouble outside the ground, but United had 4,000 travelling fans, the proper hardcore,” Cole says.
“They were winding the home fans up by singing ‘Ajax’, but they also got right behind us.
“We never lost our cool that night. We had better players than Feyenoord, worked ... and outclassed them. Job well done – and I got to keep the match ball.
“We didn’t win the Champions League that year though. We used to watch videos of our upcoming opponents and I don’t think it did us any good because they were invariably the best bits.
“We’d watch a team like Monaco and think, ‘Oh no, they’re absolutely brilliant’.
“We stopped doing that in 1998/99, stopped worrying about our opponents and look what happened.’
Modern day Feyenoord know they have no chance of winning the European Cup as they did in 1970, but Rotterdamers are used to dealing with adversity. The Luftwaffe bombarded the port in the Second World War and the city has been a building site ever since.
It is a hard, predominantly working-class city, the second largest in the Netherlands with a population of 1.1 million after Amsterdam (1.5m). Only Shanghai, in China, has a bigger port.
Feyenoord fans are also used to losing their best players to clubs in richer leagues.
Salomon Kalou, Royston Drenthe, Michel Bastos, Robin van Persie, Henrik Larsson, Johan Elmander and Dirk Kuyt were all once at the club, but supporters could only watch with pride and envy as they excelled elsewhere, sometimes after failing to impress in Rotterdam.
Current manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst played against United in 1997, as did Julio Cruz, George Boateng and Jerzy Dudek. All left for brighter lights.
The Europa League is a more realistic target for the two-time European Cup finalists and under Van Bronckhorst, the team who finished third in the Eredivisie last season – 21 points behind champions PSV Eindhoven – have enjoyed a superb start to this one, winning their first five matches.
Crowd trouble and sanctions means De Kuip will only be half full, but even 26,000 (1,600 of those United supporters) Feyenoord fans will create a din to remember as they try to urge their side to a first victory against United.
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INDIA SQUAD
Virat Kohli (capt), Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Vijay Shankar, MS Dhoni (wk), Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre turbo 4-cyl
Transmission: eight-speed auto
Power: 190bhp
Torque: 300Nm
Price: Dh169,900
On sale: now
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Mia Man’s tips for fermentation
- Start with a simple recipe such as yogurt or sauerkraut
- Keep your hands and kitchen tools clean. Sanitize knives, cutting boards, tongs and storage jars with boiling water before you start.
- Mold is bad: the colour pink is a sign of mold. If yogurt turns pink as it ferments, you need to discard it and start again. For kraut, if you remove the top leaves and see any sign of mold, you should discard the batch.
- Always use clean, closed, airtight lids and containers such as mason jars when fermenting yogurt and kraut. Keep the lid closed to prevent insects and contaminants from getting in.
Wallabies
Updated team: 15-Israel Folau, 14-Dane Haylett-Petty, 13-Reece Hodge, 12-Matt Toomua, 11-Marika Koroibete, 10-Kurtley Beale, 9-Will Genia, 8-Pete Samu, 7-Michael Hooper (captain), 6-Lukhan Tui, 5-Adam Coleman, 4-Rory Arnold, 3-Allan Alaalatoa, 2-Tatafu Polota-Nau, 1-Scott Sio.
Replacements: 16-Folau Faingaa, 17-Tom Robertson, 18-Taniela Tupou, 19-Izack Rodda, 20-Ned Hanigan, 21-Joe Powell, 22-Bernard Foley, 23-Jack Maddocks.
Company Fact Box
Company name/date started: Abwaab Technologies / September 2019
Founders: Hamdi Tabbaa, co-founder and CEO. Hussein Alsarabi, co-founder and CTO
Based: Amman, Jordan
Sector: Education Technology
Size (employees/revenue): Total team size: 65. Full-time employees: 25. Revenue undisclosed
Stage: early-stage startup
Investors: Adam Tech Ventures, Endure Capital, Equitrust, the World Bank-backed Innovative Startups SMEs Fund, a London investment fund, a number of former and current executives from Uber and Netflix, among others.
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Retirement funds heavily invested in equities at a risky time
Pension funds in growing economies in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East have a sharply higher percentage of assets parked in stocks, just at a time when trade tensions threaten to derail markets.
Retirement money managers in 14 geographies now allocate 40 per cent of their assets to equities, an 8 percentage-point climb over the past five years, according to a Mercer survey released last week that canvassed government, corporate and mandatory pension funds with almost $5 trillion in assets under management. That compares with about 25 per cent for pension funds in Europe.
The escalating trade spat between the US and China has heightened fears that stocks are ripe for a downturn. With tensions mounting and outcomes driven more by politics than economics, the S&P 500 Index will be on course for a “full-scale bear market” without Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts, Citigroup’s global macro strategy team said earlier this week.
The increased allocation to equities by growth-market pension funds has come at the expense of fixed-income investments, which declined 11 percentage points over the five years, according to the survey.
Hong Kong funds have the highest exposure to equities at 66 per cent, although that’s been relatively stable over the period. Japan’s equity allocation jumped 13 percentage points while South Korea’s increased 8 percentage points.
The money managers are also directing a higher portion of their funds to assets outside of their home countries. On average, foreign stocks now account for 49 per cent of respondents’ equity investments, 4 percentage points higher than five years ago, while foreign fixed-income exposure climbed 7 percentage points to 23 per cent. Funds in Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan are among those seeking greater diversification in stocks and fixed income.
• Bloomberg
A little about CVRL
Founded in 1985 by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, the Central Veterinary Research Laboratory (CVRL) is a government diagnostic centre that provides testing and research facilities to the UAE and neighbouring countries.
One of its main goals is to provide permanent treatment solutions for veterinary related diseases.
The taxidermy centre was established 12 years ago and is headed by Dr Ulrich Wernery.
