When Cristiano Ronaldo lived in Madrid, over the nine years when his match-winning gifts and goal scoring would climb to surreally high peaks, home was a short drive from the raucous headquarters of his local rivals. Atletico Madrid played for most of that period at the atmospheric but ageing Vicente Calderon arena. There were times when its roars of celebration sounded loud enough to carry to Ronaldo’s modern mansion, a few miles to the west.
Between 2009, when Ronaldo joined Real Madrid from Manchester United, and 2018, when he left Real for Juventus, Ronaldo was a close witness to the remarkable rebuilding of Atletico from a neurotic, fragile mid-table outfit who seemed never to win local derbies into regular European trophy-chasers and close-equals to their city neighbours.
But above all, he was the player who thwarted Atletico most regularly. “He’s done us a lot of damage in the past,” noted the Atletico striker Angel Correa, ahead of Wednesday's return of Ronaldo to the Spanish capital, his 36th career contest with Atletico, but his first in the jersey of United.
Those 36 games are almost the equivalent of a full domestic season spent locking horns with Atletico, sometimes at the creaking, seething Calderon, most often at the Bernabeu and more recently in Turin or at the Metropolitano, Atletico’s relatively new home and venue for the first leg of the last-16 Champions League tie against United.
It’s hard to pick out a particularly special venue for Ronaldo from those: His capacity to break Atletico hearts has extended everywhere.
Not least to Lisbon, site of the 2014 European Cup final, when for the first time in the competition’s history, the trophy came down to a Madrid derby duel.
Atletico led for 54 minutes of the first 90, and for two minutes of stoppage time. But by the time Ronaldo stepped up to take a penalty in extra-time, Real had turned the final on its head. The Portuguese converted to, typically, have the last word and star in the photogenic victory celebration in a 4-1 victory for Real.
The match-winning strike fell to Ronaldo again, two seasons later in Milan, when the same pair of finalists contested the Champions League title again. He struck the last penalty in the tie-breaking shoot-out after a 1-1 draw over 120 minutes.
The next year, Ronaldo met Atletico in the semi-final, and assured Real’s progress with a devastating hat-trick in the 3-0 first-leg victory at the Bernabeu.
Among the defenders run ragged that night was Stefan Savic, the veteran of a back line that will take on Ronaldo this evening without some of the reassurance of previous years.
Atletico, under their long-serving head coach Diego Simeone, used to be regarded as having one Europe’s most dependable, rugged defences. But last weekend, the Spanish champions, fifth in the domestic table, kept a clean sheet for only the second time in their last 12 Liga or Champions League outings.
“We’ve been far less consistent than in the past,” Savic admitted to AS, the Spanish newspaper, “but we’ve had important players out for various reasons. We have the quality to be as strong as we were before.” He has a fair idea of what to expect from United: “We know they have strikers who move well in the penalty area and of course you have to respect Ronaldo.”
The numbers speak for themselves. Ronaldo has scored 17 times against Atletico, assisted another nine goals against them and done that mostly in the era when Simeone cultivated Atletico’s aura of iron defence and erased the long habit of capitulating in Madrid derbies. Ronaldo, at Real, won less than half of his derbies against Atletico.
But he seldom went quietly through them. In all his duels with Atletico, there have been four hat-tricks, the most recent the stunning turnaround he led for Juventus, who had trailed 2-0 from the first leg of a last-16 tie three seasons ago.
He is guaranteed a shrill, hostile welcome from the crowd at the Metropolitano, as is Rafa Varane, should the former Real defender return to the United line-up. Atletico fans vividly recall that Varane, veteran of many Madrid derbies, was involved in a tetchy altercation with Simeone when the 2014 Lisbon final had swung in favour of Real.
Simeone was enraged the Frenchman had struck the ball hard at the Atletico bench late in extra-time, and, never understated on the touchline, the Atletico coach thundered towards Varane.
It was the sort of unvarnished aggression that, as Ronaldo admitted in an interview for the recent Amazon documentary series on Simeone, Atletico’s great nemesis began to admire. “Simeone has guts,” Ronaldo said, “and I like that.”
Ronaldo records
Who's who in Yemen conflict
Houthis: Iran-backed rebels who occupy Sanaa and run unrecognised government
Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council
Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south
Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
'Nope'
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Easter%20Sunday
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SPEC SHEET
Display: 10.9" Liquid Retina IPS, 2360 x 1640, 264ppi, wide colour, True Tone, Apple Pencil support
Chip: Apple M1, 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
Memory: 64/256GB storage; 8GB RAM
Main camera: 12MP wide, f/1.8, Smart HDR
Video: 4K @ 25/25/30/60fps, full HD @ 25/30/60fps, slo-mo @ 120/240fps
Front camera: 12MP ultra-wide, f/2.4, Smart HDR, Centre Stage; full HD @ 25/30/60fps
Audio: Stereo speakers
Biometrics: Touch ID
I/O: USB-C, smart connector (for folio/keyboard)
Battery: Up to 10 hours on Wi-Fi; up to 9 hours on cellular
Finish: Space grey, starlight, pink, purple, blue
Price: Wi-Fi – Dh2,499 (64GB) / Dh3,099 (256GB); cellular – Dh3,099 (64GB) / Dh3,699 (256GB)
The biog
Name: Marie Byrne
Nationality: Irish
Favourite film: The Shawshank Redemption
Book: Seagull by Jonathan Livingston
Life lesson: A person is not old until regret takes the place of their dreams
South Africa squad
Faf du Plessis (captain), Hashim Amla, Temba Bavuma, Quinton de Kock (wicketkeeper), Theunis de Bruyn, AB de Villiers, Dean Elgar, Heinrich Klaasen (wicketkeeper), Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram, Morne Morkel, Wiaan Mulder, Lungi Ngidi, Vernon Philander and Kagiso Rabada.
The President's Cake
Director: Hasan Hadi
Starring: Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, Waheed Thabet Khreibat, Sajad Mohamad Qasem
Rating: 4/5
'Avengers: Infinity War'
Dir: The Russo Brothers
Starring: Chris Evans, Chris Pratt, Tom Holland, Robert Downey Junior, Scarlett Johansson, Elizabeth Olsen
Four stars
AT%20A%20GLANCE
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INDIA SQUAD
Rohit Sharma (captain), Shikhar Dhawan (vice-captain), KL Rahul, Suresh Raina, Manish Pandey, Dinesh Karthik (wicketkeeper), Deepak Hooda, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Vijay Shankar, Shardul Thakur, Jaydev Unadkat, Mohammad Siraj and Rishabh Pant (wicketkeeper)
Titanium Escrow profile
Started: December 2016
Founder: Ibrahim Kamalmaz
Based: UAE
Sector: Finance / legal
Size: 3 employees, pre-revenue
Stage: Early stage
Investors: Founder's friends and Family
What vitamins do we know are beneficial for living in the UAE
Vitamin D: Highly relevant in the UAE due to limited sun exposure; supports bone health, immunity and mood.
Vitamin B12: Important for nerve health and energy production, especially for vegetarians, vegans and individuals with absorption issues.
Iron: Useful only when deficiency or anaemia is confirmed; helps reduce fatigue and support immunity.
Omega-3 (EPA/DHA): Supports heart health and reduces inflammation, especially for those who consume little fish.
Founders: Abdulmajeed Alsukhan, Turki Bin Zarah and Abdulmohsen Albabtain.
Based: Riyadh
Offices: UAE, Vietnam and Germany
Founded: September, 2020
Number of employees: 70
Sector: FinTech, online payment solutions
Funding to date: $116m in two funding rounds
Investors: Checkout.com, Impact46, Vision Ventures, Wealth Well, Seedra, Khwarizmi, Hala Ventures, Nama Ventures and family offices
Results
6.30pm: Baniyas (PA) Group 2 Dh195,000 1,400m | Winner: ES Ajeeb, Sam Hitchcock (jockey), Ibrahim Aseel (trainer)
7.05pm: Maiden (TB) Dh165,000 1,400m | Winner: Al Shamkhah, Royston Ffrench, Sandeep Jadhav
7.40pm: Handicap (TB) Dh190,000 1,200m | Winner: Lavaspin, Richard Mullen, Satish Seemar
8.15pm: Maiden (TB) Dh165,000 1,200m | Winner: Kawasir, Dane O’Neill, Musabah Al Muhairi
8.50pm: Rated Conditions (TB) Dh240,000 1,600m | Winner: Cosmo Charlie, Pat Dobbs, Doug Watson
9.20pm: Handicap (TB) Dh165,000 1,400m | Winner: Bochart, Richard Mullen, Satish Seemar
10pm: Handicap (TB) Dh175,000 2,000m | Winner: Quartier Francais, Fernando Jara, Ali Rashid Al Raihe
FIXTURES
Monday, January 28
Iran v Japan, Hazza bin Zayed Stadium (6pm)
Tuesday, January 29
UAEv Qatar, Mohamed Bin Zayed Stadium (6pm)
Friday, February 1
Final, Zayed Sports City Stadium (6pm)
THE CLOWN OF GAZA
Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
Rating: 4/5
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
The specs
Engine: 1.6-litre 4-cyl turbo and dual electric motors
Power: 300hp at 6,000rpm
Torque: 520Nm at 1,500-3,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 8.0L/100km
Price: from Dh199,900
On sale: now
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Company Profile
Company name: Fine Diner
Started: March, 2020
Co-founders: Sami Elayan, Saed Elayan and Zaid Azzouka
Based: Dubai
Industry: Technology and food delivery
Initial investment: Dh75,000
Investor: Dtec Startupbootcamp
Future plan: Looking to raise $400,000
Total sales: Over 1,000 deliveries in three months
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Company Profile
Founders: Tamara Hachem and Yazid Erman
Based: Dubai
Launched: September 2019
Sector: health technology
Stage: seed
Investors: Oman Technology Fund, angel investor and grants from Sharjah's Sheraa and Ma'an Abu Dhabi
Paris Can Wait
Dir: Eleanor Coppola
Starring: Alec Baldwin, Diane Lane, Arnaud Viard
Two stars
The bio
Who inspires you?
I am in awe of the remarkable women in the Arab region, both big and small, pushing boundaries and becoming role models for generations. Emily Nasrallah was a writer, journalist, teacher and women’s rights activist
How do you relax?
Yoga relaxes me and helps me relieve tension, especially now when we’re practically chained to laptops and desks. I enjoy learning more about music and the history of famous music bands and genres.
What is favourite book?
The Perks of Being a Wallflower - I think I've read it more than 7 times
What is your favourite Arabic film?
Hala2 Lawen (Translation: Where Do We Go Now?) by Nadine Labaki
What is favourite English film?
Mamma Mia
Best piece of advice to someone looking for a career at Google?
If you’re interested in a career at Google, deep dive into the different career paths and pinpoint the space you want to join. When you know your space, you’re likely to identify the skills you need to develop.
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