Kylian Mbappe did not join Real Madrid to play it safe. The French superstar arrived at the Bernabeu amid much fanfare last summer to chase the Uefa Champions League dream that so cruelly eluded him at Paris Saint-Germain – and perhaps more than anything, to script nights like the one Madrid must now conjure against Arsenal on Wednesday.
The task is not for the faint hearted: Madrid are staring into the abyss. A 3-0 first-leg dismantling at the Emirates Stadium last week leaves the 15-time champions with a mountain even they have never climbed. But this is Real Madrid, and this is the Bernabeu – and if any team is capable of overcoming insurmountable odds, it's the men in white.
It is for precisely this sort of improbable mission that Madrid president Florentino Perez moved heaven and earth to bring Mbappe to Madrid. After years of courtship, Los Blancos finally got their man – and now they need him more than ever.
“Of course we can,” Mbappe declared defiantly when asked last Tuesday if Madrid could turn the tie around in Spain.
The task is enormous. Arsenal, buoyant and brutal, put one foot in the final four courtesy of Declan Rice’s brace of free kicks – the first of his career – and Mikel Merino’s tidy finish. Yet Mikel Arteta’s side would do well to remember what lurks in the shadows of the Bernabeu – ghosts of comebacks past, and the spectre of Mbappe in full flight.
After all, it was only two months ago that the Frenchman single-handedly tore Manchester City to shreds in the play-off round, netting a hat-trick in Madrid’s 6-3 aggregate triumph over the Premier League champions. If there is a player capable of pulling Real from the jaws of elimination, it's Mbappe.
He owes his teammates one, too. Mbappe was sent off for an uncharacteristic show of petulance against Alaves on Sunday. He was forced to watch from the sidelines as his side eked out a 1-0 win to keep them in the title hunt in La Liga, albeit four points off leaders Barcelona.
Mbappe has already racked up 33 goals in 49 appearances this season, matching Cristiano Ronaldo’s debut-season tally – and it is Ronaldo's footsteps he now seeks to follow. The Portuguese famously overturned a 2-0 deficit against Wolfsburg in 2016 with a Bernabeu hat-trick that sent Madrid on their way to another European crown.
"At the Santiago Bernabeu, comebacks are always on everyone's lips," Ronaldo once said. "90 minutes here is a long time."
No one knows that better than Mbappe. He was on the receiving end in 2022 when, despite scoring in both legs for PSG, he watched Karim Benzema pull Madrid from the brink with a 17-minute hat-trick. The striker was left shell-shocked. That experience, it seems, only sharpened his resolve to someday stand on the winning side of a miracle.
“I've been dreaming of moments like this since I was a kid, to play for this club and to feel what it's like on a big night at the Bernabeu,” Mbappe said after his City heroics. “A lot of people have told me about it, but now I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I hope we’ll have many more.”
Madrid fans will be hoping so, too. Wednesday offers the latest chance to add another chapter to the club’s anthology of comebacks – from Sergio Ramos’ 93rd-minute lifeline in Lisbon in 2014 to the Juanito-led epics of the 1980s.
Coach Carlo Ancelotti has seen enough of this club to believe in the impossible. “We have to believe, we have to have confidence,” he said last week. “Because sometimes, quite often at the Bernabeu, it happens.”
Now it’s Mbappe’s turn. Arsenal may have dominated in London, but the script is far from finished. And if Madrid are to flip the narrative, it will likely begin with the player who arrived last summer to carve his name into the club’s hallowed history.
Match info
Wolves 0
Arsenal 2 (Saka 43', Lacazette 85')
Man of the match: Shkodran Mustafi (Arsenal)
How to watch Ireland v Pakistan in UAE
When: The one-off Test starts on Friday, May 11
What time: Each day’s play is scheduled to start at 2pm UAE time.
TV: The match will be broadcast on OSN Sports Cricket HD. Subscribers to the channel can also stream the action live on OSN Play.
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What are the influencer academy modules?
- Mastery of audio-visual content creation.
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FINAL RESULT
Sharjah Wanderers 20 Dubai Tigers 25 (After extra-time)
Wanderers
Tries: Gormley, Penalty
cons: Flaherty
Pens: Flaherty 2
Tigers
Tries: O’Donnell, Gibbons, Kelly
Cons: Caldwell 2
Pens: Caldwell, Cross
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.”
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- Option 1: 70% in year 1, 50% in year 2, 30% in year 3
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ONCE UPON A TIME IN GAZA
Starring: Nader Abd Alhay, Majd Eid, Ramzi Maqdisi
Directors: Tarzan and Arab Nasser
Rating: 4.5/5
Fixtures and results:
Wed, Aug 29:
- Malaysia bt Hong Kong by 3 wickets
- Oman bt Nepal by 7 wickets
- UAE bt Singapore by 215 runs
Thu, Aug 30:
- UAE bt Nepal by 78 runs
- Hong Kong bt Singapore by 5 wickets
- Oman bt Malaysia by 2 wickets
Sat, Sep 1: UAE v Hong Kong; Oman v Singapore; Malaysia v Nepal
Sun, Sep 2: Hong Kong v Oman; Malaysia v UAE; Nepal v Singapore
Tue, Sep 4: Malaysia v Singapore; UAE v Oman; Nepal v Hong Kong
Thu, Sep 6: Final
