The season has barely begun, and reputations are being shattered.
The best defence in the last Premier League, Liverpool's, conceded three goals within the first 66 minutes of their title defence.
Bayern Munich, with the meanest rearguard in Germany, shed four in their first Bundesliga away game.
The hermetic back-line that made Real Madrid Spanish champions let in two in just over half an hour of their first trip outside the Spanish capital.
These habits cannot all be blamed on oversensitive interpretations of handball laws, or a shortened pre-season, or the lapses in defenders’ concentration that matches without the noise of a crowd are said to provoke.
But there is clearly a trend, and one that Inter Milan, proud owners of the tightest defence in Serie A last season and Europa League finalists followed in spectacular fashion, on Matchday 1 of their new campaign.
Inter shared seven goals with Fiorentina on Saturday, equalising twice, and leading for only six minutes of the 90. Seven-goal see-saws are not an Antonio Conte trademark.
This is a manager whose three Serie A titles managing Juventus, were achieved by building a fortress at the back, and who won the Premier League with Chelsea, at his first attempt, by reducing his club’s Goals Against column from 53 in one season to 33 the next.
Conte’s Inter, meanwhile, kept 17 clean sheets, more than anybody else, in their 2019-20 Serie A campaign, in finishing second in the table to Juventus; they conceded their first goal at home only in October.
But to kick off 2020-21, at San Siro, they had let in three by the 63rd minute, none of them likely to allow Conte to lean back in his desk chair as he reviewed the video footage and sigh to himself that there was nothing his players could have done better.
Fiorentina’s first, within three minutes of kick-off, was pure slapstick, saw Christian Kouame and Giacomo Bonaventura allowed time to exchange passes on the edge of the Inter six yard box before the Ivorian scored after a simple high ball had confused both their markers.
Granted, Conte had fielded a rather experimental back three. The holes in it had been instantly exposed and would be again by Fiorentina’s counter-attacking, the ageless Franck Ribery setting up Gaetano Castrovilli and Federico Chiesa for two goals in a six-minute, second-half burst.
Yet, after the final whistle, Conte sounded unusually philosophical. “We had some issues with the balance of our defence,” he said. “But there were many positives. Perhaps I have things to learn. When the right result doesn’t come to me, I get angry, and forget to enjoy the journey.”
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Gallery: Juve beat Sampdoria in season opener
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More easily said when the rollercoaster journey finishes in a 4-3 win – thank to strikes from each of his trusted front pair Lautaro Martinez and Romelu Lukaku, an own goal, and a last-gasp matchwinner from defender Danilo D'Ambrosio – but still an out-of-character remark from a coach who has spent much of his first year-and-a-bit at Inter grumbling about his circumstances.
Some of Conte’s irritation has been to do with perceived restrictions in the transfer market, although it would be hard to argue that he has been prevented from transforming the look of Inter since arriving.
Of the 15 outfield players he used to swing the helter-skelter contest with Fiorentina, there were 12 who have come into the club since he took over in July 2019, including most of the cadre of players signed from English clubs, such as Lukaku, Alexis Sanchez, Ashley Young and Christian Eriksen.
Some are experienced returnees from loan spells, notably Ivan Perisic, back from his Champions League-winning season at Bayern Munich, and Radja Nainggolan, back from Cagliari.
If Nainggolan stays beyond next week’s close of the current window, Conte can hardly cite a lack of aggression in midfield.
He brought on the pugnacious Belgian along with that fierce old warrior Arturo Vidal, signed this month from Barcelona, for the last 15 minutes.
If they were designed to scare Fiorentina into submission, others off the bench served to pass Inter to victory: Achraf Hakimi, freshly signed from Borussia Dortmund, set up Lukaku’s equaliser for 3-3; within two minutes Sanchez provided the service for the winning goal.
That’s a quartet of substitutes any manager would envy. “All quality footballers,” beamed Conte of his supersubs.
As Inter head to Pippo Inzaghi’s newly-promoted Benevento on Wednesday and the chance to move ahead of Juventus, who have dropped two points already, they are entitled to believe that, in terms of strength in depth, they are a match for the defending champions.
With five substitutions per match now a fact of life in Serie A, Conte should be well armed in his principal mission – to break Juve’s nine-year monopoly on the Italian title.
The more serious side of specialty coffee
While the taste of beans and freshness of roast is paramount to the specialty coffee scene, so is sustainability and workers’ rights.
The bulk of genuine specialty coffee companies aim to improve on these elements in every stage of production via direct relationships with farmers. For instance, Mokha 1450 on Al Wasl Road strives to work predominantly with women-owned and -operated coffee organisations, including female farmers in the Sabree mountains of Yemen.
Because, as the boutique’s owner, Garfield Kerr, points out: “women represent over 90 per cent of the coffee value chain, but are woefully underrepresented in less than 10 per cent of ownership and management throughout the global coffee industry.”
One of the UAE’s largest suppliers of green (meaning not-yet-roasted) beans, Raw Coffee, is a founding member of the Partnership of Gender Equity, which aims to empower female coffee farmers and harvesters.
Also, globally, many companies have found the perfect way to recycle old coffee grounds: they create the perfect fertile soil in which to grow mushrooms.
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
How much sugar is in chocolate Easter eggs?
- The 169g Crunchie egg has 15.9g of sugar per 25g serving, working out at around 107g of sugar per egg
- The 190g Maltesers Teasers egg contains 58g of sugar per 100g for the egg and 19.6g of sugar in each of the two Teasers bars that come with it
- The 188g Smarties egg has 113g of sugar per egg and 22.8g in the tube of Smarties it contains
- The Milky Bar white chocolate Egg Hunt Pack contains eight eggs at 7.7g of sugar per egg
- The Cadbury Creme Egg contains 26g of sugar per 40g egg
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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.”
Tell Me Who I Am
Director: Ed Perkins
Stars: Alex and Marcus Lewis
Four stars
Stage results
1. Julian Alaphilippe (FRA) Deceuninck-QuickStep 4:39:05
2. Michael Matthews (AUS) Team BikeExchange 0:00:08
3. Primoz Roglic (SLV) Jumbo-Visma same time
4. Jack Haig (AUS) Bahrain Victorious s.t
5. Wilco Kelderman (NED) Bora-Hansgrohe s.t
6. Tadej Pogacar (SLV) UAE Team Emirates s.t
7. David Gaudu (FRA) Groupama-FDJ s.t
8. Sergio Higuita Garcia (COL) EF Education-Nippo s.t
9. Bauke Mollema (NED) Trek-Segafredo s.t
10. Geraint Thomas (GBR) Ineos Grenadiers s.t
Results
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The%20Iron%20Claw
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