Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard may be set for a swift midfield reunion after the former England teammates were named in a squad to face Tottenham in the Major League Soccer All-Star Game later this month.
The riddle of how to successfully pair Gerrard and Lampard stumped a succession of England managers before the duo quit international football and opted to head to the MLS.
Former Liverpool captain Gerrard made his debut for the Los Angeles Galaxy last Saturday in a 2-1 friendly victory over Mexico’s Club America while former Chelsea stalwart Lampard has yet to take the field for New York City FC.
Both players only joined MLS clubs this month, but each was made a special selection to the MLS roster by MLS commissioner Don Garber while fan voting nominated 11 other players, eight of them US national team members.
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MLS All-Stars coach Pablo Mastroeni will name 20 players to line up alongside Lampard and Gerrard on the all-star roster on July 18. Fan voting does not ensure a spot on the squad but is considered in deciding the final 22-man roster for the July 29 game.
The MLS line-up will meet the English Premier League side in Denver. The MLS All-Stars defeated Bayern Munich 2-1 last year after being beaten 3-1 by Roma in 2013.
Lampard has faced Tottenham 33 times in English Premier League play, netting seven goals, while Gerrard has five goals in 25 prior appearances against the Spurs.
Lampard has played in the MLS All-Star Game before, taking the field for Chelsea in 2006, when the English side lost 1-0 to the MLS All-Stars, and in 2012, when the MLS All-Stars won 3-2. Lampard scored once and set up the other goal in the 2012 encounter.
The MLS All-Star Game will mark the first time Gerrard and Lampard have played alongside each other since last year’s World Cup in Brazil.
International players selected in fan voting included Brazilian star Kaka from Orlando City, Spanish legend David Villa of New York City and Nigerian forward Obafemi Martins of Seattle.
US players on the MLS All-Stars roster include captain Michael Bradley for Toronto, Seattle’s Clint Dempsey, the Galaxy’s Omar Gonzalez, Real Salt Lake’s Nick Rimando, Houston’s DaMarcus Beasley and Kansas City’s Matt Besler, Graham Zusi and Benny Feilhaber.
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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'Munich: The Edge of War'
Director: Christian Schwochow
Starring: George MacKay, Jannis Niewohner, Jeremy Irons
Rating: 3/5
Zayed Sustainability Prize
Maestro
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
On sale: Available for pre-order now
Price: On request
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
SQUADS
South Africa:
JP Duminy (capt), Hashim Amla, Farhaan Behardien, Quinton de Kock (wkt), AB de Villiers, Robbie Frylinck, Beuran Hendricks, David Miller, Mangaliso Mosehle (wkt), Dane Paterson, Aaron Phangiso, Andile Phehlukwayo, Dwaine Pretorius, Tabraiz Shamsi
Bangladesh
Shakib Al Hasan (capt), Imrul Kayes, Liton Das (wkt), Mahmudullah, Mehidy Hasan, Mohammad Saifuddin, Mominul Haque, Mushfiqur Rahim (wkt), Nasir Hossain, Rubel Hossain, Sabbir Rahman, Shafiul Islam, Soumya Sarkar, Taskin Ahmed
Fixtures
Oct 26: Bloemfontein
Oct 29: Potchefstroom
You may remember …
Robbie Keane (Atletico de Kolkata) The Irish striker is, along with his former Spurs teammate Dimitar Berbatov, the headline figure in this season’s ISL, having joined defending champions ATK. His grand entrance after arrival from Major League Soccer in the US will be delayed by three games, though, due to a knee injury.
Dimitar Berbatov (Kerala Blasters) Word has it that Rene Meulensteen, the Kerala manager, plans to deploy his Bulgarian star in central midfield. The idea of Berbatov as an all-action, box-to-box midfielder, might jar with Spurs and Manchester United supporters, who more likely recall an always-languid, often-lazy striker.
Wes Brown (Kerala Blasters) Revived his playing career last season to help out at Blackburn Rovers, where he was also a coach. Since then, the 23-cap England centre back, who is now 38, has been reunited with the former Manchester United assistant coach Meulensteen, after signing for Kerala.
Andre Bikey (Jamshedpur) The Cameroonian defender is onto the 17th club of a career has taken him to Spain, Portugal, Russia, the UK, Greece, and now India. He is still only 32, so there is plenty of time to add to that tally, too. Scored goals against Liverpool and Chelsea during his time with Reading in England.
Emiliano Alfaro (Pune City) The Uruguayan striker has played for Liverpool – the Montevideo one, rather than the better-known side in England – and Lazio in Italy. He was prolific for a season at Al Wasl in the Arabian Gulf League in 2012/13. He returned for one season with Fujairah, whom he left to join Pune.
The specs: 2018 Audi RS5
Price, base: Dh359,200
Engine: 2.9L twin-turbo V6
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Power: 450hp at 5,700rpm
Torque: 600Nm at 1,900rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 8.7L / 100km
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Sanju
Produced: Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Rajkumar Hirani
Director: Rajkumar Hirani
Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Vicky Kaushal, Paresh Rawal, Anushka Sharma, Manish’s Koirala, Dia Mirza, Sonam Kapoor, Jim Sarbh, Boman Irani
Rating: 3.5 stars
