Lyon captain Maxime Gonalons has urged his teammates to embrace their “new adventure” as they begin life at Parc OL against the worst team in Ligue 1.
After 65 years at Stade Gerland, the club have moved home, to a 48,865-capacity arena that cost €455 million (Dh1.82 billion) and will stage matches at Euro 2016 in the summer.
And following five defeats in their last six league games before Christmas, Lyon must be careful not to spend too long admiring the new environment against winless Troyes on Saturday as they bid to revitalise their push for a Uefa Champions League place.
Lyon have slipped to ninth place but they trail Monaco, in second position, by only six points at the halfway stage of the season.
A top-three finish is eminently achievable, providing Lyon make a strong start to 2016.
They begin the year with a new coach, after former Lyon player Bruno Genesio was on Christmas Eve appointed until the end of the season, in succession to the under-achieving Hubert Fournier.
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Gonalons said: “The league is very important for us. We have to start well. There have been a number of changes. The directors asked a lot of questions before the winter break, and the club reflected on the situation.
“Unfortunately we haven’t been able to continue with the former coach. We didn’t do all we needed to do to win matches.”
A fresh start in Parc OL could be key to reviving Lyon’s season, and Gonalons added, according to his club’s website: “We’re going to begin a new adventure. We’re going to change our environment.
“We had this match in our heads. We didn’t finish well at Gerland. That’s gone. We’re going to try to start well in our adventure at Parc OL against a team who haven’t won yet. We need a result.”
While Lyon aim to close the gap, Monaco will be aiming to strengthen their standing in second position, and the recruitment this week of former France midfielder Claude Makelele as technical director indicated their ambition.
They tackle a Gazelec Ajaccio side who made great strides from late October, winning six games in a nine-game unbeaten league run that hoisted them from the foot of the table into the relative safety of 12th place.
Monaco coach Leonardo Jardim said in his pre-match press conference, according to the club’s website: “We will need to be at 100 per cent to beat Ajaccio who have improved a lot since we played them earlier in the season.”
A 1-0 win for Monaco in Corsica in September came while the league newcomers were struggling to adapt to life in the top flight.
“They needed a period to adapt in Ligue 1,” Jardim said. “They are now a very strong team.”
Runaway leaders Paris St Germain were in Friday night action against Bastia, while Saturday’s other games see Angers play Caen - an unlikely third-versus-fourth battle - while Montpellier face Bordeaux, Reims tackle Toulouse and Rennes line up against Lorient.
On Sunday, mid-table Marseille play Guingamp, Nice head north to Lille, and Nantes have home advantage against St Etienne.
Ligue 1 fixtures (in UAE time)
Saturday
Lyon v Troyes, 8pm
Angers v Caen, 11pm
Monaco v Ajaccio, 11pm
Montpellier v Bordeaux, 11pm
Rennes v Lorient, 11pm
Reims v Toulouse, 11pm
Sunday
Nantes v St Etienne, 5pm
Lille v Nice, 8pm
Marseille v Guingamp, midnight
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Company%20Profile
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MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League semi-final, first leg
Tottenham v Ajax, Tuesday, 11pm (UAE).
Second leg
Ajax v Tottenham, Wednesday, May 8, 11pm
Games on BeIN Sports
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Email sent to Uber team from chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi
From: Dara
To: Team@
Date: March 25, 2019 at 11:45pm PT
Subj: Accelerating in the Middle East
Five years ago, Uber launched in the Middle East. It was the start of an incredible journey, with millions of riders and drivers finding new ways to move and work in a dynamic region that’s become so important to Uber. Now Pakistan is one of our fastest-growing markets in the world, women are driving with Uber across Saudi Arabia, and we chose Cairo to launch our first Uber Bus product late last year.
Today we are taking the next step in this journey—well, it’s more like a leap, and a big one: in a few minutes, we’ll announce that we’ve agreed to acquire Careem. Importantly, we intend to operate Careem independently, under the leadership of co-founder and current CEO Mudassir Sheikha. I’ve gotten to know both co-founders, Mudassir and Magnus Olsson, and what they have built is truly extraordinary. They are first-class entrepreneurs who share our platform vision and, like us, have launched a wide range of products—from digital payments to food delivery—to serve consumers.
I expect many of you will ask how we arrived at this structure, meaning allowing Careem to maintain an independent brand and operate separately. After careful consideration, we decided that this framework has the advantage of letting us build new products and try new ideas across not one, but two, strong brands, with strong operators within each. Over time, by integrating parts of our networks, we can operate more efficiently, achieve even lower wait times, expand new products like high-capacity vehicles and payments, and quicken the already remarkable pace of innovation in the region.
This acquisition is subject to regulatory approval in various countries, which we don’t expect before Q1 2020. Until then, nothing changes. And since both companies will continue to largely operate separately after the acquisition, very little will change in either teams’ day-to-day operations post-close. Today’s news is a testament to the incredible business our team has worked so hard to build.
It’s a great day for the Middle East, for the region’s thriving tech sector, for Careem, and for Uber.
Uber on,
Dara
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cylturbo
Transmission: seven-speed DSG automatic
Power: 242bhp
Torque: 370Nm
Price: Dh136,814
What is graphene?
Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged like honeycomb.
It was discovered in 2004, when Russian-born Manchester scientists Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov were "playing about" with sticky tape and graphite - the material used as "lead" in pencils.
Placing the tape on the graphite and peeling it, they managed to rip off thin flakes of carbon. In the beginning they got flakes consisting of many layers of graphene. But as they repeated the process many times, the flakes got thinner.
By separating the graphite fragments repeatedly, they managed to create flakes that were just one atom thick. Their experiment had led to graphene being isolated for the very first time.
At the time, many believed it was impossible for such thin crystalline materials to be stable. But examined under a microscope, the material remained stable, and when tested was found to have incredible properties.
It is many times times stronger than steel, yet incredibly lightweight and flexible. It is electrically and thermally conductive but also transparent. The world's first 2D material, it is one million times thinner than the diameter of a single human hair.
But the 'sticky tape' method would not work on an industrial scale. Since then, scientists have been working on manufacturing graphene, to make use of its incredible properties.
In 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Their discovery meant physicists could study a new class of two-dimensional materials with unique properties.
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The biog
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Education: Bachelor of science in industrial engineering
Favourite hobby: playing the piano
Favourite quote: "There is a key to every door and a dawn to every dark night"
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