Back in 2009, Manuel Pellegrini’s unveiling as Real Madrid manager was fairly low-key, at least measured by the standards of the man who followed him as manager at Spain’s most decorated club, Jose Mourinho.
Pellegrini can anticipate that Pep Guardiola, his successor at Manchester City, will hear a louder fanfare than Pellegrini had, when Guardiola takes over there.
That is Pellegrini’s way: understated, low key, at least in his public persona.
When he joined Madrid nearly seven years ago, there was not much space for another gala introduction.
The same close-season witnessed several noisy cavalcades roaring into the Bernabeu stadium.
Fans crowded into the grandstands as if for a big cup match simply to see Cristiano Ronaldo put on a podium, wearing an all-white strip for the first time, and perform some keepy-uppies. Ronaldo was presented to madridistas as the most expensive footballer in history, signed from Manchester United.
One of Pellegrini’s tasks during his single season at Madrid, the club his City take on tonight in the semi-finals of the Uefa Champions League, was to make Ronaldo feel at home and have him start paying back Madrid’s enormous investment, a fee of over €80 million (nearly Dh331m).
The Chilean manager had been asked to take over at a club in major transition.
Presidential elections had recently returned Florentino Perez to the main seat in the boardroom, for Perez’s second term in charge.
Rivals Barcelona had just won a treble.
A hero, Raul, was the club captain but well into his thirties.
Ronaldo was the new star, so was Kaka, another summer arrival.
Raul’s days were numbered.
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Some of the numbers Pellegrini’s Madrid then generated were spectacular. Raul, then the club’s greatest all-time goalscorer, may have been an irregular player in his last season at Madrid, often used from the bench, but Madrid had no shortage of goals.
They scored more than 100 times in their 38 Primera Liga matches, a new landmark. Ronaldo contributed 26 of those.
Karim Benzema, who like Ronaldo has fitness problems that could limit his participation in tonight’s first leg in Manchester, was also new to Madrid at the outset of 2009/10.
Perez had pushed hard for the recruitment of the French striker, held him in high regard and would have liked the new manager to coax more consistency from Benzema.
The player was only 21 when he joined, and his inconsistency at centre-forward betrayed an immaturity.
Competition for places in the forward line posed Pellegrini dilemmas.
There was Raul, a veteran but still an instinctive finisher with a never-say-die spirit.
There was Ronaldo.
There was Gonzalo Higuain, who outscored all of them.
Benzema remained a work in progress even when Mourinho succeeded Pellegrini.
The South American manager lasted only a year. Some at the club advised the president to stick with him.
Madrid accumulated the sort of points total that in most seasons would have won the league. But they were short of the standards set by Barcelona, then Guardiola’s Barcelona.
And in the knockout competitions, they flopped, beaten early and humiliatingly by third-tier Alcorcon in the Copa del Rey, eliminated at the last-16 stage by Lyon in the Champions League.
If the Pellegrini period at Madrid was not a glorious one, nor is it remembered as gloomy.
Hindsight permits him a pat on the back for the development of Marcelo during the 2009/10 season.
He saw the Brazilian left-back’s outstanding potential as an attacking player and used him midfield frequently to permit him to exploit that. Marcelo thrived, and has established himself as a key Madrid player since.
Pepe, the pugnacious central defender, regained respect under Pellegrini, after serving a long suspension for violent conduct the previous season.
Sergio Ramos, now Pepe’s partner, shifted across positions in defence during the Pellegrini season, and had the opportunity to show his strengths as a right-back, the position that gave him a place in the Spain national team.
He won the World Cup playing at full-back in July.
Pellegrini had by then been told to look for a new job.
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Ferrari 12Cilindri specs
Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
Power: 819hp
Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm
Price: From Dh1,700,000
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Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UNSC Elections 2022-23
Seats open:
- Two for Africa Group
- One for Asia-Pacific Group (traditionally Arab state or Tunisia)
- One for Latin America and Caribbean Group
- One for Eastern Europe Group
Countries so far running:
ESSENTIALS
The flights
Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.
The hotels
Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.
The tours
A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages.
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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
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Other workplace saving schemes
- The UAE government announced a retirement savings plan for private and free zone sector employees in 2023.
- Dubai’s savings retirement scheme for foreign employees working in the emirate’s government and public sector came into effect in 2022.
- National Bonds unveiled a Golden Pension Scheme in 2022 to help private-sector foreign employees with their financial planning.
- In April 2021, Hayah Insurance unveiled a workplace savings plan to help UAE employees save for their retirement.
- Lunate, an Abu Dhabi-based investment manager, has launched a fund that will allow UAE private companies to offer employees investment returns on end-of-service benefits.
