YOKOHAMA, JAPAN // Lionel Messi broke the deadlock and Luis Suarez scored twice in the second half to give Barcelona a typically emphatic 3-0 win over River Plate in the Club World Cup final on Sunday.
South American champions River, whose side cost only around €5 million (Dh19.9m) in transfer fees, did enough to worry the European champions for the first half hour but were never in the contest after falling behind.
Messi, playing against an Argentine team for only the second time in his career, showed superb control to turn in Neymar’s header after 36 minutes.
Uruguay forward Suarez burst clear of the River defence four minutes after half time and headed another from a pinpoint Neymar cross to take his tally in the tournament to five goals.
“We came here to win the title and it was important to get the job done,” Suarez said. “We stayed calm and played our game until Leo scored the first goal. More than my goals, it was just important to get our hands on the trophy.”
Neymar, himself returning to the side after a groin strain, was instrumental in Barcelona’s opener, climbing to knock down a Dani Alves cross for Messi to steer past River goalkeeper Marcelo Barovero with a deft flick of his left boot.
In pictures:
Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez lead Barcelona to Club World Cup title – in pictures
Suarez, who scored a hat-trick in Barca’s 3-0 semi-final win over Guangzhou Evergrande, scored a second with a fierce low drive four minutes into the second half.
The former Liverpool striker grabbed his fifth goal in Japan when he guided a thumping header past a beleaguered Barovero after a pinpoint cross from Neymar.
Barca goalkeeper Claudio Bravo was a spectator for much of the game on a cold night. But the Chilean made an acrobatic save from a shot by River substitute Gonzalo Martinez seven minutes from time to deny the South Americans a consolation goal.
Messi, who forced a smart save from Barovero in the early skirmishes and could himself have finished with a hat-trick, became the first player to score in three finals after leading Barca to victory in 2009 and 2011.
“Messi and Neymar wanted to play in the final, no matter what,” said Suarez. “It shows the sacrifice that there is in the group that they did everything to play.”
Barcelona added the world title to a host of other titles they have collected this year: the Uefa Champions League, Spain’s La Liga, the Copa del Rey and the European Super Cup.
River, backed by 15,000 fanatical supporters, made a promising start with Rodrigo Mora and Lucas Alario both getting into good shooting positions but producing weak efforts which were easily saved by Bravo.
The European champions, fielding six South American players in their starting line-up, sliced through the River defence and looked as if they could score with almost every attack as they went on to win the title for the third time.
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Film: Raid
Dir: Rajkumar Gupta
Starring: Ajay Devgn, Ileana D'cruz and Saurabh Shukla
Verdict: Three stars
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
FIGHT CARD
1. Featherweight 66kg
Ben Lucas (AUS) v Ibrahim Kendil (EGY)
2. Lightweight 70kg
Mohammed Kareem Aljnan (SYR) v Alphonse Besala (CMR)
3. Welterweight 77kg
Marcos Costa (BRA) v Abdelhakim Wahid (MAR)
4. Lightweight 70kg
Omar Ramadan (EGY) v Abdimitalipov Atabek (KGZ)
5. Featherweight 66kg
Ahmed Al Darmaki (UAE) v Kagimu Kigga (UGA)
6. Catchweight 85kg
Ibrahim El Sawi (EGY) v Iuri Fraga (BRA)
7. Featherweight 66kg
Yousef Al Husani (UAE) v Mohamed Allam (EGY)
8. Catchweight 73kg
Mostafa Radi (PAL) v Abdipatta Abdizhali (KGZ)
9. Featherweight 66kg
Jaures Dea (CMR) v Andre Pinheiro (BRA)
10. Catchweight 90kg
Tarek Suleiman (SYR) v Juscelino Ferreira (BRA)
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Lamsa
Founder: Badr Ward
Launched: 2014
Employees: 60
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: EdTech
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Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
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What is graphene?
Graphene is extracted from graphite and is made up of pure carbon.
It is 200 times more resistant than steel and five times lighter than aluminum.
It conducts electricity better than any other material at room temperature.
It is thought that graphene could boost the useful life of batteries by 10 per cent.
Graphene can also detect cancer cells in the early stages of the disease.
The material was first discovered when Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were 'playing' with graphite at the University of Manchester in 2004.
