Almost 5,000 Barcelona fans will be in the San Siro Wednesday night to see the European champions play AC Milan in a key Group H Champions League game, the biggest travelling support in the Catalans' history for a group stage game.
Both teams are already through to the last 16, and a victory for Barca will guarantee them pole position. The San Siro holds mixed memories for Barca, as they were beaten when they last visited Milan in the 2010 semi-finals against Inter.
Inter were defensively obstinate and widely criticised for their "anti-football", but they won the game 3-1 and Barca were eliminated.
It was a defeat which, in hindsight, prevented Barca winning three consecutive Champions Leagues and set the template for teams attempting to avoid defeat against Pep Guardiola's side.
Previous visits against Milan, rather than Inter, were happier for Barca. They overcame Milan in the semi-final on the way to Champions League success in 2006 - a single goal all that separated the teams in two absorbing clashes.
The giants did not meet again until this season, when first and last-minute goals saw Milan draw 2-2 with Barca at Camp Nou in September.
Barca head the group after four games, with 10 points to Milan's eight, but they will be without the injured Andres Iniesta and Adriano against the Italian champions, plus the banned Daniel Alves and assistant coach Tito Vilanova, who is hospitalised in Barcelona.
Much focus will be on Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who had a turbulent season with Barca in 2009/10 and has been outspoken about his former coach in his recent autobiography, I am Zlatan. The Swede acknowledges that he left "the best team in the world" last season, but he did not have much choice.
Guardiola wanted him out, just as, a year previous, he had wanted to get rid of Samuel Eto'o, who had been part of the Ibrahimovic transfer.
In an attempt to take the attention away from Ibrahimovic, Sergio Busquets, his former teammate, said after Saturday's 4-0 league victory against Zaragoza that Barca were playing "against Milan, not against Ibra".
Even he knows, though, that all eyes will be on any potential flashpoints between the Swede and Guardiola. And on whether Barca can make another step towards banishing the memory of 2010.
sports@thenational.ae
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Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
RESULTS
6.30pm Handicap (TB) $68,000 (Dirt) 1,200m
Winner Canvassed, Par Dobbs (jockey), Doug Watson (trainer)
7.05pm Meydan Cup – Listed Handicap (TB) $88,000 (Turf) 2,810m
Winner Dubai Future, Frankie Dettori, Saeed bin Suroor
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Winner Secret Ambition, Tadhg O’Shea, Satish Seemar
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Winner Topper Bill, Richard Mullen, Satish Seemar
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Winner Man Of Promise, William Buick, Charlie Appleby
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.
Temple numbers
Expected completion: 2022
Height: 24 meters
Ground floor banquet hall: 370 square metres to accommodate about 750 people
Ground floor multipurpose hall: 92 square metres for up to 200 people
First floor main Prayer Hall: 465 square metres to hold 1,500 people at a time
First floor terrace areas: 2,30 square metres
Temple will be spread over 6,900 square metres
Structure includes two basements, ground and first floor
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ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
Rating: 4/5