Decisive for Barça to hold on in the toughest moments of the Champions final against Lyon and the soul of the party in Oslo, Cata Coll (Marratxí, 2001) speaks to La Vanguardia after her third European final. Today she is a more mature Cata, but without losing the touch of madness that defines her. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t be me,” she confesses.
How the life of a tennis player goes back and forth, with what passion Pablo Carreño feels it, a 34-year-old Asturian workaholic who years ago had been the tenth racket in the world and in recent times has overcome a range of injuries and is now also a father and when asked, he answers:
Natural, spontaneous, friendly, uninhibited and also, as he is, a bit playful. For the first time since he got injured against Celta on April 22, Lamine Yamal explained how he experienced the moment he got injured at the Spotify Camp Nou and what he felt in the hours afterward. He does not hide the panic that overwhelmed him at that moment at the possibility of missing the World Cup. After taking and scoring the penalty in which he suffered the injury, Lamine experienced fear. “I remember the sequence in which I got injured. I was praying inside that it was nothing, that it was a cramp or something, because I saw myself very close to the World Cup moment. I was afraid it was very serious or that I could relapse and miss the World Cup,” said the Barcelona forward in statements to the Spanish Federation media.
There is not a single club that is here to give lessons to another. The most ruthless capitalism has been guiding elite football for too long, and opacity is taken for granted as if it were part of the rules of the game. All clubs fit into that bag, ours and those of…
A man from Asturias with character and feet on the ground has achieved what French pride and Qatari money could not for years. In France, there is unanimous consensus that Luis Enrique has been the true architect of PSG’s success in the Champions League, the club’s obsessive goal, because the Spanish coach, as a providential man, has worked the miracle of transforming the team, not only football-wise but in spirit, in method, in soul.
Even during the Champions League final match in Budapest, skirmishes began in Paris between riot police and groups of fans – or mere troublemakers – on the Champs-Élysées and near the Parc des Princes, the stadium where PSG usually plays. The clashes escalated as the hours passed and spread to other cities such as Clermont-Ferrand, Limoges, Dieppe, Valenciennes, Grenoble, and Bordeaux. The toll was 780 arrests across France. Of these, 457 arrests were made under police custody. This figure represents a 32% increase in arrests compared to last year, according to Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez in a press conference.
This time PSG, last year’s European champion in a memorable thrashing of Inter Milan, did not steamroll. They added the second title in the penalty shootout, after unsuccessfully scraping against Arsenal’s defensive cement, who took advantage of Havertz’s early goal to turn the…
Even during the Champions League final match in Budapest, skirmishes have already begun in Paris between riot police and groups of fans – or mere troublemakers – on the Champs-Élysées and near the Parc des Princes, the stadium where PSG usually plays. The clashes escalated as the hours passed and spread to other cities such as Clermont-Ferrand, Limoges, Dieppe, and Valenciennes.
Paris is a city of museums. And PSG can already start expanding theirs in the image and likeness of the Louvre or the Orsay. Since Luis Enrique arrived at the Parc des Princes, trophies have not stopped coming into their display cases, including the last two Champions League titles. The Parisian team had never won it before, and in three years with the Asturian coach, they have won the great continental tournament twice in a row. This time it had nothing to do with the walkover against Inter, but they had to suffer until the end. Then everything went their way. In Budapest, everything was against them. They started losing, forced extra time, went to penalties, and only when Gabriel Magalhães missed Arsenal’s fifth penalty could they celebrate their new dynasty.
Anthony Gordon appeared before the press at dinnertime. But he was not sparing with words; rather, he elaborated on his first impressions, and even dared to speak several times in Spanish. “Believe it or not, since I was three years old I already wanted to play for Barça. I have learned more Spanish in the last two years because at Newcastle we had a physio with whom I practiced,” he revealed.