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Qatar coach Julen Lopetegui on Monday named a 28-player squad for Al Annabi’s upcoming friendly against Ireland on May 28 at Aviva Stadium in Dublin, as preparations intensify for the FIFA World Cup 2026. The squad, announced yesterday, has been trimmed from the 35-man preliminary list revealed earlier this month, with Spaniard Lopetegui now entering the final phase of selection before FIFA’s June 2 deadline for the submission of official 26-player World Cup squads. Two more players will be cut before the final list is confirmed by FIFA. Creative talisman Akram Afif and leading striker Almoez Ali headline the travelling party, alongside experienced campaigners Hassan al-Haydos, Karim Boudiaf, Boualem Khoukhi and Pedro Miguel. The 20-year-old left-back Rayyan al-Ali, who earned his first preliminary call-up earlier this month, has retained his place in the squad, while Al Sadd goalkeeper Meshaal Barsham also features after recovering from injury concerns earlier in the season. Indian-origin teenager Tahsin Mohammed Jamshid also found a place in the squad. Seven players from the original preliminary squad have been left out of the latest selection, including 42-year-old Sebastian Soria, whose inclusion had sparked the possibility of breaking Roger Milla’s record as the oldest outfield player to appear at a FIFA World Cup. Cameroon’s Milla was aged 42 years and 39 days during the 1994 World Cup in USA, a mark that Soria, who turned 42 last November, would have comfortably eclipsed if he had played in the upcoming tournament. Also omitted are defenders Bassam al-Rawi, and 29-year-old England-born centre-back Niall Mason and Tarek Salman, midfielder Mohammed Waad, forward Mubarak Shannan and goalkeeper Fahad Youus. Two-time Asian champions Qatar secured qualification for a second consecutive FIFA World Cup – the first on merit – after progressing through the play-offs against Oman and the UAE late last year. The FIFA World Cup will be staged across the United States, Canada and Mexico from June 11 to July 19. Al Annabi have been drawn in Group B and will open their campaign against Switzerland on June 13 at San Francisco Bay Area Stadium before facing co-hosts Canada on June 18 in Vancouver and Bosnia and Herzegovina on June 24 in Seattle. The Ireland fixture will provide Lopetegui with another opportunity to assess combinations and fitness levels before Qatar face El Salvador in a final warm-up match on June 6 ahead of the World Cup. Speaking on the sidelines of training on Sunday, experienced defender Miguel said the players believe Qatar have what it takes to progress beyond the group stage despite facing difficult opposition. “It’s a difficult group with strong teams boasting good players,” Miguel said. “The first target is to clear the group and we have a chance to qualify for the knockout stage and we are ready. We will give everything to qualify. We just have to fight until the end. After we qualify, we will take one match at a time.” Miguel, who was also part of Qatar’s squad at the 2022 World Cup, said the experience of playing on home soil four years ago would help the team handle the occasion better in North America. “We are feeling less pressure because we are not playing at home. We had a lot of pressure to play an amazing World Cup in front of our home fans. But unfortunately we couldn’t do it because we didn’t play well. But this is part of football, it’s been already four years. We have a lot of experience now. We have a lot of new players to come and help us. And InshaAllah we’ll play an amazing World Cup.” Miguel added that competition within the squad has lifted the intensity in training ahead of the tournament opener. “All the players are excited. All the players are giving 100% in the training to be in the best shape in the first game.” Source link
Juventus – who last became European champions in 1996 – and manager Luciano Spalletti were deeply disappointed to finish sixth. (AFP) Juventus and AC Milan, two of Serie A’s traditional titans, failed to qualify for the Champions League on Sunday, marking the first time in almost 35 years that neither will compete in Europe’s elite competition and provoking an identity crisis for a domestic game already under immense pressure.In their place, Como, a club playing in the amateur tiers less than a decade ago, secured a historic berth in the tournament after just two seasons in the top flight. Since the European Cup was rebranded as the UEFA Champions League in 1992-93, at least one of Juventus or AC Milan had always been involved.The absence marks a high point for Como, who finished fourth in the league, but a low point in a problematic season for the leading lights of Italian football, coming after the national team failed to qualify for a third consecutive World Cup.This season also marked the first time since the 1986-87 campaign that Italian clubs have been completely shut out of the European semi-finals across all three major continental competitions.For seven-time European champions Milan, last winners in 2007, sweeping changes are ahead, leaving American-Italian owner Gerry Cardinale at a crossroads. Furious supporters hung banners outside his hotel and at San Siro stadium on Sunday with the message, “Go home: shame on you,” after the club missed out on elite European competition for a second consecutive year.The fallout from the 2-1 home defeat by Cagliari that sealed their fate in fifth place triggered an immediate overhaul of the club’s leadership with head coach Massimiliano Allegri’s getting sacked , while futures of several first-team players are under spotlight.Former Milan player and manager Fabio Capello said: “I saw a team, Allegri’s, without strength, without will, without ideas … A revolution? Yes, but only if there are ideas behind it, otherwise there’s no point. First, we need to figure out where to start, and it won’t be an easy job.”While Juventus – who last became European champions in 1996 – and manager Luciano Spalletti were deeply disappointed to finish sixth, their focus has shifted to a comprehensive rebuild after a 2-2 draw at crosstown rivals Torino. Despite the domestic setback, Spalletti’s position appears secure, with the board backing him to lead a sporting transition designed to stabilize the squad under stricter financial parameters.”We’ll have to be even better,” Spalletti said, acknowledging the difficulties caused by the lack of elite European revenue. “We’re all working together, even more so now that we won’t have the Champions League cash. We’ll have to be doubly good.”Spalletti hinted that Juventus will look to be active in the upcoming transfer window to address the squad’s psychological shortcomings. “We need players who raise the level of personality. This is why sometimes we played some great games and other times we sank like a stone.”In stark contrast to the institutional depression gripping Milan and Turin, Como are celebrating a historic sporting rise. Managed by former World Cup winner Cesc Fabregas, the club secured a Champions League berth, alongside Inter Milan, Napoli and Roma, to cap a remarkable ascent.”When I arrived four years ago as a player we changed in a bar, today we’re in the Champions League,” Fabregas said. “It’s a masterpiece from the whole squad.”In a reflection of broader domestic trends, the club achieved its miracle campaign utilizing a heavily foreign core. Italian defender Edoardo Goldaniga was among the fringe players left on the margins of the regular rotation, registering about 15 minutes of Serie A playing time all season, a telling detail in the country’s soccer season.Argentine Nico Paz established himself as the undisputed standout performer for Como this league campaign, scoring 12 goals and providing seven assists amid rumors that Real Madrid want to trigger a buy-back clause for the 21-year-old midfielder. Related Story Source link
Canada’s captain Alphonso Davies’s injury woes have been mounting this season and he has already missed friendlies against Iceland and Tunisia in March due to a…
South Africa is stepping up action against illegal migrants, and citizens must not take the law into their own hands, the government said Monday as protests against undocumented foreign nationals escalate.Several ministers held an urgent meeting to address weeks of nationwide protests against undocumented foreign nationals whom anti-migrant groups accuse of crime and taking work from locals.An ultimatum by one citizen-led group for illegal migrants to be expelled by June 30 has raised fears of violence after previous bouts of anti-migrant unrest that claimed dozens of lives.”We do have an illegal immigration problem,” deputy home affairs minister Njabulo Nzuza told reporters after the meeting.But “it should not be that because there is this problem, then we must throw the country into chaos,” Nzuza said.The government was boosting border controls and inspections, and growing numbers of illegal migrants were being deported, he said.A team of deputy ministers would be deployed to assess and boost the visibility of inspections, said justice minister Mmamoloko Kubayi, adding it was a “work in progress”.”All we are asking is that… let it happen within the law,” she said.”Only law enforcement officers have the right and responsibility to be asking for the identities of people,” said defence minister Angie Motshekga, after reports that vigilante groups were checking the documentation of foreign nationals.Last week several hundred foreign nationals from countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Somalia sought protection in the eastern port city of Durban, saying locals were going door-to-door to tell them to leave by June 30.There was a new protest in Cape Town at the weekend and on Monday hundreds of residents of the Katlehong township southwest of Johannesburg marched to demand police verify the documents of foreign nationals operating businesses.This rise in anti-migrant sentiment has led some African governments to express alarm while Ghana is planning to repatriate this week hundreds of its nationals, its high commissioner Benjamin Quashie told AFP, admitting many had expired work permits.The government has meanwhile urged African nations to address the economic and governance crises that cause people to flock to South Africa, the continent’s most industrialised country.South Africa has experienced repeated waves of xenophobic violence over the past two decades.In 2008, 62 people — including 21 South Africans — were killed in anti-immigrant riots and thousands displaced. Further outbreaks followed in 2015 and 2016.Analysts say it reflects deep structural problems in the country, where unemployment stands at nearly 33 %, becoming significantly higher when discouraged job seekers are included. Source link
States neighbouring the Democratic Republic of Congo are at great danger from Ebola and should act immediately to counter the deadly virus, the head of the World Health Organisation said Monday.”Countries bordering DRC are at especially high risk and should take immediate action,” said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, adding that he would travel on Tuesday to the DRC, the vast, central African country at the epicentre of the current outbreak.”The outbreak is spreading rapidly,” Tedros told a virtual ministerial meeting on the viral haemorrhagic fever, which spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids. It can cause severe bleeding and organ failure.He said the current outbreak was “especially challenging”.”First, the delay in detecting the outbreak means that we are now playing catch-up with a very fast-moving epidemic. We are urgently scaling up operations but at the moment, the epidemic is outpacing us,” he said by video link from Geneva.Secondly, the eastern provinces of the DRC, where the outbreak was first detected in mid-May, “are highly insecure, with intensified fighting in recent months (and) there is also significant distrust of outside authorities among the local population”.Thirdly, he pointed out, there were “no approved vaccines or therapeutics” for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola behind the current outbreak.The WHO has recorded 10 confirmed Ebola deaths and 220 suspected deaths in the DRC since mid-May, while also recording a further 900 suspected cases since Kinshasa declared the outbreak on May 15.The UN agency said the true spread of the virus — which experts suspect was circulating under the radar for some time — was probably much wider.One person is confirmed dead in neighbouring Uganda with a further six confirmed infected after Monday saw the health ministry confirm two new cases.Ten other African countries are “at risk” of infection, the African Union’s health agency, Africa CDC, warned on Saturday.These are Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Zambia.Africa CDC head Jean Kaseya said “high mobility and insecurity” contributed to the regional spread of the outbreak, which the WHO has declared an international emergency.Insecurity is a huge obstacle in the eastern DRC, which has been plagued for three decades by conflict involving a litany of armed groups.State services in rural areas of Ituri province have been largely absent for decades.South Kivu province is controlled by the M23 armed group, which has never managed an epidemic like Ebola.Tedros said it was vital to address the trust deficit in Ebola-affected communities.Two hospitals in Ituri have been attacked by suspicious locals in the past five days — one in Mongbwala, where the outbreak was initially detected, and the other in Rwampara, where tents used to isolate Ebola patients were torched.The violence in Rwampara erupted after a deceased man’s family was prevented from taking his body away for burial because of contamination risks.”Loved ones are throwing themselves at the bodies, touching the corpses… while organising mourning rituals bringing together loads of people”, Jean Marie Ezadri, a civil society leader in Ituri, told AFP last week.Tedros said the WHO was pouring money, medical supplies and staff into the DRC to support the authorities and speeding up clinical trials on potential treatments.”It will get worse before it gets better,” he said. “But we know this virus and we know how to stop it.” Related Story Source link
Tiger Woods broke his silence with a Memorial Day post on social media honoring his late father, Earl, and other veterans.”My father was a Special Forces operator with two tours in Vietnam and 20 years of service,” Woods wrote on X. “To all those like my father, we all say thank you for your sacrifices. Without them we wouldn’t have the greatest country on Earth.”Monday’s message was the first posted on X by Woods since March 31, when he announced he was stepping away from the golf scene to focus on his health and a “lasting recovery.”Earl Woods, who retired as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, passed away in 2006 at the age of 74.Tiger Woods, 50, returned to Switzerland on Sunday, presumably to resume a rehabilitation process that began following his March 27 arrest for misdemeanor DUI after a rollover crash near his home in Florida. He was in Florida for about 10 days.Woods, who has won 15 majors among his 82 career PGA Tour victories, reportedly is undergoing “intense” psychological treatment to help manage what has been characterized as his dependency on painkillers. Related Story Source link
On Monday, current and former players and coaches representing the elite of global men and women’s football, took on an informal ambassadorial role to promote sustainability, gender…
Veteran batting great Virat Kohli and 15-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi will be in the spotlight as the T20 Indian Premier League spans the generations in the playoffs beginning on Tuesday. There are 22 years between the 37-year-old Kohli, who helped power defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru to the top of the regular season standings, and teenage prodigy Sooryavanshi whose batting fireworks have been the talk of the IPL season. Kohli and Bengaluru will meet Gujarat Titans in the first “qualifying” play-off in Dharamsala on Tuesday with the winner going straight into Sunday’s final in Ahmedabad. Sooryavanshi and Rajasthan Royals sealed the final play-off berth only on Sunday and will meet Sunrisers Hyderabad on Wednesday in Chandigarh, where the losers will go home. The winner will face the loser of Tuesday’s qualifying playoff in the final eliminator on Friday in Chandigarh. “We don’t pick age, we pick ability,” Rajasthan head coach Kumar Sangakkara said, referring to the 15-year-old rising star. “All guys, young and old, have done well to drag us to qualification.” England fast bowler Jofra Archer has also been instrumental in Rajasthan’s campaign, scoring 32 runs and taking 3-17 in the win that saw them into the last four. Kohli, who has stepped away from Test cricket and T20 internationals, is chasing a second straight IPL title with Bengaluru after waiting 18 seasons to lift his first in 2025. “Even after all these years, it is the love for the game. I just love hitting the ball in the middle of the bat. That joy is still there,” said Kohli, who is ninth on the IPL batting chart with 557 runs and a top score of 105 not out. Sooryavanshi is fifth on 583 runs with and a best of 103 off 37 balls. Rajasthan’s opponents on Wednesday will be Sunrisers Hyderabad, who boast a formidable batting line-up featuring openers Travis Head of Australia, Abhishek Sharma and South African Heinrich Klaasen, who has hammered 606 runs with six half-centuries. The batting chart is topped by Gujarat Titans openers Sai Sudharsan (638 runs) and Shubman Gill (616).Gujarat won the IPL in their debut season in 2022 and if they reach the final again will play the showpiece in their home 130,000-capacity Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Sunday. The 10-team league has staged 70 matches over seven intense weeks of action but has seen a drop in its television audience, with BARC India and TAM Sports reporting average viewership down 26 percent. But analysts have attributed the TV decline to a shift toward streaming on digital platforms rather than waning interest across cricket-obsessed India. Related Story Source link
The Local Organising Committee for Football Events (LOC) has announced that the Lebanon v Yemen AFC Asian Cup 2027 Qualifier will take place on June 4 at Grand Hamad Stadium in Doha, Qatar. Originally scheduled for March 31, 2026 in Beirut, Lebanon will now play their home match on neutral soil in Qatar, where they face Yemen’s Al-Yaman as-Sa'eed in this decisive fixture jointly staged by the LOC and the Lebanese Football Association (LFA). Starting 31 May, fans in Qatar and across the region can purchase tickets for the much-anticipated qualifier at www.roadtoqatar.qa. Upon purchase, tickets will be made immediately available on Road to Qatar, the official ticketing app for the match. Grand Hamad Stadium will host Lebanon for the second time during their AFC Asian Cup 2027 qualifying campaign, where they previously claimed a 2-0 win over Bhutan on October 9, 2025. The venue also most recently hosted Yemen in the FIFA Arab Cup Qualifier on November 26, 2025 that ended in a dramatic 4-4 draw against Comoros. Lebanon and Yemen will meet for the second time in their AFC Asian Cup 2027 qualifying campaign, with their previous encounter on June 10, 2025 ending in a 0-0 draw. On 4 June, both nations will vie for the final spot in Group E of the tournament, with the winner joining South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam. The 19th edition of the AFC Asian Cup is set to take place in Saudi Arabia from January 7 to February 5, 2027. Lebanon have made three appearances at the competition, as hosts in 2000, and qualifying in 2019 and at the AFC Asian Cup Qatar 2023. The 2019 edition also marked Yemen's historic debut at the continental championship. The Lebanon v Yemen qualifier is the latest in a series of high-profile international matches hosted by Qatar, showcasing the international football community's trust in its ability to deliver world-class sporting experiences. Grand Hamad Stadium, with a capacity of 13,000, has hosted several international fixtures, including FIFA World Cup qualification matches. The stadium also served as the base camp for the Brazil national football team during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, and currently serves as home ground of Qatari club Al Arabi SC. Source link
A gunman opened fire near the White House on Saturday evening, with US Secret Service agents killing the assailant in a shoot-out during which a bystander was also struck, authorities said. President Donald Trump was in the White House at the time – on a day when he was working to negotiate a deal with Iran – but was not impacted by the incident, Secret Service communications chief Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement. The confrontation took place just after 6pm (2200 GMT) when a man near the White House security perimeter “pulled a weapon from his bag and began firing”. “Secret Service Police returned fire striking the suspect who was transported to an area hospital where he was pronounced deceased. During the shooting one bystander was also struck by gunfire,” Guglielmi said, without details on the bystander’s condition. No Secret Service officers were hurt. Multiple US media identified the suspect as Nasire Best, 21, of Maryland, reporting that Best had a history of mental health concerns and had multiple prior interactions with Secret Service members.Trump, 79, has been the target of three alleged assassination attempts, the most recent of which took place on April 25 when an armed man stormed a security checkpoint in a hotel where Trump was attending a media gala. – AFP Source link