AL AIN // Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors do not have to overcome “final phobia” to win the Asian Champions League, according to manager Choi Kang-hee.
The South Koreans, 2006 champions and then runners-up in 2011, go into the second leg of the showpiece on Saturday with a 2-1 lead against Al Ain after last week's first leg victory in Jeonju.
Prior to that match, Choi described every day since the 2011 final defeat — on penalties to Qatar’s Al Sadd — as “a nightmare” and said the pain from that loss would ensure his side seal the title this time.
However, the former South Korea national team coach, manager of Jeonbuk for both final appearances, insisted the memories of five years ago would not negatively impact his team for the second leg at the Hazza bin Zayed Stadium.
More from Asian Champions League final:
• Can Al Ain win? John McAuley looks at how the UAE side can become champions for a second time
• Zlatko Dalic: Al Ain's chances of claiming a second Asian Champions League crown are '50/50'
• Five lessons: Al Ain must learn from first leg defeat to prevail in second leg and become champions
“I’ll go into this game with the 2011 Champions League final in my mind, even though it’s almost six years ago,” Choi said. “That time we weren’t able to win the title, but I remember it well. Since then I’ve worked as the national team coach and have come back to Jeonbuk and won two league titles. But in 2016 we want to erase the bad memories of 2011.
“I do not have a phobia about the final anymore. I trust my team and they have prepared very well. There is a good atmosphere between the team, the staff and fans. We have prepared everything and trust each other. I trust my players to win the match.”
In the first leg, Choi assigned right-back Choi Chul-soon to man-mark Omar Abdulrahman, a ploy that worked initially until the Asian player of the year nominee began to exert a greater influence in the second half. However, Choi is confident he can shackle the Al Ain captain.
“Jeonbuk have already analysed his video clips so we know who he is and we know how to stop him,” Choi said. “We’re very clear about his skills, so we’ll stop him on the pitch with our players and our good team spirit.”
Asked about the importance of Jeonbuk finding the net on Saturday, Choi said: “If the away team scores it’s seen as a positive by the media, so if we score in tomorrow’s match it will be perfect for managing the game.
“Al Ain are a good team, but we have the players to deal with them. Even though we’re playing away from home it doesn’t matter. We have prepared for every outcome and we will claim the 2016 title.”
jmcauley@thenational.ae
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Citadel: Honey Bunny first episode
Directors: Raj & DK
Stars: Varun Dhawan, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Kashvi Majmundar, Kay Kay Menon
Rating: 4/5
RESULTS
2.15pm Maiden (PA) Dh40,000 (Dirt) 1,200m
Winner Shawall, Abdul Aziz Al Balushi (jockey), Majed Al Jahouri (trainer)
2.45pm Handicap (PA) Dh40,000 (D) 1,200m
Winner Anna Bella Aa, Fabrice Veron, Abdelkhir Adam
3.15pm Handicap (PA) Dh40,000 (D) 1,200m
Winner AF Thayer, Tadhg O’Shea, Ernst Oertel
3.45pm Handicap (PA) Dh40,000 (D) 1,700m
Winner Taajer, Fabrice Veron, Eric Lemartinel
4.15pm The Ruler of Sharjah Cup – Prestige (PA) Dh250,000 (D) 1,700m
Winner Jawaal, Jim Crowley, Majed Al Jahouri
4.45pm Handicap (TB) Dh40,000 (D) 2,000m
Winner Maqaadeer, Jim Crowley, Doug Watson
Race card
5pm: Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (Turf) 1,600m; 5.30pm: Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,400m
6pm: Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,400m; 6.30pm: Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,200m
7pm: Wathba Stallions Cup Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 (T) 2,200m
7.30pm: Handicap (TB) Dh100,000 (PA) 1,400m
Electoral College Victory
Trump has so far secured 295 Electoral College votes, according to the Associated Press, exceeding the 270 needed to win. Only Nevada and Arizona remain to be called, and both swing states are leaning Republican. Trump swept all five remaining swing states, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, sealing his path to victory and giving him a strong mandate.
Popular Vote Tally
The count is ongoing, but Trump currently leads with nearly 51 per cent of the popular vote to Harris’s 47.6 per cent. Trump has over 72.2 million votes, while Harris trails with approximately 67.4 million.
How to book
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Disclaimer
Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Stars: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline, Lesley Manville
Rating: 4/5
Nayanthara: Beyond The Fairy Tale
Starring: Nayanthara, Vignesh Shivan, Radhika Sarathkumar, Nagarjuna Akkineni
Director: Amith Krishnan
Rating: 3.5/5
Company%20Profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Cargoz%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EDate%20started%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20January%202022%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Premlal%20Pullisserry%20and%20Lijo%20Antony%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Dubai%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20staff%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%2030%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Seed%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Origin
Dan Brown
Doubleday
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Know your cyber adversaries
Cryptojacking: Compromises a device or network to mine cryptocurrencies without an organisation's knowledge.
Distributed denial-of-service: Floods systems, servers or networks with information, effectively blocking them.
Man-in-the-middle attack: Intercepts two-way communication to obtain information, spy on participants or alter the outcome.
Malware: Installs itself in a network when a user clicks on a compromised link or email attachment.
Phishing: Aims to secure personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.
Ransomware: Encrypts user data, denying access and demands a payment to decrypt it.
Spyware: Collects information without the user's knowledge, which is then passed on to bad actors.
Trojans: Create a backdoor into systems, which becomes a point of entry for an attack.
Viruses: Infect applications in a system and replicate themselves as they go, just like their biological counterparts.
Worms: Send copies of themselves to other users or contacts. They don't attack the system, but they overload it.
Zero-day exploit: Exploits a vulnerability in software before a fix is found.
Singham Again
Director: Rohit Shetty
Stars: Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Singh, Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Deepika Padukone
Rating: 3/5
Iran's dirty tricks to dodge sanctions
There’s increased scrutiny on the tricks being used to keep commodities flowing to and from blacklisted countries. Here’s a description of how some work.
1 Going Dark
A common method to transport Iranian oil with stealth is to turn off the Automatic Identification System, an electronic device that pinpoints a ship’s location. Known as going dark, a vessel flicks the switch before berthing and typically reappears days later, masking the location of its load or discharge port.
2. Ship-to-Ship Transfers
A first vessel will take its clandestine cargo away from the country in question before transferring it to a waiting ship, all of this happening out of sight. The vessels will then sail in different directions. For about a third of Iranian exports, more than one tanker typically handles a load before it’s delivered to its final destination, analysts say.
3. Fake Destinations
Signaling the wrong destination to load or unload is another technique. Ships that intend to take cargo from Iran may indicate their loading ports in sanction-free places like Iraq. Ships can keep changing their destinations and end up not berthing at any of them.
4. Rebranded Barrels
Iranian barrels can also be rebranded as oil from a nation free from sanctions such as Iraq. The countries share fields along their border and the crude has similar characteristics. Oil from these deposits can be trucked out to another port and documents forged to hide Iran as the origin.
* Bloomberg
Stamp duty timeline
December 2014: Former UK finance minister George Osbourne reforms stamp duty, replacing the slab system with a blended rate scheme, with the top rate increasing to 12 per cent from 10 per cent:
Up to £125,000 - 0%; £125,000 to £250,000 – 2%; £250,000 to £925,000 – 5%; £925,000 to £1.5m: 10%; Over £1.5m – 12%
April 2016: New 3% surcharge applied to any buy-to-let properties or additional homes purchased.
July 2020: Rishi Sunak unveils SDLT holiday, with no tax to pay on the first £500,000, with buyers saving up to £15,000.
March 2021: Mr Sunak decides the fate of SDLT holiday at his March 3 budget, with expectations he will extend the perk unti June.
April 2021: 2% SDLT surcharge added to property transactions made by overseas buyers.
MATCH INFO
Uefa Nations League
League A, Group 4
Spain v England, 10.45pm (UAE)
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.
Mountain Classification Tour de France after Stage 8 on Saturday:
- 1. Lilian Calmejane (France / Direct Energie) 11
- 2. Fabio Aru (Italy / Astana) 10
- 3. Daniel Martin (Ireland / Quick-Step) 8
- 4. Robert Gesink (Netherlands / LottoNL) 8
- 5. Warren Barguil (France / Sunweb) 7
- 6. Chris Froome (Britain / Team Sky) 6
- 7. Guillaume Martin (France / Wanty) 6
- 8. Jan Bakelants (Belgium / AG2R) 5
- 9. Serge Pauwels (Belgium / Dimension Data) 5
- 10. Richie Porte (Australia / BMC Racing) 4
'Young girls thinking of big ideas'
Words come easy for aspiring writer Afra Al Muhairb. The business side of books, on the other hand, is entirely foreign to the 16-year-old Emirati. So, she followed her father’s advice and enroled in the Abu Dhabi Education Council’s summer entrepreneurship course at Abu Dhabi University hoping to pick up a few new skills.
“Most of us have this dream of opening a business,” said Afra, referring to her peers are “young girls thinking of big ideas.”
In the three-week class, pupils are challenged to come up with a business and develop an operational and marketing plan to support their idea. But, the learning goes far beyond sales and branding, said teacher Sonia Elhaj.
“It’s not only about starting up a business, it’s all the meta skills that goes with it -- building self confidence, communication,” said Ms Elhaj. “It’s a way to coach them and to harness ideas and to allow them to be creative. They are really hungry to do this and be heard. They are so happy to be actually doing something, to be engaged in creating something new, not only sitting and listening and getting new information and new knowledge. Now they are applying that knowledge.”
Afra’s team decided to focus their business idea on a restaurant modelled after the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Each level would have a different international cuisine and all the meat would be halal. The pupils thought of this after discussing a common problem they face when travelling abroad.
“Sometimes we find the struggle of finding halal food, so we just eat fish and cheese, so it’s hard for us to spend 20 days with fish and cheese,” said Afra. “So we made this tower so every person who comes – from Africa, from America – they will find the right food to eat.”
rpennington@thenational.ae
Roger Federer's record at Wimbledon
Roger Federer's record at Wimbledon
1999 - 1st round
2000 - 1st round
2001 - Quarter-finalist
2002 - 1st round
2003 - Winner
2004 - Winner
2005 - Winner
2006 - Winner
2007 - Winner
2008 - Finalist
2009 - Winner
2010 - Quarter-finalist
2011 - Quarter-finalist
2012 - Winner
2013 - 2nd round
2014 - Finalist
2015 - Finalist
2016 - Semi-finalist
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
Challenge Cup result:
1. UAE 3 faults
2. Ireland 9 faults
3. Brazil 11 faults
4. Spain 15 faults
5. Great Britain 17 faults
6. New Zealand 20 faults
7. Italy 26 faults
Low turnout
Two months before the first round on April 10, the appetite of voters for the election is low.
Mathieu Gallard, account manager with Ipsos, which conducted the most recent poll, said current forecasts suggested only two-thirds were "very likely" to vote in the first round, compared with a 78 per cent turnout in the 2017 presidential elections.
"It depends on how interesting the campaign is on their main concerns," he told The National. "Just now, it's hard to say who, between Macron and the candidates of the right, would be most affected by a low turnout."
COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
Take Me Apart
Kelela
(Warp)
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
