Paris // Paris Saint-Germain head into Saturday’s game at home to Lille with the spectre of next week’s Uefa Champions League last-16 clash with Chelsea looming large over the runaway Ligue 1 leaders.
PSG were frustrated in their attempts to rework a congested fixture list as league officials rejected the club’s request to reschedule this weekend’s encounter, leaving Laurent Blanc’s men just two full days to prepare for Tuesday’s first leg.
Reaching the last four of Europe’s premier club competition is the principal objective for PSG this season, but on Thursday Blanc received the Qatari owners’ unequivocal backing after penning a contract extension until 2018.
“I’m very happy, also for my staff. A coach is nothing without his staff. For us, continuing the adventure is a show of faith but also a big responsibility,” Blanc said of his renewal.
“The club has ambitions both nationally and in Europe, and we’ll do all we can to reach those objectives.”
Read more: Eye on Chelsea after Zlatan Ibrahimovic sends PSG into French Cup quarters
PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi insisted he never had any doubts that the former France coach was the right man to take the club forward.
“I always had confidence in Laurent Blanc, I never thought about appointing another coach,” said Al-Khelaifi, adding he had “always believed in (Blanc’s) ability to take the team to a higher level each season”.
PSG are well on course to sew up a fourth successive league title, with a huge 24-point lead over nearest rivals Monaco, but Saturday’s match at the Parc des Princes is the seventh in an eight-game series in little over three weeks.
“The calendar can’t get any tighter than that. If you talk to me about the fixture list, I get heated, so it’s better to avoid it,” Blanc said after Wednesday’s 3-0 victory over Lyon sent holders PSG through to the quarter-finals of the French Cup.
“As of Sunday, we’ll start preparing for the game against Chelsea. The game against Lille, with all respect to Lille, is badly timed.”
Second-place Monaco can widen the gap between themselves and the chasing pack in the race for France’s other automatic Champions League qualifying spot when they visit Saint-Etienne, who are six points adrift in fourth, on Sunday.
Third-place Nice, above Saint-Etienne on goal difference, host Marseille although Claude Puel’s Champions League hopefuls will be without leading scorer Hatem Ben Arfa after the France international was ruled out for around a month with a hamstring injury.
Lyon have forced their way back into European contention with successive 3-0 wins over Bordeaux and Angers, and Bruno Genesio’s side will seek to bounce back from their cup exit at home to Caen.
“We’ve shown we have the quality to compete at the top of the table from here until the end of the season,” Genesio said following the defeat in Paris, with teenage striker Maxwell Cornet adding to that sentiment.
“We’ve managed to pick ourselves up in the league. We have to continue to work hard ahead of Sunday’s match,” said Cornet, who was disappointed Lyon were unable to build on a promising start again PSG in midweek.
Slumping Angers, losers of five of their past seven matches, will aim to arrest their slide and reignite an unlikely European challenge away to Rennes on Friday.
Nantes and Lorient, who both progressed to the last eight of the French Cup on Wednesday, meet in a Brittany derby on Saturday, while Montpellier host fellow strugglers Toulouse with both sides bidding to avoid relegation.
Ligue 1 fixtures (in UAE time)
Friday
Rennes v Angers, 11.30pm
Saturday
Paris Saint-Germain v Lille, 8pm
Gazelec Ajaccio v Troyes, 11pm
Montpellier v Toulouse, 11pm
Guingamp v Bordeaux, 11pm
Nantes v Lorient, 11pm
Reims v Bastia, 11pm
Sunday
Lyon v Caen, 5pm
Saint-Etienne v Monaco, 8pm
Nice v Marseille, midnight
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The specs
Engine: four-litre V6 and 3.5-litre V6 twin-turbo
Transmission: six-speed and 10-speed
Power: 271 and 409 horsepower
Torque: 385 and 650Nm
Price: from Dh229,900 to Dh355,000
Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Director: Goran Hugo Olsson
Rating: 5/5
Company%20Profile
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What is a Ponzi scheme?
A fraudulent investment operation where the scammer provides fake reports and generates returns for old investors through money paid by new investors, rather than through ligitimate business activities.
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Five famous companies founded by teens
There are numerous success stories of teen businesses that were created in college dorm rooms and other modest circumstances. Below are some of the most recognisable names in the industry:
- Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg and his friends started Facebook when he was a 19-year-old Harvard undergraduate.
- Dell: When Michael Dell was an undergraduate student at Texas University in 1984, he started upgrading computers for profit. He starting working full-time on his business when he was 19. Eventually, his company became the Dell Computer Corporation and then Dell Inc.
- Subway: Fred DeLuca opened the first Subway restaurant when he was 17. In 1965, Mr DeLuca needed extra money for college, so he decided to open his own business. Peter Buck, a family friend, lent him $1,000 and together, they opened Pete’s Super Submarines. A few years later, the company was rebranded and called Subway.
- Mashable: In 2005, Pete Cashmore created Mashable in Scotland when he was a teenager. The site was then a technology blog. Over the next few decades, Mr Cashmore has turned Mashable into a global media company.
- Oculus VR: Palmer Luckey founded Oculus VR in June 2012, when he was 19. In August that year, Oculus launched its Kickstarter campaign and raised more than $1 million in three days. Facebook bought Oculus for $2 billion two years later.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
THE SIXTH SENSE
Starring: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Hayley Joel Osment
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Rating: 5/5
BORDERLANDS
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis
Director: Eli Roth
Rating: 0/5
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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How to come clean about financial infidelity
- Be honest and transparent: It is always better to own up than be found out. Tell your partner everything they want to know. Show remorse. Inform them of the extent of the situation so they know what they are dealing with.
- Work on yourself: Be honest with yourself and your partner and figure out why you did it. Don’t be ashamed to ask for professional help.
- Give it time: Like any breach of trust, it requires time to rebuild. So be consistent, communicate often and be patient with your partner and yourself.
- Discuss your financial situation regularly: Ensure your spouse is involved in financial matters and decisions. Your ability to consistently follow through with what you say you are going to do when it comes to money can make all the difference in your partner’s willingness to trust you again.
- Work on a plan to resolve the problem together: If there is a lot of debt, for example, create a budget and financial plan together and ensure your partner is fully informed, involved and supported.
Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
Navdeep Suri, India's Ambassador to the UAE
There has been a longstanding need from the Indian community to have a religious premises where they can practise their beliefs. Currently there is a very, very small temple in Bur Dubai and the community has outgrown this. So this will be a major temple and open to all denominations and a place should reflect India’s diversity.
It fits so well into the UAE’s own commitment to tolerance and pluralism and coming in the year of tolerance gives it that extra dimension.
What we will see on April 20 is the foundation ceremony and we expect a pretty broad cross section of the Indian community to be present, both from the UAE and abroad. The Hindu group that is building the temple will have their holiest leader attending – and we expect very senior representation from the leadership of the UAE.
When the designs were taken to the leadership, there were two clear options. There was a New Jersey model with a rectangular structure with the temple recessed inside so it was not too visible from the outside and another was the Neasden temple in London with the spires in its classical shape. And they said: look we said we wanted a temple so it should look like a temple. So this should be a classical style temple in all its glory.
It is beautifully located - 30 minutes outside of Abu Dhabi and barely 45 minutes to Dubai so it serves the needs of both communities.
This is going to be the big temple where I expect people to come from across the country at major festivals and occasions.
It is hugely important – it will take a couple of years to complete given the scale. It is going to be remarkable and will contribute something not just to the landscape in terms of visual architecture but also to the ethos. Here will be a real representation of UAE’s pluralism.
