عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Sports

Real Madrid to Face Man City in Champions League Quarterfinals 

A display board shows the matches scheduled during the draw for the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, 15 March 2024. (EPA)
A display board shows the matches scheduled during the draw for the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, 15 March 2024. (EPA)
TT
TT

Real Madrid to Face Man City in Champions League Quarterfinals 

A display board shows the matches scheduled during the draw for the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, 15 March 2024. (EPA)
A display board shows the matches scheduled during the draw for the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, 15 March 2024. (EPA)

Real Madrid and Manchester City will meet in a heavyweight Champions League quarterfinal between the past two winners and the only two teams to win all six group games in this season’s competition.

Madrid will host the first leg on April 9 or 10 and the return will be the week after in Manchester.

Kylian Mbappé’s path to a first Champions League title with Paris Saint-Germain in his farewell season there will next go through Barcelona. PSG hosts the first leg.

Arsenal was drawn to play the first leg at home against Bayern Munich, whose star striker Harry Kane will go back to north London after leaving the Gunners' archrival Tottenham this offseason.

Atletico Madrid was paired with Borussia Dortmund in the other game.

UEFA also made the draw for the semifinals which ensured Mbappé and PSG cannot meet Real Madrid — the team he is expected to join in the summer — until the final.

That draw arguably put the four strongest teams in the same half.

The winner between Real Madrid and Man City will be away in the first leg against Arsenal or Bayern.

Atletico or Dortmund will host the first leg against PSG or Barcelona.

There was a familiar and powerful look to the draw. It featured five European champions — who have combined to win 27 of the previous 68 titles — and three beaten finalists: Arsenal, Atletico and PSG.

The semifinals are played between April 30 and May 8. The final is on June 1 at Wembley Stadium in London.

Most Viewed

 
 
Sports

Afghanistan Sprinter Uses Olympic Trip to Shine Light on How Women Are Treated in Her Country

Kimia Yousofi after finishing last in her 100-meter preliminary heat - The AP
Kimia Yousofi after finishing last in her 100-meter preliminary heat - The AP
TT
TT

Afghanistan Sprinter Uses Olympic Trip to Shine Light on How Women Are Treated in Her Country

Kimia Yousofi after finishing last in her 100-meter preliminary heat - The AP
Kimia Yousofi after finishing last in her 100-meter preliminary heat - The AP

To get a sense of the real race Afghanistan's lone woman at the Olympic track meet is running, one only needed to look at the back of her bib.

On it, in handwritten script, were the words, spelled like this: “Eduction" and "Our Rights.”

Women and girls in Afghanistan have suffered immensely since Kimia Yousofi's home country was taken over by the Taliban in August 2021. A United Nations report last year said the country has become the most repressive in the world for women and girls, who are deprived of virtually all their basic rights, The AP reported.

“I think I feel a responsibility for Afghan girls because they can’t talk,” Yousofi said Friday after finishing last in her 100-meter preliminary heat.

Her 13.42-second sprint down the track was not the main point of this trip. Yousofi's story was a bracing illustration of how these trips to the Olympics aren't always about winning and losing.

“I’m not a politics person, I just do what I think is true,” Yousofi said. “I can talk with media. I can be the voice of Afghan girls. I (can) tell (people) what they want — they want basic rights, education and sports.”

Before she was born, Yousofi's parents fled Afghanistan during the Taliban's previous rule. She and her three brothers were born and raised in neighboring Iran.

In 2012, when she was 16, Yousofi took part in a talent search for Afghan immigrant girls living in Iran. She later returned to Afghanistan to train for a chance to represent the country at the 2016 Olympics. These are her third Games.

But after the Taliban took over her country again, at around the time the Tokyo Games started, she moved to Australia with the help of officials there and the International Olympic Committee. She has been living in Sydney, trying to get better at speaking English. When she goes back, she will start looking for a job.

Had she sought one, she almost certainly would have earned a place on the Olympic refugee team that is designed for displaced athletes like her.

But she wanted to represent her country, flaws and all, with a hope that this trip to the Olympics will help shine a light on the way women are treated there.

“This is my flag, this is my country," she said. “This is my land.”