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The do-over campaign for Israel’s do-over election is reaching its end; voters go back to the polls on September 17th. Last time around, in the April 9th election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assumed that he had won—or at least that a bloc of loyal-enough rightist parties had won. But, in the last hours of May 29th, just before the Presidential mandate to form a coalition government expired, he failed to muster, by a single vote, the required majority of the hundred and twenty seats in the Knesset. Rather than see the mandate pass to someone else, Netanyahu engineered a new election. It was a desperate gambit that, if the polls hold, will prove a futile one.

Over the summer, unprecedented alliances across the political spectrum have made Netanyahu seem more vulnerable than he has since the first time he lost office, in 1999. Should he lose, Israelis concerned about the fate of their democracy will sense an immediate relief. They are tired, most immediately, of his attacks on the judiciary and the police, his attempts to suborn the media, his willingness to tolerate soldiers violating Israel Defense Forces norms in occupation raids, his racist incitement against minorities, and his populist incitement against élites. In May, Benny Gantz, the leader of the new centrist Blue and White Party, which won as many seats as the Likud in April, claimed in his inaugural speech to the Knesset that his battle was “against the new threat to the democratic system’s functioning.” Indeed, it’s hard to find anyone in the opposition who does not see the election as a referendum on democracy.

Yet Netanyahu’s real nemesis has turned out to be not a coalition of progressive democrats but a former ally and a political tough, Avigdor Lieberman, whose secular-right Yisrael Beiteinu (“Israel, Our Home”) Party won five seats in April. Lieberman refused to join a new Netanyahu government without assurances that ultra-Orthodox youth would be conscripted into the I.D.F., as the Supreme Court had ruled that they should—assurances that Netanyahu could not give without losing the support of the ultra-Orthodox parties, which had won sixteen seats. Lieberman’s recalcitrance can be explained on purely tactical grounds. His base is largely made up of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, many of whom are drawn to his (and Netanyahu’s) hard-nationalist and anti-Arab rhetoric. But the majority of Israelis who speak Russian at home say that “they never go to synagogue,” and they don’t want the rabbis meddling in their affairs.

In fact, seventy per cent of Jewish Israelis say that religious practice is not, or is only “somewhat,” important in their lives. Many abhor the separation of genders in public schools and universities and are dismayed that Jewish Israelis still can’t have civil marriages—and that the Chief Rabbinate has begun asking for genetic tests before allowing couples to marry. (According to the Law of Return, passed in 1950 and amended in 1970, in order to be granted citizenship rights a person must demonstrably have at least one Jewish grandparent.) Two-thirds of Jewish Israelis say that they want a “broad, civil coalition” government that excludes the ultra-Orthodox parties. Moreover, a slim but persistent majority identify as “right-wing.” Lieberman apparently grasped that the spectre of creeping theocracy could prove a wedge issue even among those voters, and so reverse his sinking popularity. (His party once got more than twice as many seats as it won in April.)

Yet Lieberman’s motives are personal, too. He previously served as the director-general of the Likud Party, and later as a minister in Likud-dominated coalitions, and made common cause with theocrats when it suited him. But Netanyahu thwarted and even humiliated Lieberman when it suited him. In 2014, he had Likud renege on an electoral alliance with Lieberman’s party. A new election portends revenge at its sweetest, particularly now.

That’s because Netanyahu is facing three possible indictments—one for bribery, two for breach of trust—and hearings are scheduled for early October. According to precedent and to Supreme Court rulings, if he is charged he will be expected, if not forced, to resign. And the timing of the campaign has made the case against him seem only stronger. Israel’s most widely watched news program, on Channel 12, aired a leaked transcript of testimony by the former director of the Communications Ministry (a Netanyahu appointee), confirming that Netanyahu had ordered him to issue regulations benefitting a media mogul from whom Netanyahu was aiming to extract political favors. (Netanyahu has urged Likud supporters to boycott Channel 12, calling its news “fake,” and accusing it of being “anti-Semitic” for co-producing a series with HBO—airing here as “Our Boys”—which shows Israeli extremists committing a hate crime against a Palestinian boy.)

Netanyahu hoped that, with a new election, he could secure a Likud coalition without Lieberman and with the ultra-Orthodox and national-Orthodox, pro-settler parties. The former will almost certainly hold their number of Knesset seats. The latter have no affection for Netanyahu, but they want to keep control of the ministries—Justice and Education—that give them the upper hand in Israel’s culture wars. They’ve indicated that they would pass whatever laws might be necessary to diminish the power of the Supreme Court and keep Netanyahu in office—and to win those wars.

Indeed, over the summer, a consolidated national-Orthodox party, Yemina (“To the Right”), led by the former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, formed, in order to end the factionalism that had cost Netanyahu’s coalition crucial seats in April. Shaked, who is known for a kind of glamorous ruthlessness—her campaign put out a mock-commercial for a perfume called “Fascism,” purportedly exposing the left’s hyperbole—folded her party into Yemina. She had tried to join Likud, after the April defeat, but Netanyahu, always nervous about rivals, blocked her. She has signalled, however, that, should Likud and the religious parties get a majority, Yemina would join them to try to protect Netanyahu from prosecution. Another party, Otzma Yehudit (“Jewish Strength”), led by extremist followers of the late rabbi Meir Kahane, now looks as if it might win four seats, and it would also protect Netanyahu in order to advance itself. Those seats could bring Netanyahu’s potential coalition to just two short of a majority.

Still, Lieberman will likely prove the wiliest figure in the campaign. Blue and White is currently polling at around thirty-two seats, essentially tied with the Likud once more. Though the total number of center-left seats—including Arab members, whom Blue and White has not exactly embraced—falls at least five short of a majority, Lieberman can still plausibly believe that Netanyahu and the ultra-right parties will also fall short, and that his own party will hold the balance of power. In that case, he can drag out the process of forming a new government through October, forcing Netanyahu to face indictments before any legislation to save him can be passed.

In addition, Netanyahu’s forced resignation would facilitate Lieberman’s larger plan to keep the secular right in power: he has been hinting that he will recommend to the President that Benny Gantz be given the mandate. He has also made it clear that he will not support a Blue and White coalition that includes the progressive and Arab parties. Instead, he intends to prompt Gantz to organize a national-unity government, whose core would be Blue and White, Lieberman’s party, and a Likud without Netanyahu. This last element presumes that, if Netanyahu is charged, Likud leaders who are not simply Netanyahu sycophants— the former Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar, for example—will abandon him. Last month, Netanyahu, showing signs of panic, extracted a public pledge from the top forty Likud candidates that they won’t try to replace him. But Lieberman has openly encouraged Party leaders to dump the Prime Minister.

This plan relies on a number of uncertainties, but it’s not fanciful. Lieberman’s party signed a vote-sharing agreement with Gantz’s. Knesset seats are apportioned according to the total number of votes a party wins—often with some votes, short of the amount required for another seat, remaining. Vote-sharing awards all the remainder votes to the party that has the most of them, and perhaps entitles that party—presumably Blue and White—to another seat.

Not surprisingly, Gantz and Yair Lapid, Blue and White’s No. 2, appear content to go along with Lieberman’s machinations. The Party is top-heavy with former commanders of the defense establishment who, like many of the Likud rank and file, instinctively favor a national-unity government and tend toward a secular-nationalist rhetoric. Like Lieberman, they also tend to see the Palestinian issue as a military challenge—controlling the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and deterring Hamas in Gaza—rather than as a sacred right to the Land of Israel.

Gantz himself has given few interviews in recent months; he’s apparently been content to rely on Lieberman’s scheming, the charisma and the authority of his team of generals, and on Netanyahu fatigue, which is rising across the country. The governor of the Bank of Israel is warning of a disruptive budget deficit—as high as four per cent of the G.D.P.—so Netanyahu’s lavish public grants to religious institutions increasingly seem of a piece with fiscal mismanagement. The Gaza border remains violent, and there have been exchanges with Hezbollah and Iranian forces in the north. In the past, Netanyahu benefitted from such tension, posturing as the nation’s indispensable leader; now he’s increasingly suspected of manipulating it. Gantz, in a rare interview, for the Yediot Ahronot Web site, bluntly accused Netanyahu of exploiting the military situation to advance his campaign. On Tuesday, Netanyahu announced that he will, if elected, annex the strategic Jordan Valley, in the West Bank. Blue and White spokespeople accused him of trying to use Jordan Valley residents “as extras in a campaign video.”

Gantz and Lapid have seemed at odds over a strategy to carry the secularist vote. Lapid projects himself as its authentic champion and plays the bad cop to Gantz’s good cop in challenging the ultra-Orthodox parties’ venality. He made a satiric video accusing ultra-Orthodox leaders of selling their support of Netanyahu for more state subsidies. Gantz repudiated it. Yet he also told Yediot Ahronot that he would work to set up a secular government first, so that any religious parties that joined would have to accept its principles.

On the whole, then, the Gantz-Lapid partnership seems to be holding—and Netanyahu’s panic seems to be deepening. His closeness to Donald Trump is not doing Netanyahu the kind of good that it did in April, after Trump suddenly recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan. The American President has appeared increasingly erratic about confronting Iran—the Israeli press is buzzing with stories of Trump side-stepping Netanyahu and secretly angling to meet with the Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani—and increasingly reckless in demanding American Jewish “loyalty.”

Moreover, the opposition to the left of Blue and White is consolidating, much as rightist parties are doing in Yemina. A new party, calling itself the Israel Democratic Party, formed in July, as a coalition that includes the left-wing Meretz Party, some defecting Labor leaders, and the former Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The Arab Knesset leader Ayman Odeh, who is the head of the Hadash Party, has, for his part, reconstituted the Joint List, a coalition of Arab parties, in an attempt to bring out the Arab vote, which dropped to under fifty per cent in April. The Joint List is currently polling at ten seats, but it could pick up more. (In April, the Likud, in a naked effort to suppress the Arab vote, sent operatives with cameras to Arab polling places, which the Attorney General deemed illegal. This week, Netanyahu’s government tried, and failed, to ram through a law to permit the cameras.)

Last month, Odeh took the extraordinary step of announcing that his party would offer parliamentary support to, and even join, a government that worked to end the occupation; repeal the controversial nation-state law, passed last year, which privileges Jews over other citizens; and redouble efforts to bring police, educational, and social-welfare services to Arab communities. Some Blue and White leaders responded with skepticism. Yoaz Hendel dismissed the offer out of hand, insisting that the Joint List includes “Arab parties which fundamentally reject Israel’s existence as a Jewish state”—nor did he feel it was incumbent upon him to explain just what he meant by “Jewish state.” (Some in the Party were strong proponents of the nation-state law.)

Nevertheless, Odeh told me that the priority is to constitute a “democratic front” with all parties with shared values, including progressive members of Blue and White. Stav Shaffir, a former leader of Labor, and now a leader of the Democratic Party, told me that her goal was to advance just such an alliance. As a gesture toward the Arab community, Barak issued a public apology for his government’s role in opening fire on Israeli Arab protesters in the early days of the al-Aqsa Intifada, in 2000. Odeh, knowing how deeply Barak is still resented in Arab towns, rejected it. (He said the Joint List would refuse to sign a vote-sharing agreement with the Democratic Party as long as Barak is on its list, but the point seems negotiable.)

The Democratic Party has been polling uncertainly at between four to seven seats, about the same as Labor, which is now led by Amir Peretz. Labor has merged with the economic populist Gesher (Bridge) Party, led by Orly Levy-Abekasis; both politicians are from North-African-immigrant communities and are particularly eager to topple Netanyahu in order to fund social services, “a hundred and twenty billion shekels from which Netanyahu has cut,” Peretz claims. Given the precarious state of the economy, he may attract Jewish voters of North-African descent.

But any democratic front, whatever its eventual appeal, is too late for this election. If Netanyahu loses, Blue and White will almost certainly get the mandate. Gantz and Lapid will push to recommit the country to norms of electoral democracy (though they will fall short of what Odeh is requesting). They will cut back on support for religious-party institutions, and increase funding for education, housing, and health care, including for the Arab sector. They will implicitly project “Israeliness” over Netanyahu’s pretension to represent diaspora Jews as a whole, and they say that they will seek to repair relations with the Democratic Party in this country. Though Gantz has acknowledged the strategic value of the Jordan Valley, and Lapid has criticized boycotts of the settlements, they would likely scotch talk of annexing outright any parts of the West Bank. When Gantz speaks of saving the “democratic system’s functioning,” this is what he means.

Needless to say, with Palestinians under occupation, and a state apparatus increasingly structured to discriminate against non-Jewish citizens, the democratic system’s functioning will require more than that. But, if Netanyahu loses, the potential effect should not be underestimated. Land of Israel zealots will no longer be in control of the education ministry; the prerogatives of the Supreme Court will be preserved. Neighboring Arab states are exerting pressure for a regional plan, and would prefer to work with moderates like Gantz. Next year, Trump may be voted out of office, and pressure from Washington to deal creatively on Palestine would increase. To move forward, a car does not need a foot on the accelerator. It inches forward when you take your foot off the brake. For now, it will be enough to get Netanyahu out of the driver’s seat.

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Wanting to See Like Robert Frank

September 11, 2019 | News | No Comments

The photographer Robert Frank died on Monday, on Cape Breton Island, in Nova Scotia. He was ninety-four. Frank’s pictures were spontaneous and imperfect—usually grainy and overexposed, often crooked—yet consistently devastating to behold. I bought his best-known book, “The Americans,” when I was sixteen, in part because Jack Kerouac had written the introduction, and I was young enough to still be thoroughly and guilelessly enraptured by Kerouac’s beautiful, ecstatic ideas about personal freedom. Frank shot the book in 1955 and 1956, after receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship, which allowed him to crisscross the country in a Ford Business Coupe, with his 35-mm. Leica camera and hundreds of rolls of film. He was always looking—peering in and out of windows, ducking around corners, lingering off to the side of the action. There is something furtive and nearly supernatural about his photographs. It often feels as if his pictures aren’t of vistas or faces or rooms, but of secret American feelings. “He sucked a sad poem right out of America onto film, taking rank among the tragic poets of the world,” Kerouac wrote.

The whole thing turned me upside down. Frank’s images weren’t exclusively solemn, but a person could nonetheless get lost in them, trying to figure out what was going on. “The Americans” contains a photo called “Bar, Las Vegas, Nevada.” A man of indeterminate age stands at a jukebox. He is wearing bell-bottoms and a richly patterned shirt, but his stance is vaguely melancholy, and his eyes are either narrowed or altogether closed. He might be very tired. The bar is empty—a heavy kind of empty—and sunlight comes in through a round window in the door. The lighting feels so obscene. The smell of disinfectant is implied. An empty bar in the morning, a jukebox. Even now, it is hard for me not to feel that room in every part of my body.

Frank was born in Switzerland in 1924, and emigrated to New York City in 1947, when he was twenty-three. He got a job as a fashion photographer at Harper’s Bazaar, and, in 1955, seven of his photographs were featured in the Museum of Modern Art’s famed exhibition “The Family of Man,”which later toured around the world. After “The Americans” was published, Popular Photography magazine called him “a joyless man who hates the country of his adoption.” Frank was critical of the ways in which class divisions and racial intolerance had gutted the American landscape, and disdainful of the goofy, soulless optimism of the nineteen-fifties, which was itself such a cruel rebuke to people who were suffering—but it seems plain to me that he loved the characters and places that he photographed, and that he made pictures of them because they contained such vast multitudes of meaning. America is glorious and bleak, lonely and kind, a million things at once—to suggest otherwise might be to misunderstand the place and its potential entirely.

In 1959, Frank made a twenty-eight-minute experimental film called “Pull My Daisy.” It was narrated by Kerouac, and featured Allen Ginsberg, Mary Frank, Gregory Corso, David Amram, and others. The film was set in a loft on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and it (sort of) tells the story of a dinner party gone wrong. The piece was rehearsed but nonetheless seemed improvised, which of course reflected something pure about the Beat ethos—its countercultural yearnings, its self-consciousness. In the early seventies, Frank made a documentary about the Rolling Stones titled “Cocksucker Blues.” The band didn’t like the film (it featured drugs and sex, and not the wholesome kind), and its lawyers promptly delivered a restraining order, severely restricting its distribution. “Cocksucker Blues” eventually began to circulate as a wobbly bootleg videotape, passed among fans like a mystical talisman. That’s how I first saw it. It’s an ugly and revelatory film, the sort of thing you might leave behind for someone you once had a crush on, with a joint and a cryptic note. Frank wasn’t interested in pat or moralistic stories. Embracing his work meant that you, too, could abide a certain amount of ambiguity. Good, bad, who knows—it could all be beautiful.

When I was in graduate school, I thought for a while about writing a book on Frank and his work—sending an earnest letter to Nova Scotia, where he had settled, and maybe cajoling him into talking with me. I was trying to learn how to write nonfiction, and I was grasping about for a point of view—a singular way of seeing and synthesizing the world, which I believed was what might eventually make me useful to a reader. So much of the work of nonfiction writing—and this is equally true of documentary photography—is figuring out where to look. To scan a room and find the poem. I felt reasonably sure that I could stack words and sentences and paragraphs in a legible order, but the other, more difficult work of really seeing things, of being awake in a particular way, seemed so mysterious and hard-won. What was beauty, and how could I ever learn to hold it in my hands, much less pass it on? Frank knew—I was sure of it. It was so obvious in his photographs.

Eventually, I chickened out. But there were enough lessons in his pictures.

Michel Salgado has revealed the role he was forced to adopt in the Spanish capital when England internationals arrived from Man Utd and Liverpool

Real Madrid legend Michel Salgado has revealed that he had to “babysit” David Beckham and Steve McManaman following their moves to Spain from Manchester United and Liverpool.

A former England captain made a switch to the Santiago Bernabeu from Old Trafford in the summer of 2003.

Beckham arrived in Spain amid much fanfare and would go on to enjoy four productive years with Real.

He did not always find things easy, though, with his homesickness and desire to fill any spare time leaving the wife of a helpful team-mate “p*ssed off”.

Salgado, who spent a decade on Madrid’s books, told the League of Legends show: “I was the one to babysit David Beckham. 

“I did it a lot. It’s because I was the only to speak English. 

“But it was great with Beckham.

“He was alone in Madrid because his wife was travelling a lot, living in LA and England. So he would call me every day, saying ‘let’s go out’. 

“And my wife was really p*ssed off with the situation – but it was a great time.”

Prior to helping Beckham adjust to life in the Spanish capital, Salgado had done likewise with another Englishman.

McManaman arrived in Madrid from Liverpool in the same summer of 2009 as a man reluctantly charged with the task of aiding his settling in period.

Salgado added: “I remember in my first day at Real Madrid pre-season.

“At that time, we were sharing rooms – and they said ‘you’re sharing with the English guy, Steven McManaman’.

“So I was like ‘oh my god, why’. They said ‘because you’re the only one who speaks English’. 

“But in the end, it was great. 

“I was the one to babysit the English guys.”

McManaman spent four seasons with Real, winning two La Liga titles and a pair of Champions League crowns.

Beckham, meanwhile, ended his stay in Spain with a league triumph, with an iconic figure taking the decision to head for MLS side the LA Galaxy in 2007.

Both Englishmen are fondly remembered at the Bernabeu, with both having contributed significantly to the collective cause and made a lasting impression.

The finals of the inaugural competition are set to kick off in the next couple of days, and here’s how you can catch all the action

The UEFA Nations League Finals will be underway on June 5 and June 6, contested by the four group winners of the Nations League Group A. The mini-tournament will consist of two semi-finals, a third place play-off, and the final to determine the inaugural champions of the UEFA Nations League.

This year, Portugal will face off against Switzerland at Estadio do Dragao in Porto and Netherlands are to battle it out against England at Estadio D. Afonso Henrique, Guimaraes.

Both the final and third-place play-off will be played on June 9. If the scores are level at the end of normal time, 30 minutes of extra time is played followed by a possible penalty shootout.

Below are the UK channels for the two games… 



Newly-crowned European champions such as Jordan Henderson and Trent Alexander-Arnold will face off against their Liverpool team-mates Virgil van Dijk and Georginio Wijnaldum in the second semi-final, and could be set to lift another piece of silverware in just a matter of days following their Champions League victory.

England captain Harry Kane and UCL final runner-up with Tottenham is set to captain the Three Lions following an extended injury layoff that caused him to miss a chunk of the end of the season.

Portugal vs Switzerland will be televised in the UK on Sky Sports Main Event on June 5 at 7:45pm BST. Subscribers to Sky Go will also be able to watch the game on the website.

BBC Radio 5 Live Extra will be airing coverage of the match on radio. A live text commentary of Portugal vs Switzerland can followed on Goal here.



Juventus star Cristiano Ronaldo, meanwhile, has been called up to the Portugal squad to face Switzerland.

Netherlands vs England will be televised in the UK on Sky Sports Main Event on June 6 at 7:45pm BST. Subscribers to Sky Go will also be able to watch the game on the website.

BBC Radio 5 Live Extra will be airing coverage of the match on radio. A live text commentary of Netherlands vs England can followed on Goal here.

The 59-year-old’s assistant Marcus Sorg will lead the national squad in two European Championship qualifiers next month

Germany coach Joachim Low will miss the upcoming Euro 2020 qualifiers against Belarus and Estonia after he was injured in a “sporting accident”.

The German Football Federation (DFB) confirmed Low’s treatment is proceeding well, but the 59-year-old has been advised by doctors to rest for the next month.

Low will be replaced by his assistant Marcus Sorg and goalkeeping coach Andreas Kopke for the trip to Borisov on June 8 and subsequent visit of Estonia three days later.

Nevertheless, Low plans to remain in contact with them and team manager Oliver Bierhoff around the fixtures.

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“I’m feeling well again, but I have to relax a bit over the next four weeks,” Low said in the DFB’s statement.

“I’m in constant contact with my coaching team, and we’ll be in close contact with each other around the two matches.

“Marcus Sorg, Andy Kopke and Oliver Bierhoff have a lot of experience and together we will bridge this short break. “

Bierhoff remains confident everything will run smoothly despite Low’s absence, and that all decisions will be discussed with him.

He added: “The most important thing is that Jogi will be fit in a couple of days, and even though you know he would like to be at the training ground it is right for him to relax.

“Marcus Sorg and Andy Kopke know the procedures and the team very well, they discuss everything closely with Jogi anyway.”

Germany began their Group C campaign with a 3-2 win away to Netherlands in March, as they set out to eradicate the underwhelming 2018 World Cup campaign from their memories.

Northern Ireland lead the pool heading into the next round of fixtures, having won both of their first two matches.

The Stoke City midfielder says two very talented adversaries will do battle having earned their places in the tournament final

Bojan Krkic says he expects Saturday’s Champions League final between Liverpool and Tottenham to be a “great show” between two incredible teams.

The Spanish midfielder has seen plenty of both sides in recent years, having joined Stoke City in 2014, with loans to Mainz and Alaves mixed in.

Liverpool booked their spot in the finale by topping one of Bojan’s former clubs, Barcelona, coming back in stunning fashion to secure a 4-0 victory in the second leg following a 3-0 first-leg defeat.

The Reds also narrowly fell short of Premier League glory, finishing just behind Manchester City in what many have seen as one of the best title races in league history.

And, fresh off last season’s Champions League finale defeat to Real Madrid, Liverpool are more than deserving of a spot in the final once again, Bojan says, thanks to the work of Jurgen Klopp, a coach he sees as one of the best in the game.

“The final of the Champions League between representatives of the Premier League will measure two rivals with very strong characteristics. For me, what makes Liverpool special is that they are a team that works very well on the lines, very compact, in which everyone attacks and defends,” Bojan told Goal.

“In addition to that, they have a lot of variety: the midfield has hardworking players, with quality and speed, who give many alternatives to the players at the attack, who at the same time protect the defense very well. These virtues make them very competitive.

“Tactically it is run by one of the best coaches in football today, Jurgen Klopp. So it’s going to be a game where Liverpool is going to put a lot of intensity, wanting to take advantage of the spaces that Tottenham can leave, especially working as a team, which is how it has done throughout this season, with such good results.”

Spurs, meanwhile, booked their spot in the finale by topping Ajax in similarly shocking fashion with a 3-2 win behind a Lucas Moura hat-trick in the second leg.

Mauricio Pochettino’s side were in the thick of the Premier League fight for part of the season, and ended up finishing fourth in the league despite an injury to Harry Kane.

With Kane set to rejoin Christian Eriksen and Son Heung-min for the finale, Bojan says Spurs are a worthy adversary that should create quite a spectacle in the Champions League final.

“For its part, one of the keys of Tottenham is that it has players who know each other very well for two or three years. They have not made changes and are managed by the same coach, Mauricio Pochettino. Therefore, they perfectly apply the idea of ​​team and style of play,” Bojan said.

“In the squad there are players of a high level and quality, as is the case of Christian Eriksen, who brings a lot of work in the midfield, especially in strategy plays, and who offers several options in playmaking roles. And in the attack they have one of the most fit players this year at European level, from my point of view: Son Heung-min.

“It is a very well-worked team. Pochettino is a manager with a lot of character, so Tottenham applies it in the field. That’s why they have eliminated big clubs like Manchester City or Ajax. It is a rival that surely will cause Liverpool problems in strategy actions and second plays. Without a doubt, we will see a great show. “

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The Colombia attacker can add goals to any team, so why are two of Europe’s biggest clubs not interested in having him in their squads?

There is no doubting James Rodriguez’s ability in front of goal. The Colombia international won the Golden Boot at the 2014 World Cup, with then-Uruguay boss Oscar Tabarez listing him among football’s great attackers: “From what I have seen, he is the best player in the World Cup. Diego Maradona, Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and James Rodriguez – they do things because they have a certain gift which makes them special.”

Every time Rodriguez is on the ball, there is the potential for something special. When he is on the field, his team are likely to score more goals. This was the case with Bayern Munich in 2018-19. They played 20 Bundesliga games with Rodriguez on the field, scoring 53 goals for an average of 2.7 goals per game. In the 14 games without him, they averaged 2.5 goals per game as they netted 35 times. If you want to score goals, having Rodriguez on the pitch increases your chances.

But if you want to win, it’s best to leave him on the bench. Bayern Munich conceded 1.1 goals per game with him and 0.8 without him, with their winning percentage also increasing from 70 per cent to 71.4 per cent when he wasn’t playing. He is a brilliant attacker, but like many players who have been gifted with technical ability throughout history, he needs to be accommodated in a team. Bayern head coach Niko Kovac put aside personal differences to start Rodriguez regularly in the second half of the season, especially when the Bavarians were the favourites, but in the crucial game with Borussia Dortmund, he left the 27 year old on the bench. Instead, a hard-working unit smashed Dortmund 5-0 and set themselves on the path to the title.

Rodriguez is seen as selfish by many around Munich and it is because of this that the club have chosen not to exercise the €42 million (£36m/$47m) purchase clause in his loan from Real Madrid. Kovac is planning for next season without him and their relationship has been strained ever since the Colombian called out the Croatian early in the season saying “This isn’t Frankfurt” in a barb about Kovac’s former club.

Bayern legend Lothar Matthaus has backed Kovac all season and was proved correct when the club bounced back from their Champions League exit to win another domestic double. Matthaus was unhappy with Rodriguez going against his coach and hit out at his arrogance.

“There are too many one-man-companies at Bayern,” Matthaus told Blick . “Too many players who only think of themselves. Players like James and [Robert] Lewandowski put themselves above the club; [Arjen] Robben and [Franck] Ribery, too. The first whines that he’s not playing enough; the other that he doesn’t get enough balls, and the third one curses when he’s subbed or goes crying to the journalists. Some stars act egotistically and disrespectfully towards the coach, club, and team-mates.”

Rodriguez’s face doesn’t fit at Kovac’s new Bayern, but a return to Real Madrid also seems unlikely. The attacker’s relationship with Madrid boss Zinedine Zidane is also not a warm one, with the French manager having to repeatedly deny a rift between the two. “I’ve never had any problem with James, despite what the media might say,” Zidane told reporters following Rodriguez’s departure to Munich. 

Too much time on the sidelines at Madrid prompted Rodriguez to force the loan move to Munich, but neither club provide a route to first-team football next season. Four-time Bundesliga champion Stefan Effenberg advised Rodriguez to look for a new team in 2019-20, believing he is unlikely to get game time in Munich or Madrid.

“If he looks at his personal situation in a reasonable manner, James must realise that the right thing for him to do is to leave the club,” Effenberg wrote in his column for T-Online . “He has to play and have fun kicking the ball. If he is only allowed to play seven, 10, 12 or 15 minutes, he is lost. In the Bundesliga this season, he has only played 90 minutes three times – that’s not enough. As such, he cannot stay with Bayern. Even at Real Madrid he will find it difficult to get the playing time that matches his talent. Maybe he has to go somewhere completely new. Either way, he has to leave Bayern.”

One option that has been regularly rumoured is a move to Serie A. There he could be re-united with former Bayern boss Carlo Ancelotti at Napoli, who is a big admirer of the attacker claiming “he knows how to open up defences for strikers with that killer pass.”

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However, a concrete offer from Napoli or any other club has yet to materialise, meaning that Rodriguez finds himself in a type of limbo as his future is uncertain. “In June, we will see,” he told Cadena Ser just a few months ago. “I have everything in Madrid: a house, people who love me… I don’t know, let’s see what happens.”

The people who love him may be in Madrid, but one of those isn’t Zidane. Even for all Real’s love of Galacticos and attacking football, there is no room for Rodriguez. Bayern’s bosses want Kovac to provide more entertaining football, but it has been confirmed that he has no room for Rodriguez. 

A lot of clubs would have been interested in Rodriguez, but they may find themselves reconsidering their position. If Real and Bayern aren’t interested, then that puts a huge ‘buyer beware’ sign up for anyone else in the running.

The Liverpool defender is expected to be in the running for a prestigious award and a fellow Netherlands international believes he can claim top prize

Virgil van Dijk is capable of becoming the first defender since Fabio Cannavaro to win the Ballon d’Or, claims Netherlands international team-mate Ryan Babel.

The Liverpool centre-half has just completed a memorable 2018-19 campaign.

He ended on a low, with a Nations League final defeat to Portugal, but can reflect fondly on the season just gone.

Van Dijk helped Liverpool to challenge for the Premier League title, pushing Manchester City all the way, before landing Champions League glory in Madrid.

The 27-year-old then captained his country to a major final and is considered to have taken his game to even greater heights on the back of a record-breaking £75 million ($95m) move to Anfield in January 2018.

Plaudits continue to rain down on him and the general consensus is that the reigning PFA Player of the Year has many more accolades to come.

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It could be that he challenges Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi for the 2019 Ballon d’Or, with no defender having claimed the prize since Italy’s World Cup-winning skipper Cannavaro.

Former Liverpool winger Babel told Sky Sports of a countryman’s claims to that award: “The last time I remember a defender winning the Ballon d’Or, it was Cannavaro in 2006. So it’s not impossible.

“I think it is fair that he would at least be on the shortlist.

“We will see in the end if he wins it or not. I would be very happy for him [if he does].”

While Van Dijk enjoyed a standout season for Liverpool, he may struggle to prevent Messi from claiming a sixth Ballon d’Or of his remarkable career.

The mercurial Argentine recorded 51 goals for Barcelona in just 50 appearances, helping them to another La Liga title, and Reds legend Jamie Carragher believes the iconic South American remains the man to beat.

He has told Sky Sports: “I’d be thinking Messi to be honest – very rarely you see a centre-back get that.

“I think that Cannavaro got it on the back of winning the World Cup in 2006. I don’t think his game has changed too much over the season.

“He’s obviously had a great season but I think you’ve got to win big things and I think that Champions League has put that stamp on him being one of the world’s best.”

The highly-rated Argentine coach has already spent eight years in charge of the Liga giants, but they hope that there will be many more to come

Diego Simeone has been urged to become “the Alex Ferguson of Atletico Madrid” by club president Enrique Cerezo.

The Argentine tactician has already spent eight years in the Spanish capital.

A crowd pleaser from two years with Atletico in his playing days, Simeone was taken back to familiar surroundings in 2011.

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He has been a revelation in a demanding role that proved too big for many before him.

Under his guidance, Atletico have tasted La Liga title glory and reached two Champions League finals.

They are a force to be reckoned with at home and abroad, with Simeone’s side splitting Clasico foes Barcelona and Real Madrid once again in 2018-19 with a runner-up finish.

He penned a contract extension in February which is intended to keep him in his current post until at least 2022.

Cerezo is delighted with that agreement, but hopes there will be more to come as Simeone seeks to emulate the likes of former Manchester United boss Ferguson – who spent 27 years at Old Trafford.

“Cholo sets the standard here and he has given this club so much stability, he has always considered himself a member of this family and has always felt comfortable,” Cerezo told Onda Cero.

“It will be many more years before he leaves here.

“I hope that Simeone can be the Ferguson of Atletico Madrid.”

The man at the helm is not the only high-profile figure that Cerezo is hoping to see stick around at Wanda Metropolitano.

Atletico are already resigned to losing Diego Godin and Juanfran at the end of their respective contracts, while Antoine Griezmann has requested a move elsewhere.

Speculation has also suggested that Diego Costa could be moved on.

The fiery frontman took in another eventful campaign in 2018-19, which included injuries and a lengthy ban for insulting a match official.

It has been reported that Atletico are losing patience with the 30-year-old frontman, who contributed just four goals to the cause last season.

Cerezo is, however, looking for the Spain international to say on, adding: “He has not had a great season but I hope he will continue with us.”

Costa could form part of Atletico’s striking crop in 2019-20, with loan star Alvaro Morata also hoping to be back for more as he seeks a permanent move away from an unhappy spell at Chelsea.