From cultural events, and culinary delights to outdoor adventures, here's a line-up of thrilling activities to make your weekend exciting
London — Contrasting weekend results have given Tuesday’s Champions League last 16 reunion between Manchester City and Barcelona at the Etihad Stadium a different allure to what might have been expected only days ago.
Manchester City’s Wilfried Bony, James Milner and Sergio Aguero during a training session on Monday. — Reuters
Barcelona, 4-1 aggregate victors when the teams met at this stage last year, had found scintillating form since a l-0 loss to David Moyes’s Real Sociedad on January 4, winning their next 11 games in all competitions. But that run came to a juddering and unexpected halt on Saturday when they lost 1-0 at home to Malaga in La Liga after a lacklustre performance completely out of keeping with recent displays.
Roughly 40 minutes after the final whistle sounded at Camp Nou, City set about constructing a 5-0 victory at home to Newcastle United that allowed them to cut Chelsea’s lead in the Premier League to five points. Following on from a 4-1 win at Stoke City, which had seen the English champions end a four-game winless run, the stylish victory, inspired by David Silva, provided further proof that their mid-winter slump has ended.
For City manager Manuel Pellegrini, it was a sign that his side are once again a “scoring team”, but for all the optimism the performance engendered, it will not erase memories of what happened the last time Barcelona crossed his path. Both games last season followed similar patterns, with Lionel Messi twice opening the scoring, Dani Alves twice adding a late goal, and City twice having a defender sent off — Martin Demichelis in the first leg and Pablo Zabaleta in the second. Demichelis’s dismissal at the Etihad, for a last-man foul on Messi that yielded a penalty from which the Argentine put Barcelona ahead, left Pellegrini apoplectic and he was given a two-game touchline ban by Uefa for accusing Swedish referee Jonas Eriksson of impartiality.
But while Vincent Kompany’s late goal in the return leg meant that City belatedly landed a blow on their opponents, there were few complaints about the aggregate scoreline. “It is important not to make the mistakes that we made last year,” said Pellegrini, whose club have never reached the quarter-finals. “In both those games we played with one player less. In the knockout stage you have to not concede goals, and with a player sent off it is very difficult. You have to think of the match as being 180 minutes, not 90.”
Now under the tutelage of Luis Enrique, Barcelona are much-changed, with the team configured to move the ball as quickly as possible to a devastating front three of Neymar, Luis Suarez and Messi, who has already scored 14 goals in 2015. When Barcelona have come unstuck this season, as against Malaga and Real Sociedad, it has tended to have been when teams have scored early against them and then defended en masse, but defender Gerard Pique believes City will not approach the tie so cautiously.
“It is one of the games of the year, the most important until now,” said the former Manchester United centre-back.
From cultural events, and culinary delights to outdoor adventures, here's a line-up of thrilling activities to make your weekend exciting
'The rom-com garnered $219 million worldwide after its premiere in December
The guitar will be auctioned on May 29 at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York
Fitness enthusiast Sarah Lindsay shares insights on what it takes to embark on a fitness journey and sustain it amidst a busy lifestyle
Such platforms help women to re-enter the workforce by equipping them with new-age skills, upskilling, polishing their interviewing skills and revamping their resumes
Official autism-friendly in-flight certification is in the works, possibly used by other airlines
Airlines cut more than half of their normal flight schedules at Paris's two main airports, with many flights in the southern city of Marseille also grounded
This success was underpinned by a robust 19% growth in total income