Lionel Messi looks downwards during the Spanish League football
match between FC Barcelona and CA Osasuna at the Camp Nou stadium
in Barcelona on July 16, 2020.LLUIS GENE / AFP
Lionel Messi might never have been faced with a more
daunting task at Barcelona than engineering a victory against
Bayern Munich in Lisbon on Friday.
The only surviving former winners of European club football’s
greatest prize — with five titles each — meet in a heavyweight
Champions League quarter-final behind closed doors at the Estadio
da Luz.
It is not often that Messi’s Barcelona come into such a big
European tie as the underdogs, but they have this time, with Quique
Setien’s team having lost out to Real Madrid in the Spanish title
race while Bayern appeared flawless on the way to winning a German
league and cup double.
Messi is now 33, yet Barcelona appear more reliant on him than
ever.
He scored twice against Bayern in the quarter-finals in 2009
when Barcelona went on to win the Champions League under Pep
Guardiola.
He hit four against Arsenal the following year and five against
Bayer Leverkusen in 2012 but on both occasions, Barca were
favourites.
Messi also sank Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabeu in 2011
when his double in the first leg of the semi-final, including one
of the finest goals the competition has ever seen, transcended a
rivalry that had been dragged to its ugliest point.
And he was part of perhaps the tournament’s greatest comeback,
the 6-1 destruction of Paris Saint-Germain in 2017 after Barcelona
lost 4-0 in the first leg of that last-16 tie.
Yet this time threatens to be different.
With Luis Suarez and Antoine Griezmann alongside him, Frenkie de
Jong and Sergio Busquets behind him and Jordi Alba out wide, Messi
should not be on his own.
Even in defense, Gerard Pique still has a claim to be the best
defender in La Liga, and Marc-Andre ter Stegen is among the most
impressive goalkeepers in the world.
“Bayern are playing really well and are full of confidence but
we have the weapons to beat them,” Griezmann told Barca TV.
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– Isolated Argentine – But the sense remains that Messi must
perform if Barcelona are to defeat Bayern, widely seen as the
favourites to lift the trophy on August 23, at the end of the
express knock-out tournament in Lisbon.
It will take something very special not only to lift his own
team out of the doldrums but also to neutralise an opponent that
many believe are the most complete side in Europe.
Barcelona therefore must first of all hope that Messi shows no
ill effects from the ankle knock he suffered in last weekend’s
last-16, second-leg win over Napoli — he has been back training
normally.
The Catalans should certainly wonder how it got to this point,
given they spent more than 500 million euros ($590m) over the last
three seasons, bringing in players that should have complemented,
not isolated, the Argentine.
The worry is that Bayern might not just beat Barcelona at the
Estadio da Luz, but humiliate them.
If they do, Setien is likely to pay with his job, even if he
only took over as coach in January, replacing Ernesto Valverde, who
was also unable to shake this current crop into life.
The alternative is a statement performance that vindicates
Setien, establishes him for next season and sends Barcelona into
the semi-finals with the kind of momentum that could even take them
all the way.
“We have to be optimistic, we are in good shape,” said Setien
after the Napoli game.
However, it would be a surprise to see Barcelona go on and lift
the trophy, and it seems unthinkable they could do it without an
intervention from Messi, who must be wondering too how the club
that won the treble five years ago have come to rely on him so
completely.
The challenge is not beyond Messi. But Barcelona must know he
deserves more.
-AFP
Read more https://swordpress.com.ng/2020/08/13/messis-toughest-task-as-barcelona-face-up-to-bayern-munich/
FEC approves Gender Action Plan on Climate
Change
Nigeria on Wednesday made history as the Federal Executive
Council (FEC) approved the first ever National Action Plan on
Gender and Climate Change as a road map to mainstream gender into
the Nationally Determined Contributions and incorporate gender
equality and women’s empowerment into Climate Change discourse and
actions.
Speaking after the FEC meeting, the Minister of Environment, Dr.
Muhammad Mahmood Abubakar said that, “the approval today reaffirmed
Nigeria’s commitments as a party to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement which
President Buhari signed to domesticate the International Gender
Action Plan among member countries to bolster the role of women in
climate action”.
The Action Plan, according to the Minister, presents milestones
for ensuring that in building a climate-resilient Nigeria, the
important and critical roles of women, youth and other vulnerable
groups are carried along in the implementation of relevant national
policies and strategies, including the NDC and the Paris
Agreement.
The priority sectors covered by the plan include Agriculture;
forestry and Land Use; Food Security and Health, Energy and
Transport; Waste Management, Water and Sanitation and covers the
period from 2020-2025 with a midterm review by 2022.
Speaking further, the Minister of State for the Environment,
Chief Sharon Ikeazor said that, “the Federal Ministry of
Environment, through the department of Climate Change, developed
the National Action Plan on Gender and Climate Change that focuses
on effective strategies for integrating gender into the
implementation of the national climate change initiatives,
including the Paris Agreement, the Nationally Determined
Contributions and the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) in
Nigeria”, she stated.
According to ikeazor, Women commonly face higher risks in
responding to natural hazards and greater burden from the impacts
of climate change.
“Although they have intimate local knowledge and are managers of
common natural resources, they are often left out of the picture
when decisions on climate action are made”, she stated.
It is pertinent to mention that Nigeria is one of the few
countries in Africa (including Mozambique, Egypt) that have
developed the Gender Action Plan since it was adopted by COP23 in
Bonn, Germany.
It is expected that the newly approved plan will pave way for
the effective implementation of gender-responsive climate change
initiatives based on an inclusive approach, taking into account the
needs, interests and vulnerabilities of women, men, and youth from
the conceptual phase, through to program design, implementation,
monitoring and evaluation.
Ikeazor applauds the support of Women Environmental Programme
(WEP) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) who led
the process of developing the action plan; Climate Change
Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), the International Livestock
Research Institute (ILRI) and the Global Alliance for Green and
Gender Action (GAGGA) for their technical and financial support.
(END)
Saghir el Mohammed
Director Press
Federal Ministry of Environment