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2023-12-18 11:32:00
Dec 18, 2023, 6:32 AM ET

The matches for the next round of the Champions League are ready, highlights Inter vs Atlético de Madrid

This Monday the matches for the Round of 16 matches of the UEFA Champions League were defined.

Barcelona advanced as leader of Group H with 12 points, the result of four wins and two losses, the last once morest Antwerp in Belgium.

Napoli was second in Group C with 10 points following adding three wins, one draw and two losses.

Arsenal dominated Group B with four wins, one draw and one loss to finish with 13 points, while Porto advanced to second place in Group H despite being level on points with Barcelona.

The matches for the Round of 16 in the UEFA Champions League have been decided. ESPN Illustration

Real Sociedad was the surprise leader of Group D with 12 points following finishing undefeated with three wins and three draws, while PSG secured its ticket until the last day to advance in second place in Group F with 8 points.

In the most attractive duel – on paper – of the Round of 16, Atlético de Madrid, undefeated leader of Group E with 14 points following four wins and two draws, collides with Inter – also undefeated – who passed as second in Group D with three wins and three draws.

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Borussia Dortmund, surprise leader of Group F (11 points with three wins, two draws and one loss) meets PSV Eindhoven, second in Group B with nine points.

The German giant Bayern Munich (five wins and one draw) looks like the clear favorite in its duel with Lazio, second in Group E with 10 points.

The defending champion Manchester City advanced with a perfect record (18 points following six wins) and faces Copenhagen, which surprised in Group A as second place, leaving Galatasaray and Manchester United on the way.

Finally, Real Madrid, which also qualified with a perfect record of six wins for 18 points as leader of Group C, will have a tough test once morest Leipzig, second in Group G with 12 points.

The first legs will be played on February 13, 14, 20 and 21, 2024, while the return matches will be on March 5, 6, 12 and 13.

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2023-12-18 12:56:08

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2023-12-18 11:27:35

Yann Sommer will have the most difficult task among the Swiss trio entered in the round of 16 of the Champions League. Inter Milan will, in fact, challenge Atlético de Madrid.

It will be very difficult to choose a favorite between these two teams who defend to perfection. This season, however, the Milanese have demonstrated constant rigor as demonstrated by the eleven clean sheets achieved by Yann Sommer in Serie A.

Title holders, Manuel Akanji and Manchester City will face FC Copenhagen, the “executioner” of Manchester United. As for Gregor Kobel and Borussia Dortmund, the move will be perfectly playable once morest PSV Eindhoven.

Paris Saint-Germain varnished

Paris Saint-Germain was not shunned by fate. The French avoided a shock once morest a tenor with a duel once morest Real Sociedad. The best poster of these round of 16 will pit Napoli once morest FC Barcelona.

ats/pc

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#Champions #League #Yann #Sommer #Inter #Milan #Atlético #rts.ch

2023-12-18 12:01:14

Paris (AFP) – “Persevere and not let yourself be determined by your family or social environment”: this is the motto of Baye-Dam Cissé, alias Rakajoo, 37, a fierce self-taught boxer and painter, to whom the Palais de Tokyo, in Paris, dedicates a first solo exhibition.

Published on: 12/18/2023 – 1:01 p.m. Modified on: 12/18/2023 – 12:58 p.m.

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Around ten colorful, figurative and allegorical canvases, with a confident style, mix characters and urban living spaces, integrating animated images. They sit alongside boards from his first comic book “Entre les cordons”, to be published by Casterman, and portraits, including that of his mother, who died in 2019.

A “temporal and geographical life journey, in which everyone must be able to find their own references”, explains to AFP this thirty-year-old born in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), who encountered a number of obstacles .

His nickname, Rakajoo, mule head in Wolof (Senegalese language), “suits him well” because “everything is accessible to those who really want it”, he says in a calm voice at Boxing Beats, a boxing club in Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis) where he trains daily for the French English boxing championships.

Discovered “by chance”, it became his “temple of the spirit”, with “the Sacré-Coeur, the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay” where he went “for free” as a teenager to “liberate his spirit “.

At 9 years old, Rakajoo, who draws “all the time”, landed with her mother, her brother and her sister in a “24 m2” accommodation in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, following an expulsion from Seine-Saint-Denis.

Often outside, he goes “to see the painters of Montmartre and the museums, is passionate regarding painting”, but he is also “very angry” and does not “understand” why his family lives in these conditions, “with drug addicts in the stairwell and (his) mother who sends all her money to the country,” he remembers.

“Black French”

In 3rd year, he wanted to move towards applied arts, he was advised to “draw electronic circuits”. After a “technological baccalaureate”, he still encountered refusals. Going to art school is “too expensive”.

“I refused to submit to the choices of others so I took charge of myself,” continues the man whom those close to him describe as “curious”, “perfectionist” and “incredibly perseverant”.

At Boxing Beats, he “channeled (his) anger” and “learned to discipline (himself) by going to the end of things”.

French painter and boxer Baye-Dam Cissé, aka Rakajoo, in his boxing club in Aubervilliers in Seine-Saint-Denis, December 14, 2023 © JOEL SAGET / AFP

It was his “mentor and trainer”, Saïd Bennajem (who was Sarah Ourahmoune, silver medalist at the Rio Olympics in 2016), who gave him his very first painting commission in 2007: a fresco on boxing for the room. “I was able to project myself beyond the ring by spreading out on the walls”, a space dominated by red and black, where his portrait of the icon Mohamed Ali stands out.

This project, financed by the Arnaud Lagardère foundation, propelled him into the world of work: the animated film then a start-up of mobile game applications that he founded but in which he did not recognize himself.

At the same time, determined to persevere in painting, he reconnected with Senegal, the country of his ancestors but where he was considered “like a white guy, with his ass between two chairs”. In Paris, he regrets, where he organizes exhibitions with a collective, “Black French, neither African from Africa, nor Afro-American, (he) does not fit into the boxes of the art world either institutional”.

Kourtrajmé, Ladj Ly and JR

His salvation will come from the Kourtrajmé school (short film in verlan), founded by the director Ladj Ly in Montfermeil (Seine-Saint-Denis), where he joins the “art and images” section created by the street artist JR.

This quick and free training aimed at young talents who have not had access to higher education schools gives rise to “the essential thing: a feeling of belonging to a collective history”, he says.

French painter and boxer Baye-Dam Cissé, aka Rakajoo, at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, December 14, 2023 © JOEL SAGET / AFP

Exhibited with the school at the Palais de Tokyo, where he painted on “police violence”, he was spotted by gallery owner Magda Danysz, a leading figure in contemporary and urban art, who offered to represent him.

Today, Rakajoo says she makes a living from her art and has found “balance”.

He dreams of founding in Senegal “a sanctuary with animals, which is also a protected educational space”.

© 2023 AFP

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