
Barcelona set to return to Camp Nou in August
Barcelona is set to make a return to the Camp Nou in August after two years of reconstruction work, the club announced on Wednesday.
The return will take place on August 10, during the traditional season-opening Joan Gamper Trophy. However, the club noted that the event will happen while construction work continues in various areas of the stadium.
'Remaining works include the completion of the new third tier, the dual VIP ring, the roof installation, and the final touches to various interior spaces, as well as the urban development of the stadium's surrounding area,' Barcelona said in a statement.
ALSO READ | Ronaldo's Saudi club Al Nassr without a coach as Pioli leaves
Barcelona has played in the city's Olympic Stadium for two years, winning the La Liga this season, during the massive overhaul to create a 105,000-capacity home that would be the biggest football stadium in Europe.
The stadium is also a potential candidate to stage the 2030 World Cup final which Spain will co-host with Portugal and Morocco.
(With inputs from AP)
Related Topics
Barcelona

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Hindustan Times
21 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
Matt Freese, having displaced Matt Turner as US goalkeeper, not yet looking toward World Cup
Having displaced Matt Turner as the starting U.S. goalkeeper for the CONCACAF Gold Cup, Matt Freese isn't contemplating starting the Americans' World Cup opener next June. HT Image 'It's not at the forefront of my mind,' he said Wednesday. 'What I'm focused on is each new game is another opportunity, and we have a big game coming up this weekend that we're focused on.' Going into Sunday's CONCACAF Gold Cup quarterfinal against Costa Rica, the 26-year-old Freese had started all three group stage matches. 'It's a tournament that provides the opportunity to have this goalkeeper fighting for a position with Matt Turner in the future, but to check that out he needs to play," U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino said after the tournament-opening win over Trinidad and Tobago. 'We already know that Matt Turner can handle the pressure in a Gold Cup and in a World Cup. His quality is not in question. But after a hard year without play, I thought it was important for him to provide leadership from bench, always ready to play.' American goalkeeping hasn't been this worrisome since the 1980s. Tony Meola , Kasey Keller , Brad Friedel and Tim Howard all gained renown, but Turner and Zack Steffen failed to get regular top tier playing time in Europe after leaving Major League Soccer. Turner who turned 31 Tuesday, became the No. 1 U.S. goalkeeper ahead of the 2022 World Cup and had started 14 consecutive competitive matches for the U.S. and 23 of 24 before the Gold Cup. Freese attended a joint senior/under-23 U.S. training camp in January 2021, then didn't return to the national team until January 2025. He made his U.S. debut in a 2-1 friendly loss to Turkey on June 7, sat while Turner started in a 4-0 exhibition loss to Switzerland three days later and then was in goal for three Gold Cup wins: 5-0 over T&T, 1-0 against Saudi Arabia and 2-1 over Haiti. Freese's mis-hit of a clearing attempt led to Haiti's tying goal. 'Remember, the most important action is the next one,' Pochettino recalled telling him. 'If you think in the last one like that, you're going to do another mistake. This type of accident happened, and it will happen it the future.' A son of a Harvard college and medical school graduate, Freese attended The Episcopal Academy in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, enrolled at Harvard and was second-team All-Ivy as a sophomore in 2018. Freese viewed Howard as a role model. 'The natural raw athleticism that he has is something that I feel a little bit related to,' Freese said. Freese left Harvard to sign a homegrown player contract with Major League Soccer's Philadelphia Union that December. He earned his economics degree in 2022 from Harvard, where his father was a graduate of the college and medical school. Among Turner's senior projects were a Theoretical Economic Analysis of Rising Major League Soccer Franchise Valuations and a Cost-Benefit Analysis of Hosting the Olympics. He joined the U.S. Soccer Federation's board of directors in March as an athlete representative. At Philadelphia, Freese appeared in just 13 league matches from 2019-22 as a backup to Andre Blake. He was traded to New York City in January 2023, took over as starting goalkeeper from Luis Barraza that May 31 and has held the job since. His path to become the U.S. starter opened when Columbus' Patrick Schulte injured an oblique during pregame warmups on May 24 and Steffen hurt his right knee during training with the U.S. team on June 3. Turner has had little playing time in the last year, making just three appearances for Crystal Palace, the last in the FA Cup on March 1. 'Every inch, every opportunity needs to be fought for and every opportunity that I've had under this current staff I've earned by my performances within training and the opportunities that I had this past season with Crystal Palace,' Turner said ahead of the Turkey match. Freese, Turner and Chicago's Chris Brady are the remaining goalkeepers in camp. Freese was excited to learn he was starting the first June friendly and then the Gold Cup opener. He said Pochettino told him: 'Just be yourself. That's all you need to do. We're putting you in there for a reason.' 'Mauricio does a really good job relating to the players and having personal conversations that lead to soccer conversations,' Freese said. 'It starts out very friendly and then goes into instruction and his plan for you, so it was kind of a natural conversation, nothing too structured.' Freese's relationship with Turner could be seen from afar as a rivalry 'I don't know about friends or competitors. We're teammates, and that's the important thing here," Freese said. "Whoever's playing will have the other's full support. It's my job to push him in training. It's his job to push me in training and then when game time comes the guy who's playing has the full support of the other.' soccer: /hub/soccer This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.


Hindustan Times
3 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
Red Sox pitcher Kutter Crawford's off-field 'accident' requires season-ending wrist surgery
ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Kutter Crawford had an off-field 'accident' that requires season-ending surgery on his right throwing wrist, Red Sox manager Alex Cora said on Wednesday, adding that the 29-year-old wasn't doing anything 'irresponsible.' HT Image 'It hasn't been a great year for him,' Cora said. 'It (stinks) that it happened this way, but it's just an accident.' Crawford has been sidelined all season by a right-knee injury that he initially suffered in his third game of 2024, a season in which he went 9-6 with a 4.36 ERA in 33 starts, tied for the most starts in the American League. 'It (stinks) because we were talking about how deep we were in spring training, and the options that we had in the rotation,' Cora said before the series finale against the Los Angeles Angels. 'And now it's getting thinner and thinner.' Crawford was one of baseball's most durable pitchers in 2024 despite pitching most of the season with patellar-tendon discomfort, leading the Red Sox with 183 ⅔ innings pitched and 175 strikeouts, but he also gave up a major league-high 34 homers. Crawford hoped to recover with a full winter of rest and rehabilitation, but he suffered a setback during the offseason and was unable to pitch in spring training. He was placed on the 60-day injured list in March. Cora also said that third baseman Alex Bregman, who has been out since May 23 because of a quadriceps injury, probably won't return until after the All-Star break. Bregman, who was batting .299 with a .938 OPS, 11 homers, 17 doubles, 35 RBIs and 32 runs in 51 games when he suffered the injury, has been running but has not resumed baseball activities. ___ AP MLB:

The Hindu
4 hours ago
- The Hindu
Spain to try Malaga's Qatari ex-president for running of club
A Spanish court has sent Qatari royal Sheikh Abdullah Al-Thani and three of his sons to trial for alleged offences committed during his management of former La Liga club Malaga, legal sources said on Wednesday. Ex-club president Al-Thani, a distant relative of Qatar's ruling family, and his children are accused of misappropriation, unfair administration and imposing abusive agreements, according to a Malaga court document dated Monday. They theoretically face prison terms if convicted for their running of the current second-division side from Andalusia that ended in relegation and financial implosion. ALSO READ: Rubiales update: Spain's High Court upholds conviction but no prison sentence for ex-football chief Al-Thani bought Malaga in 2010 and launched the modest club into a spending spree that acquired stars including Santi Cazorla and former Real Madrid and Manchester United striker Ruud van Nistelrooy. The success was short-lived. After reaching the Champions League quarterfinals in 2013, Malaga went on to lose its stars and was relegated from La Liga in 2018 and fell to the third tier in 2023. The Covid-19 pandemic saw its finances sink into crisis, with the club placed under supervision by the Spanish tax authorities and presenting a collective redundancy plan. A court removed Al-Thani from his post as president in 2020 following a complaint submitted by a group of small club shareholders. Related Topics Malaga / La Liga