News

Who: Barcelona vs. Villareal
What: Spain’s La Liga
Where: Estadio de la Ceramica in Villareal, Spain
When: Sunday, December 21, at 4:15pm (15:15 GMT)
How to follow: We’ll have all the build-up on Al Jazeera Sport from 1215 GMT in advance of our text commentary stream. Click here to follow our live coverage.

Throughout the majority of La Liga, Villarreal has quietly launched a potential dark horse title campaign.

When the “Yellow Submarine” host Barcelona on Sunday, it will now have a chance to make it official.

A game that could open the Spanish top flight is examined by Al Jazeera Sport.

What form has Villareal played this season in La Liga?

The third-place team under the guidance of Marcelino Garcia Toral is eight points ahead of Real Madrid and eight points ahead of Barcelona. Its position could be even stronger because it has only two games to play against the powerhouses.

Villarreal lost to a lower-division team this week and has disappointed in the Champions League. However, La Liga is a different game. Only two of Villarreal’s six games have ended in defeat at Madrid and Atletico Madrid.

In addition to being unbeaten in eight home games while capturing all but one of those league matches, Marcelino’s men have also transformed their La Ceramica stadium into a fortress.

What form has Barcelona taken this year in La Liga?

With 13 goals allowed in 17 games, the league’s top defense will square off against Villarreal’s strongest attack. In that span, Barcelona scored 49 goals, 15 more than Real’s closest rivals, and more than made up for a sometimes shaky defense by outscoring its opponents.

Barcelona will look to end 2025 on a high note this weekend and overshadow any challenges presented by Villarreal.

A struggling Madrid side would also be put under more pressure if they won the league for the eighth time in a row, under Lamine Yamal and company.

Before the two-week winter break, Madrid will need a convincing victory to face Sevilla on Saturday.

What transpired during Villareal’s most recent game?

Villareal lost to second-tier Racing de Santander on Wednesday, adding insult to injury from their struggles outside of La Liga this season.

Their most recent La Liga game was against Girona on December 6 with a score of 2-0 at home. Between those two matches, Villareal also lost to Copenhagen in the Champions League 3-2 at home.

What transpired during Barcelona’s most recent game?

Late in the match, Andreas Christensen and Marcus Rashford scored to give Barcelona a close-fought 2-0 victory over third-place Guadalajara on Tuesday.

The Catalans were also held to a maximum by Osasuna in their previous La Liga game, where Raphinha scored twice late in the game to earn a 2-0 victory.

What is the formula behind Villareal’s La Liga success?

Villarreal’s success is based on a team effort that included several goal-scorers and playmakers. However, Alberto Moleiro, a left-winger, excels. He leads Villarreal with six league goals in his debut season with the team. Santi Comesana, a midfielder, and Tajon Buchanan each scored five goals.

What difficulties does Barcelona face in its La Liga defense?

Since Alejandro Balde was sidelined for the duration of the season, Barcelona coach Hansi Flick has so far been able to fill the position with a left-back centre-back.

As Flick searches for a replacement for Inigo Martnez, who left for Saudi Arabia earlier in the year, in the middle of the defensive line, Martin has five starts in a row. Villarreal’s attack may put a strain on Martin.

What became of La Liga’s intention to play Villareal-Barcelona in Miami?

Before La Liga’s international expansion plans fell under heavy criticism, forcing the cancellation of what would have been the first European league game to be played abroad, the Sunday showdown was originally intended for Miami.

What transpired during Villareal’s most recent game against Barcelona?

In their final encounter in May, Villareal defeated Barcelona 3-2 to claim the league title, despite the home side having already won it five days prior.

After only four minutes, Ayoze Perez gave the away side a 2-0 lead, but before the break, Yamal and Fermin Lopez turned the tables on Barca. However, Villallareal were not finished until Tajon Buchanan scored the winning goal in the final ten minutes with Santi Comesana leveling in the 50th minute.

What transpired last season in the same match between Villareal and Barcelona?

Barcelona ran amok at Villareal in the first meeting between the two last year, which ended in a 5-1 drubbing.

Both Pedro Torre’s strike and Robert Lewandowski’s netted braces. Perez also had a goal in this game for the home team, but it ended up being a consolation.

Head-to-head

With Barcelona winning 33 of the matches and Villarreal winning 11 of the matches, the teams have met in their 55th meeting.

Villareal have won both of their previous two matches at Barcelona, but the Catalan club has the same record as Villareal in both of their previous two encounters.

News from the Villareal team

As veterans Gerard Moreno and Dani Parejo resumed training on Tuesday and should be ready to face Barcelona, Villarreal&nbsp, experienced a timely boost.

Senegal and Pape Gueye are traveling to the Africa Cup of Nations, respectively.

Thomas Partey, Gerard Moreno, Willy Kambwala, and Santiago Mourino must all demonstrate their fitness before the game while Pau Cabanes is a certain injury absentee.

news from the Barcelona team

Ronald Araujo is expected to miss the game for personal reasons, while Dani Olmo and Gavi are both injured.

Due to a calf strain, Pedri was a major doubt for the match on Friday during his absence from training.

Villareal lineup that is anticipated

Luiz Junior, Navarro, Foyth, Veiga, Cardona, Buchanan, Comesana, Parejo, Moleiro, Perez, Mikautadze, and others

Barcelona lineup anticipated

The visa lottery program that allowed the suspect in the Brown University shooting entry into the United States has been suspended by President Donald Trump’s administration.

According to the US government, the lottery awards approximately 50 000 immigrant visas annually.

Trump has long opposed the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, also known as the DV Program. His secretary of homeland security, Kristi Noem, revealed on Friday that he had instructed her to immediately stop the lottery.

She also identified the suspect as Portuguese national Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, who won a green card and a permanent residency certificate in 2017 by lottery.

Noem wrote in a statement on social media that “this vile person should never have been allowed in our country.”

I’m directing USCIS [US Citizenship and Immigration Services] to halt the DV1 program immediately to prevent further Americans from being harmed by this disastrous program, according to President Trump.

campaign to end the visa lottery

Trump has not attempted to end the diversity visa lottery before with Friday’s announcement.

Trump has long sought to constrict immigration paths for citizens, and he has used crime as a pretext.

In response to an attack in New York City where a truck struck a crowd of people, killing eight, Noem herself remarked that Trump “fought” to end the diversity visa lottery in 2017.

Trump, who was then in his first term as president, demanded from Congress to “end the visa lottery system” during a graduation ceremony held for the FBI in December 2017.

They are in the lottery, they claim. You decide who to pick. Do you believe that our nation has the best people there is? Trump responded, “no”.

What kind of system, exactly? They enter via lottery. They treat us like we are their worst enemies.

In 1990, the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program was established to ensure that underrepresented countries’ applicants had access to the US immigration system.

Immigration rights advocates have long argued that those without a spouse, a relative, or some other type of sponsor in the country have limited access to permanent residency.

By providing an alternative route to residency, the visa lottery addresses that need.

Although the lottery system randomly chooses visa recipients, critics contend that even successful applicants must still go through a rigorous screening process after the lottery.

The American Immigration Council claims that the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program used to accept 55, 000 applicants annually but that number was dropped to its current level in 2000.

Identified suspect

Following a nationwide manhunt, Neves Valente, a physics researcher, was found dead in a storage unit in New Hampshire, and Friday made the decision to immediately suspend the lottery.

Gunfire erupted on the Providence, Rhode Island campus of Brown University on December 13 to start the search.

The exam season had just begun and the school’s fall semester was coming to an end. Two students were reportedly killed and nine others were hurt when a suspect who was covered in black stormed into the Barus and Holley physics lab while they were taking their end-of-course exams.

The suspect managed to escape on foot without being noticed because the physics lab was close to the campus’ edge.

Authorities claimed they quickly detained a person of interest before releasing them without charges, leading to a number of false starts during the manhunt.

Then, on November 15, law enforcement announced that Nuno Loureiro, a plasma physics expert, had been found dead at his home after receiving numerous gunshot wounds.

Loureiro, a Portuguese immigrant, previously held positions of authority professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a prestigious academic institution.

As the manhunt raged on, it became increasingly difficult to find out whether the two shooting incidents were related.

However, on Thursday night, authorities announced that they had discovered Neves Valente dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound and that they thought he was to blame for both attacks.

Neves Valente had previously been Loureiro’s classmate in Portugal and had previously completed his degree.

Revocations of visas

Following a string of scandalous attacks, the Trump administration has a track record of terminating immigration programs and revoking visas.

As part of Trump’s crackdown on crime in the capital, two West Virginia National Guard members were shot on November 26 while on patrol in Washington, DC.

Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who had previously collaborated with allies during the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, was the suspect in that case.

Sarah Beckstrom, a 20-year-old member of the National Guard, ultimately passed away from her injuries.

Despite the outcry from human rights and veteran groups, Trump responded to the incident by saying he would stop all requests for visas and asylum from Afghan nationals.

The Republican leader added that “all third-world nations” would be subject to a “permanent pause” for immigrants entering.

In response to the shooting, Trump’s administration increased the list of restrictions to 20 more nations and tightened entry for 19 of the country it had labeled “high risk” in June.

Following the shootings, Trump has also taken specific actions to deport people from their immigration status.

The Trump administration announced it would yank visas from six foreign nationals who had posted hateful remarks or memes about the attack after Charlie Kirk was killed in September. They were from nations as diverse as Argentina, Brazil, Germany, and Paraguay.

The decision, according to free-speech advocates, was a clear violation of the US Constitution’s First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of expression.

However, the Trump administration has threatened to kick foreign nationals out of their homes on numerous occasions because of their divergent political views.

The US State Department wrote in response that “aliens who take advantage of America’s hospitality while celebrating the assassination of our citizens will be removed.”

A 22-year-old Utah resident named Tyler James Robinson is the suspect in the Kirk shooting.