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Being a professional footballer’s younger sibling can be challenging at times, especially when your brother is one of the world’s best players.

Kylian, who is eight years his senior, has a brother named Ethan Mbappe, age 18, who is also older. To try to escape from it is a significant shadow.

Both players were at Paris St.Germain at the same time, but Ethan’s contract was not renewed when Kylian made the decision to leave the French giants and join Real Madrid last summer.

Since Ethan plays midfield, he is unlikely to outshine his brother in that regard because goals are often the focus of attention.

However, the youngster is regarded as possessing a promising talent.

He appeared to be able to handle the expectation that came with being an Mbappe, which was praised as he emerged from the PSG youth system.

Former Caen youth recruitment head Laurent Glaize spent three years following a young Kylian and becoming close to the Mbappe family at the time.

He claimed that Ethan in 2022 was a balanced, well-educated child who was respectful despite his obvious shadowy brother, which was difficult for him.

But I think he is sassy and genuine. He manages this pressure quite effectively, in my opinion. Because he is still very young, he doesn’t make up any mistakes when he is in the game, even though he is already being asked for autographs more for his name than what he has done.

Ethan impressed the PSG coaches with his football intelligence, calmness on the ball, and passing prowess, and made his league debut as a 16-year-old substitute in a 3-1 victory over Metz, where Kylian had scored two goals.

After that game, PSG boss Luis Enrique declared, “Ethan is a very interesting player who can play in a number of positions.

He will certainly play once more, I assure you. It’s difficult for him to live up to his prestigious surname.

Before leaving PSG at the end of his contract last summer, he made five appearances overall, despite some unrest.

In a previous interview, Kylian claimed that Ethan’s decision to leave PSG was related to his decision to join Real Madrid, and that he would prefer to stay with the French giants if it meant his brother also received a new deal.

Kylian said, “It’s the thing that affected me the most.

He [Ethan] didn’t request anything. PSG was his Real Madrid. His childhood dream, or what Real meant to me, was PSG.

I even said to him at one point, “If you want me to extend [my contract] and you can stay, we’ll stay here. I would have preferred to remain with Madrid if I had desired him.

Due to injuries, Ethan’s first season at Lille was hampered by his limited ability to face his brother in a Champions League game in September.

After being excluded from that game, Ethan said on social media that his dream of facing my brother in the Champions League was “far off, but it hasn’t vanished.”

Ethan made just a few first-team appearances last year, but he now has a chance to become one.

Injuries-time volley in Lille’s 2-1 victory over Toulouse has already marked a significant milestone for him, who scored his first goal earlier this month.

Ethan is still a member of the first team despite making two more league appearances despite having dropped to sixth following that dramatic winner.

Eddie Howe’s voice sounded sluggish.

The Newcastle United head coach said last week, “I can remember walking around the training ground when we first arrived.” “It was…”

After his appointment nearly four years ago, Howe was not just suddenly becoming irritable, but rather reflecting on the work that needed to be done to rejuvenate the club’s worn-out Benton base.

A Saudi-led consortium had recently purchased Newcastle in a £305 million deal, which the human rights movement opposed.

The club had been dubbed the richest in the world by outsiders, but the reality on the ground was rather different as they battled relegation.

The training facility was even described as “significantly below the Premier League and perhaps even Championship standards” in a planning application filed a few months later.

The team has since been truly transformed, with the addition of hydrotherapy and plunge pools, a new canteen, a players’ lounge, and bigger dressing rooms, among other things.

It was spotted by Matt Ritchie.

He knew what could happen if Howe “got hold of them” and “had some firepower”, after previously working with the manager at Bournemouth.

The 36-year-old winger, who played for Newcastle between 2016 and 2024 and is currently a member of Reading, said, “When I first arrived, I would talk about Eddie Howe and Bournemouth.

“He can’t have been that good,” the boys would say. But I’d tell them there was no stone left unturned.

I was pleased that they had the opportunity to try it. You don’t really believe you’ve never worked like that before until you actually experience it and feel it. It’s the attention to detail, the preparation and the desire to improve – all the things that make Newcastle what they are now. “

Naturally, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing since Howe’s appointment or the takeover a few weeks ago.

During a sluggish summer, Newcastle, which is currently 15th in the Premier League, missed out on a number of targets and traded striker Alexander Isak to Liverpool for a record sum of £125 million.

The club do not have a sporting director after Paul Mitchell left in June, following less than a year in the post.

And it’s still awaited news of plans to build a brand-new, state-of-the-art training facility and the future of St. James’ Park.

However, this team won the Carabao Cup by beating Liverpool in a 70-year drought to bring back a significant domestic trophy in March.

They have qualified for the Champions League in two of the past three seasons – recording their biggest win in the competition against Union Saint-Gilloise this week – and only Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal have picked up more points in the Premier League since Howe took charge.

“The general vibe of the club has changed a lot,” added Howe. The team has obviously changed. Naturally, teams progress and change over time.

“The way we operate as a football club behind the scenes is completely different, but there have been significant improvements,” says one player. That is what the club required and still requires.

Newcastle have also grown off the field.

When the club’s most recent accounts are released later this year, revenue will increase from £140 million to upwards of £400 million, and staff numbers will increase to 550 in recent years.

The academy and the women’s team have received significant funding, and hundreds of millions have been put into the club to cover operating expenses.

But one question outsiders might be asking is why the wealth of their Saudi owners hasn’t produced greater success.

Although there have been some new signings recently, as Charlotte Robson noted, this has been a comparatively gradual increase, as supporters have noted.

On paper, many people assumed the new owners would buy the way to the top because the new owners were so wealthy, according to BBC Sport’s Newcastle fan writer.

” Yes, Newcastle have brought in some excellent internationals like Bruno Guimaraes and Sandro Tonali, but the development of existing squad players and the signing of players like Dan Burn from the region to bolster that feeling around the club has been massive and really important. “

Finding a way to add headroom will be of utmost importance for Newcastle because profit and sustainability rules (PSR) restrict losses to £105 million over a rolling three-year period have influenced this approach.

For context, Manchester United may have had their worst campaign in more than 40 years last year, but the team still made record profits of £666.5 million.

Digging deeper, Manchester United brought in £333.3m worth of commercial income and £160.3m in matchday revenue.

Manchester United have not necessarily made the most of their huge income streams, of course.

However, in the Premier League, the teams that spend more money historically average the most points per game.

Prior to the 2013 introduction of the current regulations, rivals like Manchester City and Chelsea were able to blow their own money out of the water with better packages.

But Newcastle ‘ only ‘ had the eighth highest salary bill in the Premier League just a couple of seasons ago and the club came mightily close to a PSR breach in June 2024 following years of imbalanced trading.

Football finance expert Kieran Maguire said, “I’m not necessarily sure these are unintended consequences of the rules.” The top clubs didn’t want another City or Chelsea to emerge, according to the more machiavellian interpretation of the Premier League. This is a way of creating a glass ceiling. “

Newcastle will have to make some adjustments, which have been made since the takeover.

In response to a rumored executive’s concern that Newcastle might negotiate lucrative sponsorship deals with Saudi Arabian businesses, an unnamed executive has already spoken to the Premier League on behalf of his club and ten others.

He requested that notice was given of a vote to introduce a short-term ban on related-party transactions just five days after the buy-out in 2021.

The APT regulations have been updated and remain in place.

However, David Hopkinson, the club’s new CEO, has been looking for ways to unlock its “under-realised commercial potential.”

Close friend Tom Pistore, who worked for the Canadian at Maple Leaf Sports &amp, Entertainment, has not come as a surprise to him.

” Our group under his leadership were always trying to focus on how do we continue to evolve? “He said,” he said. It was about staying creative in business and partnership relationships, innovation, digital, and ticketing because the status quo keeps you stuck.

“As the landscape changed, David was always very forward facing with a curious interest in new concepts. When someone takes their first stab at something and then conducts a proper evaluation, we frequently discussed the terms bleeding edge and bleeding edge.

Newcastle is “among the world’s elite,” according to Hopkinson, who previously held the positions of president and chief operating officer at Madison Square Garden Sports and head of global partnerships at Real Madrid.

That remains the long-term ambition of chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) – who own a majority stake in the club – as well as fellow owner Jamie Reuben.

After a record 345 people were executed in Saudi Arabia last year, Felix Jakens, Amnesty International UK’s head of campaigns, said “goals and glory distract from executions and repression.”

He continued, “This was never just about football.” “It’s about using the global prestige of the Premier League to sanitise a brutal human rights record”.

Chi Onwurah, the first Newcastle Central MP to acknowledge that she “wouldn’t choose Saudi Arabia to own the club.”

She emphasized that supporters were the “last people who had the freedom to choose.”

“When you make it all about money, which the Premier League have, those with the most money will end up winning the great clubs like Newcastle United”, she said.

After eviscribing Magomed Ankalaev at UFC 320 in Las Vegas, Alex Pereira was only able to win the light-heavyweight title in a minute and 22 seconds.

Seven months prior to the Brazilian’s unanimous decision to defeat the Russian at UFC 313, he won.

Pereira, 38, wasted no time by connecting with a massive right hook after suffering a devastating defeat in March.

Before referee Herb Dean stopped the fight after a number of violent elbows to the head, the 33-year-old was stunned by the two-division champion’s striking right.

“Vengeance is never a good thing,” says the saying. No one believed what I said to everyone last time that I wasn’t in a good position, but tonight you saw it, Pereira said after winning.

I saw it in the first fight, so it didn’t surprise me. I don’t like to make excuses, but that night I wasn’t well.

Ankalaev was hoping to get his 13th win in a row, but only two of his seven notable strikes were successful for 25 of Pereira’s 37.

Pereira has quickly grown to become one of the promotion’s biggest stars, winning two division titles in just seven fights, a record-breaking feat since making his UFC debut in 2021.

Pereira moved up to light-heavyweight after claiming gold in his three fights in 2024, earning him the title of UFC fighter of the year along with Ilia Topuria.

Pereira had to put up his biggest test in the first fight against Ankalaev because the Russian had prevented the Brazilian from striking his massive strikes. However, Pereira did not have to worry the second time around, when he thudded the side of his opponent’s head head head head first.

Ankalaev ended the Brazilian’s three-year winning streak in the first encounter, but the former champion has now suffered a second defeat, his first since March 2018.

Pereira has plans to move up another weight class to heavyweight, according to UFC welterweight champion Dana White, despite reclaiming the light-heavyweight title he lost in March.

Pereira and his team informed White of his desire to switch to heavyweight before the rematch with Ankalaev. They claim to want to fight at heavyweight, but White advised that I put the focus on tonight first. We’ll see if there are any fights in this division.

“This guy has been a total stud.” He doesn’t care when he’s hurt, and he fights. He wants to advance to heavyweight and fight everyone. After tonight, there are many topics to discuss.

When asked what Pereira’s views on jumping two weight classes in the UFC were, White responded that “he was a middleweight; to jump up two weight classes in boxing is not like jumping up two weight classes.”

In the co-main event, Georgia’s Merab Dvalishvili won the bantamweight world title matchup unanimously over Cory Sandhagen from the USA.

The Georgian won 14 straight games, placing him third in UFC history with the longest win streak. Anderson Silva sits higher than Islam Makhachev and Kamaru Usman, respectively, at 15 years old.

The judges scored the fight 49-45 49-45 49-46 in favour of the champion.

I operate like a machine. I never stop improving. I put in a lot of effort. After the fight, Dvalishvili said, “I feel like I’m just beginning, I’m just starting and I keep learning.”

Dvalishvili, 34, had Sandhagen on the defense throughout the entirety of the fight.

In the opening round, Dvalishvili was not overawed and landed 23 of his 48 significant strikes, but a flurry of strikes from the Georgian made the situation worse when the game ended in the second round.