To miss a major final because of a ban can leave a deep ache on a professional footballer.
Potential compensations that might be offered to the seven players banned from Saturday's Champions League showdown between Bayern Munich and Chelsea are few, but Luis Gustavo, Holger Badstuber, David Alaba, John Terry, Ramires, Raul Meireles and Branislav Ivanovic could take some solace from history.
Those who miss out on big showpieces tend to work long and hard to ensure they have another chance.
Famously, AC Milan's Alessandro Costacurta suffered suspensions from both the 1994 Champions League final and, for Italy, the final of the World Cup in the same year.
He was 28 then but, remarkably, would pick up two more European Cup winners medals, the first nine years after he was confined to the stands, the last as a squad member at the age of 41.
Pavel Nedved, banned from the 2003 final for Juventus, motored on for years and years into his later 30s, though never quenched the thirst for 90 minutes on club football's most prestigious stage.
What drives Didier Drogba to maintain his competitive fire well into his 35th year, to discover in himself these last few months a Peter Pan elixir, to defy what are supposed to be the effects of age? Perhaps it is a sense of unfinished business.
Drogba missed out of the climax of a Champions League, and in painful, rather shameful circumstances.
He was not banned from the start of Chelsea's 2008 Moscow European Cup final against Manchester United, but red-carded during it, so that he watched the conclusion from the dressing-room.
Drogba had been sent off in extra-time and was thus prevented from offering his expertise in the subsequent penalty shoot-out that Chelsea lost. He had let his side down.
Bayern's Franck Ribery did no service to his colleagues in 2010, either.
His rash, brutal tackle on Lyon's Lisandro Lopez in the Champions League semi-final that year earned a red card and a stiff suspension, meaning he was not in Madrid for the defeat against Inter Milan in the final. Bayern missed Ribery, and his absence bred in him a yearning for redemption.
"It will be extra satisfaction for me this time, after missing out before," he told the German magazine Kicker.
Ribery has a hotheaded streak. During the first leg of this season's semi-final against Real Madrid, he is reported to have landed a blow against his own colleague, Arjen Robben, in the dressing-room after an argument about who should take a free kick.
He would not be the first colleague Robben has irritated, but - as Bayern said, without explaining the nature of the row - he apologised to all his teammates afterwards.
Semi-finals heighten tensions, as Drogba would acknowledge. Back in 2009, the Ivorian lost his cool vividly as he harangued the referee after the end of a semi-final won on away goals by Barcelona. It earned him a four-match Uefa ban.
Drogba has a notoriety in this competition. No player in Champions League history has received more red cards in it.
Few Chelsea players have more often expressed, in a red mist, the club's accumulated frustrations with the tournament, with all their several semi-final exits, the so-near-yet-so-far memory of Moscow.
Were Drogba not in such domineering form, not so clearly the standout potential match winner for Chelsea, his temperament might be held against him when the final selection of the XI is made.
But there can be no dilemmas of that sort from Roberto Di Matteo, Chelsea's interim manager.
Drogba has been so plainly the figurehead of his club's unlikely march to Munich that nobody will be making a case for picking Fernando Torres, the striker who cost £50 million (Dh293m), ahead of him, although Torres may get to line up alongside.
A Drogba goal helped Chelsea win the FA Cup; a Drogba goal set them on their way to the remarkable victory over Barcelona in the European semi-finals; in the quarter-finals, Drogba scored in the stirring comeback that put Chelsea through at the expense of Napoli, who had held a two-goal lead over the London club.
And this was supposed to be his farewell season, when he faded out, a representative of the so-called Chelsea "Old Guard".
Logically enough, Chelsea have been planning a future, post-Drogba, a new era in which Torres became the totemic centre-forward, the emblem of a new style, a less muscular approach to games.
But the evidence of the last month or so - and for most of Torres's troubled 15 months since Chelsea paid the mammoth fee for him - is that this is not a squad ready to make that evolution.
Colleagues find it hard to credit that Drogba is 34.
"His body is a machine," said Frank Lampard. "He has lost none of his pace, or his finishing instincts. There is no one else with the bulldozer thing he has, and with the sublime touch."
It may be that Drogba's Indian summer is to be expected. He was a late starter in senior football, a comparative rarity in that he drifted under the radar of scouts until his 20s, playing and striving in lower leagues in France.
By the time he was 24, he was a name only in provincial, lower-tier French football.
At 19, by contrast, Torres was already captain of Atletico Madrid. Although Torres is only 28, the two men have accumulated more or less the same volume of top-flight wear and tear. Ribery, outstanding in Bayern's progress to the final, is another with a background that is not typical among elite players.
He was not hot-housed through youth academies - he was let go by Lille in his native France - and, like Drogba, was into his 20s before he played his first top-division match as a professional, for Metz.
He did a stint in Turkey before one of France's heavyweight clubs, Marseille, recruited him.
He did not have a conventional career path.
Nor did Drogba, who spent his childhood moving between Ivory Coast and France.
Sometimes, in players like Drogba and Ribery, the dividends of learning the game outside the scholarly atmosphere of a modern, professionalised youth structure can be perceived.
These are two footballers with distinct styles, Drogba's highly physical, Robery's feathery, but both with something of the street in them, and both with a urge to make up for past absences.
sports@thenational.ae
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Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
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Specs
Engine: Electric motor generating 54.2kWh (Cooper SE and Aceman SE), 64.6kW (Countryman All4 SE)
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The biog
Favourite films: Casablanca and Lawrence of Arabia
Favourite books: Start with Why by Simon Sinek and Good to be Great by Jim Collins
Favourite dish: Grilled fish
Inspiration: Sheikh Zayed's visionary leadership taught me to embrace new challenges.
Thank You for Banking with Us
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How to report a beggar
Abu Dhabi – Call 999 or 8002626 (Aman Service)
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The biog
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Dubai Bling season three
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
German intelligence warnings
- 2002: "Hezbollah supporters feared becoming a target of security services because of the effects of [9/11] ... discussions on Hezbollah policy moved from mosques into smaller circles in private homes." Supporters in Germany: 800
- 2013: "Financial and logistical support from Germany for Hezbollah in Lebanon supports the armed struggle against Israel ... Hezbollah supporters in Germany hold back from actions that would gain publicity." Supporters in Germany: 950
- 2023: "It must be reckoned with that Hezbollah will continue to plan terrorist actions outside the Middle East against Israel or Israeli interests." Supporters in Germany: 1,250
Source: Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution
Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
Uefa Nations League: How it works
The Uefa Nations League, introduced last year, has reached its final stage, to be played over five days in northern Portugal. The format of its closing tournament is compact, spread over two semi-finals, with the first, Portugal versus Switzerland in Porto on Wednesday evening, and the second, England against the Netherlands, in Guimaraes, on Thursday.
The winners of each semi will then meet at Porto’s Dragao stadium on Sunday, with the losing semi-finalists contesting a third-place play-off in Guimaraes earlier that day.
Qualifying for the final stage was via League A of the inaugural Nations League, in which the top 12 European countries according to Uefa's co-efficient seeding system were divided into four groups, the teams playing each other twice between September and November. Portugal, who finished above Italy and Poland, successfully bid to host the finals.
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