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Chargers’ Justin Herbert falls short to remain winless in postseason: ‘I let the team down’

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Chargers’ Justin Herbert falls short to remain winless in postseason: ‘I let the team down’

HOUSTON — Justin Herbert sat in a chair at his locker, motionless, hands on his knees, a blank stare on his face. It did not look like it, but he was listening.

Defensive lineman Morgan Fox was sitting on the floor to Herbert’s right. Fox was talking in a hushed tone to the Los Angeles Chargers quarterback.

“I just told him I’m proud of him,” Fox said. “No one else I’d rather go to war with. That he’s probably the best quarterback I’ve ever played with. He’s great. He’s incredibly talented. Just told him to keep his head up.”

After about a minute, Fox popped up, gave Herbert a hug and walked to his locker on the other side of the room.

Then Herbert was alone. Left with his own thoughts. Left with the irrepressible stinging of another early playoff exit.

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The Chargers lost to the Houston Texans 32-12 on Saturday at NRG Stadium. A dramatic turnaround engineered by coach Jim Harbaugh ended with a whimper in the wild-card round. Herbert threw four interceptions. He had never turned the ball over more than twice in any game in his professional career.

“I let the team down,” Herbert said.

GO DEEPER

Texans pick off Herbert 4 times in 32-12 wild-card blowout: Takeaways

Herbert always takes the blame after losses. Most times, he is just being a good teammate. This time, his assessment is accurate.

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He played the worst game of his career in the biggest game of his career.

“No one feels worse than I do,” Herbert said.

What awaits is an unavoidable avalanche of questions and criticism. It is the nature of the position he plays. It is the nature of the immense contract he signed.

He will hear the noise for at least another 12 months, until his next potential chance at a playoff win.

Herbert is outrageously talented. No quarterback in NFL history has thrown for more yards through five seasons. He does things on a football field that few humans, if any, have ever been able to do. But athletes are ultimately judged on how they perform when the lights are brightest, when a championship hangs in the balance. Herbert wilted on the grand stage, and he is now 0-2 in the playoffs.

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Herbert’s last postseason appearance came in 2022. He helped build a 27-0 lead over the Jacksonville Jaguars in the wild-card round. The Chargers collapsed. Herbert missed a wide-open Keenan Allen in the end zone late in the first half of that game. But Herbert played well enough for the Chargers to win. They could not run the ball in the second half. They committed backbreaking penalty after backbreaking penalty as part of a defensive unraveling.

Saturday was different. No amount of nuance or context can explain this one away. Herbert looked tight. He made uncharacteristically bad decisions. He made uncharacteristically inaccurate throws.

Herbert had thrown three interceptions on 504 attempts in the regular season. His four interceptions against the Texans came on 32 attempts. He completed just 14 passes. His 43.8 completion percentage was the worst of his career. He averaged minus-0.59 expected points added per dropback, according to TruMedia, the lowest mark of his career in any game he started and finished.

Harbaugh said Herbert played “like he always does.”

“Complete beast,” Harbaugh added.

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But that is just not true.

Early in the second quarter, the Chargers led 6-0. Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud floated a throw down the left sideline to no one in particular. Cornerback Deane Leonard was waiting and came down with the interception, tapping both toes inbounds along the sideline.

The Chargers took over at the Texans’ 40-yard line. On the first play of the possession, the Chargers rolled Herbert out to the right on a designed bootleg. There was pressure in Herbert’s face, as there was all game long. He threw off balance to receiver Quentin Johnston on a corner route, all the way across the field. It was an unnecessarily risky throw. It was underthrown. Texans cornerback Kamari Lassiter picked it off. The Chargers needed fewer than five yards to get into Cameron Dicker’s field goal range. This throw took points off the board.

“Got to be better about that, throw the ball away, throw it further,” Herbert said. “Got to do a better job of not putting it in harm’s way.”

The Chargers were on the right hash for this snap. Harbaugh said after the game that this play should have been called only if the Chargers were on the left hash, shortening the throw.

“I take accountability for that one,” Harbaugh said, even though it is offensive coordinator Greg Roman calling the plays.

Late in the third quarter, the Chargers took over at their 28-yard line, trailing 13-6. Herbert took the shotgun snap. He looked left at receiver Ladd McConkey, who ran a comeback route out of the slot. Herbert double-pumped. He did not fully reset his feet. And Herbert’s throw sailed high and through McConkey’s hands. Texans safety Eric Murray picked it off and returned it for a touchdown.

“That’s on me to make a better throw,” Herbert said.

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Herbert was intercepted again on the next drive, though this was not his fault. Will Dissly dropped a ball that was in his hands. It squirted through, and Texans cornerback Derek Stingley Jr. intercepted it.

Herbert threw a fourth interception late in garbage time. Receiver DJ Chark was open on a go route. Herbert did not put enough on the pass. Stingley, an All-Pro, came down with his second pick of the game.

“It’s on me as a quarterback to be able to deliver the ball,” Herbert said.

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The Chargers offense was given opportunity after opportunity through the first three quarters. The unit squandered every one.

Most of these were on Herbert, but not all of them. The Chargers were overmatched on the line of scrimmage. The Texans defensive line, including edge rushers Will Anderson Jr. and Danielle Hunter, dominated the game. Right tackle Joe Alt played one of his worst games of the season. Right guard Jamaree Salyer was bullied on multiple pass-blocking snaps. Herbert was running for his life or taking shots on many of his dropbacks.

“We can’t let Justin get hit that many times,” left guard Zion Johnson said.

But Herbert has weathered this kind of pressure before. He did it as recently as Week 16 against the Denver Broncos, when he was pressured on 54.1 percent of his dropbacks.

The Chargers were desperate for playmaking from their best playmaker. And Herbert fell disastrously short. He did not have a rushing attempt. The game was begging for a scramble to keep the Houston pass rush off balance.

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“He’s got to be able to finish a throwing motion,” Harbaugh said. “We didn’t put him in the position to do that enough.”

Herbert needs more weapons. McConkey caught nine passes for 197 yards and a touchdown. No other Chargers player caught more than two passes. That must be a focus for the organization this offseason. It has to add receivers and a tight end.

Dissly had a commendable season, but he had two crucial drops. The interception was his second drop. The first came on a second-and-19 in the first quarter. Safety Alohi Gilman had just forced a fumble on the Texans’ opening offensive play, setting the Chargers up in opposing territory.

Herbert escaped pressure and found Dissly near the left sideline. Dissly would have been close to first-down yardage. A catch would have at least made the ensuing third down more manageable. The Chargers settled for a field goal.

“We got to score,” said J.K. Dobbins, who had nine carries for 26 yards, including only one carry in the second half.

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There were other missed opportunities, in all three phases. The Texans trailed 6-0 late in the first half and faced a third-and-16, backed up inside their own 20. Stroud dropped the shotgun snap. The ball was loose. But Stroud was able to pick the ball up, escape to his right and find receiver Xavier Hutchinson for a 34-yard gain. That sparked a 99-yard touchdown drive, capped off by a Nico Collins touchdown reception. Collins had seven catches for 122 yards. Cornerback Kristian Fulton struggled to match up with the big-bodied receiver.

Safety Derwin James Jr. said the coverage was “a little off” on Stroud’s scoop-and-sling because of the fumbled snap.

“It kind of turned the game,” James said.

“It went his way,” Gilman said.

Early in the second half, the Chargers faced a fourth-and-2 from the Texans’ 34-yard line. They had gotten the ball back on another turnover, this one a forced fumble and recovery from safety Tony Jefferson. Harbaugh went for it. Herbert took an under-center snap and faked a handoff to running back Hassan Haskins. Johnston was running a whip route to the right side, feinting to the inside before cutting to the flat. Herbert threw to Johnston, who was jammed at the line by Stingley. The pass fell incomplete. Johnston did not run his route to the first-down marker.

Harbaugh said the design of the play called for Johnston “to be deeper.”

“Sometimes the release, the coverage affects that,” Harbaugh added. “I would have liked to have called a different play or kicked the field goal there.”

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It was a game littered with missed opportunities. The Chargers had a punt blocked and an extra point blocked on special teams. The extra point was returned for a Texans two-point conversion, turning a McConkey 86-yard touchdown into just a four-point swing.

The end result was Herbert missing the biggest opportunity of his career so far.

“He’s the best quarterback I’ve ever played with,” Alt said.

“Our heart beats through 10,” center Bradley Bozeman said. “He’s the leader of this team. He’s a damn good football player.”

Herbert is now following the early career trajectory of Peyton Manning, the player he passed for most passing yards through his first five seasons.

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Manning made the playoffs three times in his first five seasons. He went 0-3. In his fifth season, his Indianapolis Colts lost 41-0 to the New York Jets in the wild-card round. Manning completed 14 of 31 passes for 137 yards and two interceptions.

The next season, Manning won the MVP. The Colts won two playoff games and made it to the AFC Championship Game.

There is precedent for an ubertalented quarterback struggling early in his career before getting over the hump.

But just like Manning, Herbert will face questions and criticism.

Until he shows up.

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“I put the team in jeopardy,” Herbert said. “That’s on me to get better and keep pushing forward.”

(Photo: Brandon Sloter / Getty Images)

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Romance Books Like ‘Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy’ by Helen Fielding

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Romance Books Like ‘Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy’ by Helen Fielding

Good news for fans of everyone’s favorite hapless British diarist: Bridget Jones is back.

The wearer of short skirts, smoker of endless cigarettes and romancer of the playboy Daniel Cleaver and the stealth charmer Mark Darcy takes her fourth turn on the big screen in “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.” The movie, which premieres on Peacock on Feb. 13, finds Bridget as a widowed 51-year-old mother re-entering the bizarre world of dating.

The movies are based on a best-selling book series by Helen Fielding, and there are many things to love about Bridget in both formats: the cheeky reinterpretation of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” the zany British humor, the irrepressible heroine herself. If you’ve already torn through the originals and are craving more romance books with similar vibes, we’ve got some suggestions — whichever aspect of the Jonesiverse you’re craving.

This retelling of “Emma,” set on Long Island, retains all of the original’s charming banter and complex emotions. Humaira Mirza is a matchmaker with an impressive success rate, and when it comes time to find her own perfect man, Rizwan Ali ticks all her boxes. The only problem? Her longtime family friend and verbal sparring partner Fawad Sheikh disapproves, forcing Humaira to confront her own feelings about Fawad and how well he sees her, flaws and all.

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Liza Bennett, an activist and D.J., is determined to stop the developer Dorsey Fitzgerald from building expensive condos in her Washington, D.C., neighborhood. But when Liza’s protest spawns a viral meme that turns her life upside down, the foes find themselves turning to each other. Payne gives the hallmarks of “Pride and Prejudice” a modern spin: Dorsey is a Filipino adoptee who feels like a misfit, while Liza’s family, true to the original, causes her endless embarrassment. If you want your Austen with more spice, you’ll find plenty here!

Part of the Remixed Classics series, “Most Ardently” reimagines Elizabeth Bennett as Oliver, a closeted trans man who feels trapped by the unavoidable expectation that he will become someone’s wife. While sneaking out to explore the world as a gentleman, Oliver meets Darcy — who was rude to “Elizabeth” but is kind and charming to Oliver. The more Oliver experiences the world as himself, with Darcy by his side, the more he dreams of a future defined on his own terms.

Adam Elliot is having a rough time: His family lost their vineyard to foreclosure, and the new owner is the sister of Freddy Wentworth, the only man Adam has loved. When Freddy, now a world famous chef, returns to the town he hasn’t seen since Adam broke his heart, it is inevitable that the two men’s paths will cross. This modern, queer love story includes all the yearning, grief and heart-wrenching chemistry of Austen’s “Persuasion.”

Charlotte Albright, a highbrow and bookish lesbian, met the ebullient, working-class Millie Banks at the University of Oxford. They were instant best friends — until they weren’t. Ten years later, Charlotte returns to Oxford with a prestigious job and finds that Millie, who has since realized she’s bisexual, is as fascinating as ever and wants to reconnect. In this charming slow-burn love story, the women’s friendship is as important as their romance, and the development of both is magical.

Laurie Watkinson cannot escape her terrible breakup: It’s bad enough that she and her ex work at the same law firm but according to the office rumor mill, the new girlfriend he ditched her for is pregnant. The rumor mill also reports that Jamie Carter is a Lothario whose sordid reputation has kept him from being promoted. When Laurie and Jamie get trapped in an elevator, they hatch a fauxmance plan to change the narrative. But their fake relationship quickly starts to feel very real.

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The ambitious, exacting bed-and-breakfast owner Jacob Wayne relishes his high standards, so he rejects Eve Brown, chaos personified, when she interviews to be his new chef. But after Eve accidentally breaks his arm with her car (oops), she sticks around to help. Suddenly the unpredictable, impossible Eve is taking up way too much space in Jacob’s kitchen, in his spare room and in his head, and their opposition becomes a spicy and comedic attraction.

Quinn Oxford owns Kings and Queens, the only queer bookstore in Hay-on-Wye, Wales. But his stepfather owns the building and wants to evict him. Enter Noah Sage, a romance novelist with sour memories of Wye who finds himself trapped there after a snowstorm. Quinn and Noah’s connection leads to flirting, then kissing, then more. But Noah has no interest in staying in Wye, while Quinn is an integral part of the community. It’s a simple conflict on the surface, but beneath is a cozy and emotional holiday romance.

After 52-year-old Bernadine Brown divorces her cheating husband, she uses the settlement money to buy Henry Adams, Kan. — one of the last surviving towns founded by freed slaves — in an online auction. Henry Adams has become more familiar with foreclosures than opportunities, but Bernadine brings hope to the town’s residents — especially the handsome diner owner Malachi July. This is the first novel in an 11-book series, so there’s plenty more to explore.

When Leena Cotton is forced to take a two-month sabbatical from work, she retreats to her grandmother Eileen’s cottage in rural Yorkshire. Eileen, who is approaching 80, is lonely and would like another shot at romance, but the pickings in her village are slim. So Leena proposes a swap: Eileen will relocate to London to hunt silver foxes, while Leena decompresses in the countryside. The lessons they learn about being present and celebrating life as it comes yield a delightfully sweet happily ever after.

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Erin Bennett isn’t expecting anything beyond a night of fun when she connects with a sexy stranger at an off-campus bar, where she’s avoiding her ex-husband during their daughter’s college family weekend. But at breakfast the next morning, she’s stunned when her daughter brings along her friend Cassie Klein — a charming senior, and Erin’s hookup. The women tell themselves it’s wrong, but their spicy chemistry, and deeper connection, is irresistible.

Vivian Forest, a 54-year-old social worker, agrees to tag along on a once-in-a-lifetime vacation when her daughter, Maddie, is asked to style a member of the royal family. Left to her own devices while Maddie works, Vivian meets Malcolm Hudson, a private secretary to the queen who is enchanted by Vivian, rearranging his schedule to keep spending time with her. Their flirtation progresses into a holiday fling, tempered by a pragmatic awareness of its expiration date. But despite living thousands of miles apart, Vivian and Malcolm’s quiet determination to be together makes for a perfect confection of a romance.

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Champions League: Man City have Madrid mountain to climb, are PSG better minus Mbappe?

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Champions League: Man City have Madrid mountain to climb, are PSG better minus Mbappe?

Erling Haaland scored against Real Madrid for the first time in his career.

And then scored another.

But Manchester City still lost at home to the Champions League holders.

It will have felt all too familiar for Pep Guardiola and his team as they threw away a 2-1 lead with four minutes of normal time to play at the Etihad, being stung first by one of their former players, Brahim Diaz, and then the tireless Jude Bellingham, who steered the ball home from close range in added time.

Oh, and earlier in the game Kylian Mbappe had scored with his shin.

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Carlo Ancelotti’s side take a 3-2 advantage into the playoff second leg next Wednesday at the Bernabeu, with a place in the Champions League last 16 at stake.

Elsewhere in Europe’s elite club competition, a rocket from Weston McKennie helped Juventus beat PSV, Borussia Dortmund thrashed Sporting CP in Lisbon and Ousmane Dembele continued his ludicrous start to 2025 with two goals as Paris Saint-Germain beat Brest 3-0.

Elias Burke and Seb Stafford-Bloor analyse the key moments from all the Champions League action on Tuesday night…


Typical City… and typical Madrid?

In the battle between the Champions League’s perennial comeback kings Real Madrid, and City, who have made a habit of getting pegged back this season, it should come as no surprise it ended the way it did.

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The Briefing: Man City 2 Real Madrid 3 – Bellingham’s late, late winner and another City collapse

After an exceptional assist for Mbappe’s goal, Dani Ceballos went from hero to villain 20 minutes later, tripping Phil Foden just inside the box in the 80th minute. Haaland tucked away the resulting penalty, his 49th goal in 48 Champions League games.

Fortunately for Ceballos, two errors in quick succession from Ederson allowed Diaz, who has a Premier League medal with City from their centurion 2017-18 season, to level the scores at 2-2.

Then, after Vinicius Junior went through and lifted a shot/pass over Ederson’s head, Bellingham gambled to tap in a stoppage-time winner from close range to put Madrid 3-2 up ahead of the second leg in Spain.

For City, it was yet another disastrous late collapse after the Feyenoord and PSG debacles in the league phase. Now, they have given themselves a mountain to climb in overturning the deficit at the hardest place to win at in the Champions League.

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Are PSG actually better without Mbappe?

Few would have expected PSG to improve when Mbappe left for Real Madrid last summer. But, judging from their comfortable 3-0 win against Brest and impressive form in 2025, coach Luis Enrique appears to have found a harmony in Paris that he struggled to create when the France superstar was leading the line.

As it’s transpired, Ousmane Dembele, 27, once considered a talent so promising that Barcelona paid a fee rising to £135 million, reported by BBC, to sign him as a 20-year-old from Borussia Dortmund in 2017, has more than filled his shoes after an inspired tactical switch from the coach.

Since Enrique brought Dembele into the central striker role from the wings, the position he has fulfilled since emerging as a talented youngster, his goalscoring production has exploded — and his two goals against Brest were another example. His first demonstrated his confidence, dribbling into the box before whipping a left-footed effort into the near post. His second, a deflected finish with his right foot after reacting quicker to a loose ball than the Brest defenders, highlighted his anticipation as a goalscorer. Scoring with both feet is not an unfamiliar feat for Dembele, who famously does not know which is his stronger foot.

It was his third brace of the year to go along with two hat-tricks and 15 goals in total — already more than his entire tally in 2024. This switch has given PSG a fresh attacking verve and resulted in a more balanced unit.

Who knows, it might be enough to push the French champions from a side that was teetering above the elimination zone for much of the league phase to contenders for the trophy.


USMNT midfielder McKennie sprinkles some magic for Juventus

McKennie dedicated his celebration to Harry Potter but it was his wand of a right boot that provided the magic as he opened the scoring for Juventus against PSV.

With the USMNT midfielder lurking on the edge of PSV’s box, the ball broke in his direction, bouncing at a good height to strike. McKennie, who is no stranger to scoring spectacular goals, approached the ball at an angle, allowing him to shift his body weight to the left to get over the shot and control his effort while striking through it.

The result was an unstoppable blend of control and power. His shot flew past Walter Benitez in the PSV net, inches below the crossbar. It’s probably a good thing the ball missed him, too, as it would have taken him with it into the back of the net if he was in the way.

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McKennie, who is a huge Harry Potter fan, celebrated with an imitation of the “Expelliarmus” spell from the film and book franchise. He has a lightning bolt tattooed on his finger in tribute to the speedy Gryffindor seeker, and in 2023 he was pictured alongside Matthew Lewis, who plays Neville Longbottom in the films, posing with a USMNT shirt alongside Brenden Aaronson.

In December, club and national team-mate Timothy Weah joined in on the fun, celebrating together with the “Expelliarmus” after McKennie scored against City.


Rooney and Mbappe: masters of the shinned volley against Man City

Wayne Rooney’s brilliant overhead kick in Manchester United’s 2-1 win over City in 2011 will take some beating as the greatest shinned goal ever scored against City (and perhaps anyone), but Kylian Mbappe surely claimed the silver medal with his goal in the second half for Madrid.

Dani Ceballos, who was playing in his first Champions League knockout match for Real Madrid seven-and-a-half years after signing from Real Betis, played a perfectly weighted lofted pass in the danger area between City’s goalkeeper and defence, which Mbappe latched onto.

With an astoundingly similar technique to his second goal against Argentina in the 2022 World Cup final, Mbappe leapt and volleyed across the ball with his right foot while falling away to the left.

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While his effort in Qatar flew past Emi Martinez, the connection wasn’t so pure in this instance, the ball looping off his shin, over Ederson, and into the corner. 

Rooney, watching from pitchside at the Etihad while working for Amazon Prime, must surely have been impressed.


Why did it take four minutes to award Haaland’s first goal?

Premier League fans are now accustomed to seeing footage of VAR officials in Stockley Park drawing lines to determine whether a player was offside, but things operate differently in the Champions League — and Manchester City fans found out the hard way.

The Etihad Stadium erupted after Haaland put the home side ahead with a left-footed finish from close range after Josko Gvardiol played a chested pass in his direction. Three minutes and 50 seconds later, another cheer went up around the stadium as the Champions League’s semi-automated offside technology confirmed the goal.

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Gvardiol was visibly onside when the initial cross was played towards him, but he, and Haaland, had moved beyond the Madrid defence by the time the Croatian made contact. As long as Haaland was in line with or behind Gvardiol, he’d have been onside, but, as evidenced by the time it took for the technology to confirm, it was very tight.

As the name suggests, the technology eliminates the potential for human error, with the offside pictures taken from cameras in real time. It debuted in the Champions League in 2022-23 and was used at the 2022 World Cup. According to the Premier League, which has plans to bring in this technology this season, offside check delays should be reduced by 31 seconds.

In this case, however, the check took so long that Alan Shearer intimated the wait may have had some relation to Jack Grealish being replaced due to a non-impact injury 10 minutes later.

“It certainly doesn’t help when you’ve got elite athletes standing around for almost four minutes,” Shearer said on co-commentary during Amazon Prime’s UK coverage of the match. “It cannot help you, or your body. It’s not acceptable that players are having to wait around for that long.”

Judging by this incident those marginal calls will continue to take time. At least we got the right decision, eh?

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Who exactly is Serhou Guirassy? 

The Champions League has an unlikely top-scorer this season: Borussia Dortmund’s 28-year-old Guinean Serhou Guirassy. His tenth goal of the competition might have been his best; it was certainly the most important. An authoritative header that looped up and into the far corner, it settled a Dortmund team who, for much of the first half in Portugal, had had to withstand pressure.

That was vital, because Dortmund have endured a torrid season and are naturally fragile. They sit a distant 11th in the Bundesliga and are now coached by Niko Kovac, who was appointed to replaced the sacked Nuri Sahin two weeks ago.

This was Kovac’s first win. More importantly, it was a result (and performance) that Dortmund will feel they can build on in coming weeks — and that sense of a first step taken owes much to Guirassy.

He was signed from Stuttgart in the summer of 2024 after scoring 28 Bundesliga goals from 28 appearances last season. It was the first truly prolific top-flight season of his career, but at times the season he has laboured at the head of a team who do not create nearly enough chances. He can snatch at opportunities and drift out of games. So, while nine goals from 18 league appearances is hardly bad, it’s not quite what it could have been.

But Guirassy is an elegant, technical footballer rather than just a goalscorer. There were times in the first half when his languid skill on the ball seemed to reassure team-mates clearly short on confidence. And, having scored the goal which changed the entire complexion of the game — truly, an exemplary header — he created the second with a perfect cross for Pascal Gross, who kneed the ball in at the back-post to give Dortmund a 2-0 advantage on the night.

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Even before Karim Adeyemi had scored a third from a flowing counter attack to effectively finish the tie as a contest, Dortmund had started to play with a confidence and security that they have lacked for many months. Guirassy alone did not provide that. By full-time, this had become a commendable team performance. But goals so often change a side’s mood and that could not have been more the case for Kovac’s BVB than it was on Tuesday night.

There were plenty of individual contributions to that, but they followed Guirassy’s lead.

Seb Stafford-Bloor

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What happens next?

Champions League playoffs

Tuesday’s results

Brest 0 Paris Saint-Germain 3
Juventus 2 PSV Eindhoven 1
Manchester City 2 Real Madrid 3
Sporting CP 0 Borussia Dortmund 3

Wednesday’s fixtures
(8pm BST, 3pm ET unless stated)

Club Bruges v Atalanta (5.45pm BST, 12.45pm ET)
Celtic v Bayern Munich
Feyenoord v Milan
Monaco v Benfica

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The second legs will be played on February 18/19.

Eight teams will advance to the last 16, to join Liverpool, Barcelona, Arsenal, Inter, Atletico Madrid, Bayer Leverkusen, Lille and Aston Villa.

The draw for the last 16, quarter-final and semi-final will take place on Friday February 21.

(Top photo: Carl Recine/Getty Images) 

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Maria Teresa Horta, the Last of Portugal’s ‘Three Marias,’ Dies at 87

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Maria Teresa Horta, the Last of Portugal’s ‘Three Marias,’ Dies at 87

Maria Teresa Horta, a Portuguese feminist writer who helped shatter her conservative country’s strictures on women, died on Feb. 4 at her home in Lisbon. She was 87.

Her death was announced on Facebook by her publisher, Dom Quixote. The Portuguese prime minister, Luis Montenegro, paid tribute to her on X, calling her “an important example of freedom and the struggle to recognize the place of women.”

Ms. Horta was the last surviving member of the celebrated writers known as the “Three Marias,” who together wrote the landmark 1972 book “Novas Cartas Portuguesas” (“New Portuguese Letters”). A collection of letters the women wrote to one another about their problems as women in Portugal, it opened up a world of repressed female sexuality, infuriated the country’s ham-fisted dictatorship and led to their arrest and criminal prosecution on charges of indecency and abuse of freedom of the press.

“To feminists around the world, as well as to champions of a free press, the police action against the Portuguese women in June 1972 was an outrage that slowly became the focus of an international protest movement,” Time magazine wrote in July 1973.

The Three Marias — Ms. Horta, Maria Isabel Barreno (1939-2016) and Maria Velho da Costa (1938-2020) — became international feminist folk heroes, and the book’s fame alerted the world to repression under the Portuguese dictatorship. Simone de Beauvoir, Marguerite Duras and Adrienne Rich were among the writers who declared their public support. The National Organization for Women voted to make the case its first international feminist cause.

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The case was not Ms. Horta’s first brush with controversy.

In 1967 she had been “beaten in the street” after the publication of her breakthrough volume of poetry, “Minha Senhora de Mim” (“My Lady of Me”), she told her biographer Patrícia Reis in 2019. That book “challenged something deeply rooted in this country,” she said: “the silencing of female sexuality.”

Frequent knocks on the door by the Portuguese secret police became part of her life.

The themes of her work grew from what she characterized as a dual oppression: being a woman in Portugal’s male-dominated society and growing up in a police state.

“I was born in a fascist country, a country that stole liberty, a country of cruelty, prisons, torture,” she told an Italian interviewer in 2018. “And I understood very early on that I couldn’t stand for this.”

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She also wouldn’t stand for the oppression of women in Portugal’s traditional macho culture. “Women are beaten or raped just as much by a doctor, a lawyer, a politician, whoever, as by a worker, a peasant and so on,” she told the Lisbon daily Diário de Notícias in 2017. “Women have always been beaten and have always been raped. People do not consider the violence that goes on in bed, in the sexual act with their husband.”

In 1971, these preoccupations inspired Ms. Horta to start meeting every week with two friends and fellow authors, Ms. Barreno and Ms. da Costa, to share written reflections on the common themes that troubled them.

They were inspired by a classic work from the 17th century, “Letters of a Portuguese Nun,” supposedly written by a young woman shut up in a Portuguese convent to the French cavalry officer who had abandoned her. Scholars now believe the work was fiction, but its powerful expression of pent-up longing and frustration resonated with the three Marias.

Like the nun in the book, they used letters to one another, as well as poems, to express their unhappiness as women in their early 30s, educated by nuns, married and with children, in a Lisbon stifling under a 35-year dictatorship, rigid Catholicism and ill-judged colonial wars in Africa.

When they published the writings as “New Portuguese Letters,” they vowed never to reveal to outsiders, much less the police, who had written what.

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“Their views and natures were far apart,” Neal Ascherson wrote in The New York Review of Books in a review of the 1975 English translation, titled “The Three Marias.” “Maria Isabel the coolest, Maria Teresa the gaudiest personality, Maria Fátima the one who swerved away from pure feminism toward social and psychological analyses of a whole people’s oppression.”

The strange hybrid — Mr. Ascherson called it “a huge and complicated garland” — is suffused with repressed rage at the condition the women find themselves in.

“They wanted the three of us to sit in parlors, patiently embroidering our days with the many silences, the many soft words and gestures that custom dictates,” one of the letters says. “But whether it be here or in Beja, we have refused to be cloistered, we are quietly, or brazenly, stripping ourselves of our habits all of a sudden.”

Another letter says, “We have also won the right to choose vengeance, since vengeance is part of love, and love is a right long since granted us in practice: practicing love with our thighs, our long legs that expertly fulfill the exercise expected of them.”

Although Mr. Ascherson found the book “often maddeningly imprecise, self-indulgent and flatulent,” he said that “where it is precise, the book still bites” and “where it is erotic, it is neither exhibitionist nor coy but well calculated to touch the mind through emotion.”

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A few Portuguese reviewers welcomed it as “brave, daring and violent,” as the author Nuno de Sampayo put it in the Lisbon newspaper A Capital. They predicted a difficult reception.

Prime Minister Marcello Caetano attempted to put the authors in jail, calling them “women who shame the country, who are unpatriotic.”

On May 25, 1972, the state press censor banned the book. The next day it was sent to the criminal police department in Lisbon. When the authors’ trial opened in 1973, the crowd was so great that the judge ordered the courtroom cleared.

In May 1974, nearly two years after their arrests and two weeks after the Portuguese dictatorship was overthrown, the Three Marias were acquitted.

Judge Artur Lopes Cardoso, who had been overseeing the case, became a sudden convert, declaring the book “neither pornographic nor immoral.” “On the contrary,” he said, “it is a work of art of high level, following other works of art produced by the same authors.”

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Maria Teresa de Mascarenhas Horta Barros was born in Lisbon on May 20, 1937, the daughter of Jorge Augusto da Silva Horta, a prominent doctor and a conservative who supported the dictatorship, and Carlota Maria Mascarenhas. Her paternal grandmother had been prominent in the Portuguese suffragist movement.

Maria attended Filipa de Lencastre High School, graduated from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Lisbon, and published her first book of poetry at 23. She would go on to write nearly 30 more, as well as 10 novels.

She was also a critic and reporter for several newspapers and the literary editor of A Capital.

In the 1980s, she edited the feminist magazine Mulheres, which was linked to the Portuguese Communist Party. (She was a member of the party from 1975 to 1989.)

No matter the genre — poetry, fiction or journalism — she considered writing a public duty.

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“The obligation of a poet is not to be in an ivory tower; it is not to be isolated but to be among people,” she told the online magazine Guernica in 2014. “As a journalist, I never isolated myself. I was a journalist at a daily newspaper and every day I went out on the street. Every day I had contact with people.”

She won most of her country’s top literary prizes, but she caused a stir in 2012 when she refused to accept the D. Dinis Award because she objected to the government’s right-leaning politics.

She is survived by her son, Luis Jorge Horta de Barros, and two grandsons. Her husband, the journalist Luis de Barros, a former editor of the newspaper O Diário, died in 2019.

“People ask me why I am a feminist,” Ms. Horta told Guernica in 2014. “Because I am a woman of freedom and equality and it is not possible to have freedom in the world when half of humanity has no rights.”

Kirsten Noyes and Daphné Anglès contributed research.

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