Germany midfielder Sami Khedira, who played a major part in Germany’s progress to the World Cup semi-finals, is joining Real Madrid from VfB Stuttgart on a five-year deal, the clubs said on Friday.
The 23-year-old, who has a German mother and a Tunisian father, cost the La Liga giants 12 million euros (US$15.7 million), according to Spanish media reports.
He is the fourth reinforcement for new Real coach Jose Mourinho following the purchase of Argentina winger Angel Di Maria and Spanish midfielders Sergio Canales and Pedro Leon.
Mourinho was hired to replace Manuel Pellegrini at the end of last season’s trophyless campaign and the club is seeking to end the two-season reign of archrivals Barcelona as Spanish champions and win a first Champions League title since 2002.
Khedira made his international debut in a friendly against South Africa in September last year and was not expected to feature in Germany’s World Cup team but was given his chance following the injury that kept captain Michael Ballack out of the tournament.
He formed an impressive partnership with Bastian Schweinsteiger as Germany finished third. He has 12 caps and scored his first international goal in the World Cup third-place playoff against Uruguay.
VfB, where Khedira made his professional debut in 2006, said they were sorry to see him go.
“One is always extremely unhappy to let go a player who dictates the game and is easily identified with, such as Sami Khedira,” Stuttgart’s sporting director Fred Bobic said. “On the other hand, we were able to fulfill Sami’s wishes of furthering his career at Real. We wish him all the success with his new challenge.”
Taiwan’s English education system is being pulled apart by three opposing forces. Bilingual Nation 2030 pulls students toward English and global communication. Artificial Intelligence (AI) readiness pulls them toward digital judgment, verification and AI-mediated work. But Taiwan’s old exam culture pulls them back toward memorization, grammar drills, timed reading and correct answers. If the education system keeps using old exams to define success, it risks producing graduates who are neither genuinely bilingual nor genuinely AI-ready, but trained for tasks machines can already perform. The first force is Bilingual Nation 2030. Launched in 2018, the policy aimed to “help Taiwan’s workforce connect
It seems every few days one bumps into one of those “real man” comments in which Taiwan is urged to “face reality” or similar, and “make a deal,” with the speaker implying that soon it will be too late. “Deal” advocates always present themselves as having a superior grip on reality, and the manly ability to make the “hard choice.” Their testosterone-laden language often echoes that of Taiwan sellout advocates. Note that such commentary always specifies a process (“make a deal, work with, make progress”), never the end state of what occupation by a violent authoritarian colonialist state will entail. In
June 1 to June 7 "If all Taiwanese were as afraid of dying as you, then what would happen?” Physician Shih Chiang-nan (施江南) reportedly said this to his wife Chen Chiao-tung (陳焦桐) after she urged him to stop intervening on behalf of Taiwanese soldiers stranded overseas after serving in the Japanese Army during World War II. Shih had clashed with high-ranking officials over the issue, engaged in several heated arguments with Taiwan governor-general Chen Yi (陳儀) and allegedly shouted at general Ko Yuan-fen (柯遠芬), chief of staff of the Taiwan Garrison Command, over
“Taiwan’s Opposition Leader Comes to US With a Message Straight Out of Beijing” read a May 31 headline in the Wall Street Journal. Top US administration officials and members of Congress almost certainly read the WSJ, and if there was a bullet point takeaway that people in Washington should absorb ahead of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chair Cheng Li-wun’s (鄭麗文) arrival in DC on June 9, that headline is it. The last few columns have discussed this very topic, and the timing is not coincidental. While those top officials likely do not read the Taipei Times, judging by the number
RSS