MADRID (AP) — Lamine Yamal is looking to LeBron James for some inspiration as he tries to lead Barcelona to a Champions League comeback.
Barcelona visits Spanish rival Atletico Madrid on Tuesday needing to reverse a 2-0 loss from the first leg of the quarterfinals at home last week.
Click to Gallery
Atletico Madrid's head coach Diego Simeone, centre, reacts during the Champions League quarterfinal first leg soccer match between Barcelona and Atletico Madrid in Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Atletico Madrid's goalkeeper Juan Musso comforts Barcelona's Lamine Yamal after the Champions League quarterfinal first leg soccer match between Barcelona and Atletico Madrid in Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Lamine Yamal celebrates during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Espanyol in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, April 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Marcus Rashford, left, celebrates after scoring his side's fourth goal with Lamine Yamal, right, and Pedri during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Espanyol in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, April 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Yamal changed his Instagram profile image to a photo of James embracing the NBA trophy following the Cleveland Cavaliers' win over the Golden State Warriors in 2016. James' Cleveland trailed 3-1 in that series before winning the title.
"He’s one of the figures who can inspire me for this match” the 18-year-old Yamal said in a news conference on Monday. “I’ll think about how he did it and hopefully it works out the same for me.”
Yamal also talked about another one of his idols, Neymar, who led Barcelona to the historic comeback over Paris Saint-Germain in the round of 16 of the 2017 Champions League. Barcelona won the second leg 6-1 at home after losing 4-0 in France.
“I've watched (the 6-1 match) several times, and I watched it live as well,” Yamal said. “Neymar is a player who was very important for me during my childhood. He's my idol and I'll always be grateful to him for everything he's given to soccer."
Yamal said he hoped the 34-year-old Neymar would get in Brazil's World Cup squad. The striker is playing for Brazilian club Santos and was not included by coach Carlo Ancelotti in the most recent Brazil squad for warmup matches.
“He inspires everyone,” Yamal said of Neymar. "He's the type of player that you'll pay a ticket to watch him play, the type of player you'll watch a game again three days later just to see his moves. Hopefully he will be at the World Cup.”
Atletico goalkeeper Jan Oblak could make his return to the starting lineup after being sidelined for more than a month because of a muscle injury.
Atletico is hoping to reach the semifinals for the first time since 2017.
Coach Diego Simeone did not rule out Oblak's return even though he hasn't played since March 10 in the 5-2 win over Tottenham in the round of 16. The goalie has been practicing with the squad for the last few days and is reportedly fit to start.
“I still haven't told the players who will start,” Simeone said on Monday, adding he won't likely make any announcement about the starting lineup until closer to game time on Tuesday.
Oblak injured a muscle against Tottenham. Argentina goalkeeper Juan Musso has been his replacement since then, conceding 10 goals in six matches as a starter, including two in Atletico's 2-1 loss at Sevilla in La Liga on Saturday.
Whoever starts will have to face a prolific Barcelona attack that includes Yamal, Ferran Torres, Robert Lewandowski and Marcus Rashford. Absent for Barcelona will be Raphinha because of a hamstring injury.
This will be the fifth match between Atletico and Barcelona in less than two months. They have split the other four in the league, La Liga and the Copa del Rey.
“We are convinced of what we need, and we’ll play the game we need to,” Simeone said.
Five-time European champion Barcelona made it to the semifinals last year, when it was eliminated by eventual runner-up Inter Milan.
Barcelona coach Hansi Flick said his players need to be confident they can pull off the comeback.
“I believe in my team and I think we can do it. It’s possible,” he said. “I know we are up against a strong Atlético side with great players. We have to take our chances as that was the difference in the first leg.”
Flick did not rule out midfielder Frenkie de Jong making his first start after a long absence because of a hamstring injury.
Whoever advances on Tuesday will face Arsenal or Sporting Lisbon in the semifinals. Arsenal won the first leg 1-0 in Lisbon last week. Their second leg in England is on Wednesday.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Atletico Madrid's head coach Diego Simeone, centre, reacts during the Champions League quarterfinal first leg soccer match between Barcelona and Atletico Madrid in Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Atletico Madrid's goalkeeper Juan Musso comforts Barcelona's Lamine Yamal after the Champions League quarterfinal first leg soccer match between Barcelona and Atletico Madrid in Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Lamine Yamal celebrates during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Espanyol in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, April 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Marcus Rashford, left, celebrates after scoring his side's fourth goal with Lamine Yamal, right, and Pedri during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Espanyol in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, April 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
PORT SUDAN, Sudan (AP) — Famine. Massacres. And now badly needed food and other supplies are under strain. Sudan on Wednesday enters a fourth year of war that's being called an “abandoned crisis,” as a new conflict in the Middle East throws into shadow the fighting that has forced 13 million people to flee their homes.
The North African country has been described as the world's largest humanitarian challenge, notably in terms of displacement and hunger. There is no end in sight to the fighting between the military and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, which witnesses and aid groups say has laid waste to parts of the vast Darfur region.
Growing evidence shows regional powers like the United Arab Emirates backing combatants behind the scenes. Attempts by the United States and regional powers, now distracted by the Iran war, have failed to establish a ceasefire.
“This grim and chastening anniversary marks another year when the world has failed to meet the test of Sudan,” U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said.
At least 59,000 people have been killed. At least 6,000 died over three days as the RSF rampaged through the Darfur outpost of el-Fasher in October, according to the United Nations, with U.N.-backed experts concluding that the offensive bore “the defining characteristics of genocide.” More than 11,000 people were missing over the course of the war, the Red Cross says.
The war has pushed parts of Sudan into famine. The number of people with severe acute malnutrition, the most dangerous and deadly kind, is expected to increase to 800,000, the world's foremost experts on food security, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, said in February.
About 34 million people, or almost two out of three Sudanese, need assistance, the U.N. says. Only 63% of health facilities remain fully or partially functional amid disease outbreaks, including cholera, according to the World Health Organization.
At a center for malnourished children in the Red Sea city of Port Sudan, health staff weigh crying babies and give them nutritional supplements or feed them through a tube in their nose.
The number of severely malnourished children entering the clinic has doubled since the start of the war from about 30 a week to 60, they said. The crowded clinic has 16 beds, often forcing several children to share a mattress, they said, voicing concerns about what lies ahead as fighting shows no sign of abating.
“I don’t know what will happen in the coming days,” said Dr. Osman Karrar, a physician at the clinic.
And now fuel prices in Sudan have increased by more than 24% because of the Iran war and its effects on shipping, driving up food prices.
“A plea from me: Please don’t call this the forgotten crisis. I’m referring to this as an abandoned crisis,” the top U.N. official in Sudan, Denise Brown, said Monday, criticizing the international community for failing to focus on ending the fighting.
The conflict exploded from a power struggle that emerged following Sudan’s transition to democracy after an uprising forced the military ouster of longtime autocratic President Omar al-Bashir in April 2019.
Tensions sparked between military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, who chairs the ruling sovereign council, and RSF commander Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who was Burhan’s deputy there.
Neither side can achieve a decisive victory, said Shamel Elnoor, a Sudanese journalist and researcher, adding that Sudanese “have become powerless and are subjected to foreign dictates.”
Germany, meanwhile, is hosting a conference in Berlin on Wednesday for governments, U.N. agencies and aid groups. The aim is to rally donors to help fund the strained humanitarian response and to “promote an immediate ceasefire” in Sudan, the German Development Ministry said in a statement.
The Sudanese government in Khartoum, however, slammed the Berlin conference as an “unacceptable” interference in its internal affairs. It said that Germany, as the host country, didn't consult with Sudan before convening the gathering.
Sudan is now essentially divided between a military-backed, internationally recognized government in the capital, Khartoum, and a rival RSF-controlled administration in Darfur.
The military has established control over the north, east and central regions, including Sudan’s Red Sea ports and its oil refineries and pipelines. The RSF and its allies control Darfur and areas in the Kordofan region along the border with South Sudan. Both regions include many of Sudan’s oil fields and gold mines.
While Egypt supports Sudan's military, the UAE is accused by U.N. experts and rights groups of providing arms to the RSF. The UAE has rejected the accusation.
The Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab, which tracks the war through satellite imagery, said this month that the RSF had received military support from a base in Ethiopia. The RSF didn't comment on the allegation.
Josef Tucker, senior analyst for the Horn of Africa at the International Crisis Group, told The Associated Press that the war could spill over Sudan’s borders, making the conflict “even more intractable.”
Three years of fighting have seen widespread atrocities including mass killings and rampant sexual violence, including gang rapes.
Hospitals, ambulances and medical workers in Sudan have been attacked, with more than 2,000 people killed, WHO has said.
The International Criminal Court has said that it was investigating potential war crimes and crimes against humanity, particularly in Darfur, a region that two decades ago became synonymous with genocide and war crimes.
Most of the latest atrocities have been blamed on the RSF and their Janjaweed allies — Arab militias that were notorious for atrocities in the early 2000s against people identifying as East or Central African in Darfur. The RSF grew out of the Janjaweed.
“We have … no reason at all to believe it will stop the mass atrocities that we saw in el-Fasher,” said Brown, the U.N. official.
The military's seizure of Khartoum and other urban areas in central Sudan in early 2025 did allow the return of about 4 million people to their homes, the U.N. migration agency said in March. But they struggle with damaged infrastructure and other challenges.
“It’s not really a return to normal. It is trying to survive amid a new normal,” said Tjada D’Oyen McKenna, CEO of aid group Mercy Corps.
Samy Magdy reported from Cairo. Fatma Khaled in Cairo, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin, contributed to this report.
Students prepare to enter Sudanese secondary school certificate exams under the control of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), in Khartoum, Sudan, Monday, April 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali)
Students attend Sudanese secondary school certificate exams under the control of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), in Khartoum, Sudan, Monday, April 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali)
Students prepare to enter Sudanese secondary school certificate exams under the control of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), in Khartoum, Sudan, Monday, April 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali)
