January 29, 2020 | Awake & Dreaming

Spanish defender Pablo Mari is set to join us on loan until the end of the season. The 26 year-old joins us from Brazilian side Flamengo, where he helped the Rio de Janeiro based team win the Brazilian Serie A title and the Copa Libertadores last year.

Mari made 22 appearances for Flamengo after joining them last July from Manchester City, where he had been since 2016. The left-footed central defender had three three different season-long loan spells during his time at City – in Spain with Girona for the 2016/17 season, then to the Netherlands with NAC Breda in 2017/18, before returning to Spain for the 2018/19 campaign with Deportivo La Coruna.

Mari developed his youth career in Spain with RCD Mallorca, where he made his La Liga debut at the age of just 17. Three years later in 2013 Mari joined Spanish side Gimnastic, where he made nearly 100 appearances in his three seasons with the Catalonian club. We have an option to make the deal permanent in the summer.

Technical director Edu said: “Pablo is an experienced player who will provide us with additional defensive quality. We have been monitoring Pablo’s career for a while and we are very pleased to have reached agreement with Flamengo for him to join us initially until the end of our season. Together with Mikel and his coaching team, we are all looking forward to seeing Pablo in an Arsenal shirt.” The deal is subject to the completion of regulatory processes.

There are lots of great reasons to play more board games. As well as being a fun form of entertainment, they can be a great way of getting kids away from the screen while also encouraging family bonding time. On top of this, playing board games could also help to boost brainpower. Here are just five board games that could help you to become smarter.

Chess

Chess is one of the oldest board games still in existence. It’s the perfect game of strategy – players must use problem-solving and forward-planning skills to try and outwit one another and take each others’ pieces. Chess also boosts memory – each player is constantly having to keep a mental record of which moves they can and can’t make. It’s only a two-player game making it unsuitable for a family get-together, but it could be great for one-on-one time with friends and family.

Scrabble

Scrabble is a word game in which players must compete to build the highest scoring words using a jumble of letters randomly chosen from a bag. This board game teaches all kinds of skills. It’s firstly a great game for expanding vocabulary – with the help of an anagram solver, you can discover all kinds of new words. Scrabble also teaches problem solving and also requires some mathematics in order to add up scores. It an all-round perfect board game for making you brainier.

Monopoly

Monopoly is the best game for teaching financial skills. It’s a game of budgeting and investment in which players must take risks and conserve their cash. Players each compete to buy streets in which they can then place hotels and houses on in order to collect rent from other players. There are lots of different versions of Monopoly out there to choose from.

Trivial Pursuit

In Trivial Pursuit, players must answer questions successfully in order to win pieces of pie. The first player to collect all the pieces of their pie wins. The questions in Trivial Pursuit are general knowledge and are themed around various colour-coded categories. You’ll constantly be learning new facts while playing this game, making it great for boosting brain power. Some boards come with separate kids questions.

Cluedo

Cluedo (or Clue as it’s sometimes known) is a classic murder mystery game in which players must solve the details of a murder including who did it, which weapon they used and in which room they committed it. By asking other players questions, you can slowly deduce the details of the murder. All in all, it’s a great test of memory and problem-solving skills.