One corner is peeling back and flaps uncertainly in the breeze but it doesn't change the message.

"Doesn't matter who you have in the front of you," it reads in Romanian. "It matters who you have next to you."

Togetherness, unity is the name of the game here as rugby attempts to rediscover the strength it held in Romania in the 1980s.

Back then, Romania was the sixth best side in Europe, ahead of Italy, and clocked up notable wins over Wales, Scotland and France, the country that nurtured the sport there in the early 20th century.

The 1989 revolution changed everything.

Florian Murariu, who had played in the inaugural World Cup two years earlier, became an emblem for the lost game when he was shot dead at a roadblock and the state money that propped up the game disappeared.

It has been a long and painful road back -- a 134-0 defeat by England in 2001 was ugly for all who watched -- but for youngsters like Cristina Stan, rugby represents a clear and positive future.

"I first started playing with the boys rugby team before CSM decided to found a girls' team," the 16-year-old centre told AFP.

"I would like to have a career in rugby, to reach a certain performance level, to play for the Romanian national team."

Cristina is on a mission. She trains three times a week at the stadium, which involves a two-hour round-trip from her village Ciorogarla, and every day at home, based on a personal plan developed by her coach.

"Next year I see myself in the national team," adds the ambitious teenager.

The women have yet to play at a full World Cup -- they are focussed on Sevens -- but the Stejarii (The Oaks) will be in France for this year's men's global showpiece which starts on September 8.

Up against Six Nations Grand Slam winners Ireland and defending champions South Africa, not to mention a hungry Scotland, Romania are unlikely to get close to the knockout phase.

They will, however, eye up their final match against Tonga in Lille as a chance to climb another rung on the ladder back towards the higher branches of the game.

++ Ahead of the Rugby World Cup in France, Agence France-Presse asked 20 aspiring photographers from each country qualified for the competition to show one aspect of the rugby union culture in their homeland, with the help of Canon cameras who are sponsoring the tournament. From Namibia to Fiji via Georgia and Scotland this photo essay gives us a glimpse of the core values of rugby on five continents.

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Here, AFP Sport takes a look at some of the biggest names to make the move:

The stars

Cristiano Ronaldo's arrival in January to play for Riyadh-based Al-Nassr is what first drew global attention to ongoing efforts to boost the Saudi Pro League.

He was followed by his former Real Madrid teammate Karim Benzema, the 2022 Ballon d'Or winner who signed a three-year contract with Al-Ittihad in June.

Just a few days later, fellow Frenchman N'Golo Kante joined the same Jeddah-based club, also on a three-year deal.

The veteran and member of France's victorious 2018 World Cup squad will form a partnership with Brazilian Fabinho, arriving from Liverpool, in midfield.

Still buzzing from his historic FA Cup semi-final hat-trick for Manchester City in April, Algeria captain Riyad Mahrez has signed for four years with Jeddah-based Al-Ahli, a transfer estimated at 35 million euros.

The latest coup for the Saudis is Sadio Mane, the Sengalese star who signed with Ronaldo's Al-Nassr for a reported annual salary of 40 million euros plus 10 million euros in results-based bonuses.

- Past their prime -

Along with top-tier stars, several other big names in the sport are starting new chapters in Saudi Arabia.

Marcelo Brozovic, who captained Inter Milan in last season's Champions League final, has signed a three-year deal with Al-Nassr, who reportedly paid a transfer fee of 18 million euros.

Ex-Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson has joined Al-Ettifaq until 2026, drawing heavy criticism given his past support for the LGBTQ community and the fact that Saudi Arabia outlaws homosexuality.

Another former Liverpool star, Brazilian international Roberto Firmino, left the team after eight seasons for Al-Ahli, who have also landed Edouard Mendy of Senegal.

Kalidou Koulibaly, for his part, bade farewell to Stamford Bridge for Al-Hilal for a reported transfer fee of 23 million euros.

- Rising talent -

It is not just fading stars who are making the trip to the Gulf.

The 28-year-old Ivorian midfielder Seko Fofana has also joined Ronaldo at Al-Nassr, leaving French outfit Lens as they prepare to return to the Champions League.

After eight years with Lazio, Serbian midfielder Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, also 28, has inked a three-year deal with Al-Hilal.

He will be joined by 26-year-old Ruben Neves, the Portuguese star who was previously tipped for a move to Barcelona.

Another 26-year-old, Frenchman Allan Saint-Maximin, has joined Al-Ahli from Newcastle, which is 80-percent owned by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund.

- The coaches -

The Saudi Pro League has also drawn renowned coaches.

Dismissed by Aston Villa in October, iconic former Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard signed with Al-Ettifaq until 2025, and a clip of him introducing himself in halting Arabic has gone viral on social media.

Former Croatia and West Ham boss Slaven Bilic will join the Al-Fateh bench.

After leaving Fenerbahce in June, former Benfica coach Jorge Jesus has returned to Al-Hilal, where he worked in 2018-2019.

And in late July, Al-Ahli named 35-year-old German Matthias Jaissle, regarded as one of the most promising managers of his generation, as their new coach.

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At the plantation in a desert near Eilat, a coastal holiday resort on Israel's southern tip, the mineral-rich water passes through a plastic tube, nourishing the dates high above.

"All of Eilat's sewage is treated," said Arik Ashkenazi, chief engineer of Ein Netafim, Eilat's water and sewage utility, during a tour of the facility that sees wastewater cleared of solids and biological hazards.

"The treated wastewater is transferred, to the last drop, to farmers" who mix it with groundwater and use it on the trees, he said.

Eliat is hemmed in between the desert and Red Sea, isolated from the rest of Israel with no natural freshwater. Its drinking water is a combination of desalinated groundwater and seawater.

After domestic use turns it into sewage, it is treated and then allocated to farmers, enabling the parched region to support agriculture.

While Eilat used to be the exception in Israel's water management, it is now more of a prototype for the country and perhaps the world.

Globally, more than two billion people lack access to safe drinking water, the United Nations says, with floods and droughts triggered by climate change further exacerbating the situation.

Alarming data presented by the UN's Department of Economic and Social Affairs shows "80 percent of wastewater in the world flows back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused".

- 'Foundation for peace' -

Israel began recycling wastewater when it saw that its water sources -- groundwater and water from the northern Sea of Galilee -- were insufficient to meet the needs of a growing population.

"We began to realise that sewage was a water source, reaching almost 100 percent reuse in Israel," said Yossi Yaacoby, vice president of engineering for Mekorot, Israel's national water company, noting that 90 percent of the treated wastewater went to agriculture.

"That wasn't enough either, so we began desalinating seawater," he said, beginning with Eilat in 1997 and then the Mediterranean, with desalinated water now providing 60-80 percent of Israel's drinking water.

Israel has had sole access to the Sea of Galillee, a freshwater lake, since seizing the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War.

In the 1960s, Israel's construction of its so-called national carrier -- the pipeline transferring water from the Sea of Galilee to drier and more populated parts of the country -- caused tensions and even exchanges of fire with Syria.

"Water was a source of conflict," Yaacoby said.

Nowadays, "Israel understands that water is a foundation for peace", he added, with Israel selling it to some of its neighbours.

"We supply the Jordanians 100 million (cubic metres) from the Sea of Galilee, and a similar quantity to the Palestinians -- mainly in the West Bank with a small amount to Gaza, and it will increase," Yaacoby said.

- 'Not a free good' -

With rising climate instability, growing populations and dwindling resources, it's not only Middle Eastern countries that Israel is helping to tackle their water problems.

"The world is undergoing a huge crisis," Yaacoby said, noting that "states you'd never imagine" like France, Germany and Italy were rethinking the issue.

"Israel understood from its inception that water is a scarce resource," he said, and by now "has a large reservoir of knowledge accumulated over the years pertaining to regulatory matters, managing water sources", he said.

In addition, Israel is "constantly developing technologies" in the field of water, Yaacoby said.

Clive Lipchin, an expert on water management at the Arava Institute in southern Israel, said the rising unpredictability due to climate change should make "everybody around the world" consider desalination and treating wastewater.

But beyond the technologies being expensive and high on energy consumption, a comprehensive solution would demand people changing their attitude on the use of water.

"It's a basic right, but it cannot be a free good. People have to pay," Lipchin said.

"Most people around the world do not pay. So that's a huge barrier" and a challenge to governments whose citizens have been paying nothing for decades, he said.

Yaacoby too said that the main challenge for the future of water use was not in the realm of engineering, but rather the mindset of people who were in no rush to preserve water they received for free.

Such a change required "courageous political decisions", he said.

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"Abstract painting is a term that we've been trying to define for over 100 years and there is no consensus," curator Gary Garrels told AFP on Thursday at the opening of the show, which runs until August 25.

"For me, abstract painting is painting that is having an internal conversation where the issues of the painting itself -- colour, surface, texture, materials, scale -- are the primary parts of the conversation that's not referring to something outside the painting, that's somehow descriptive."

Garrels spent 18 months visiting the studios of "three generations" of artists to bring together 41 recent paintings for the exhibition -- "To Bend the Ear of the Outer World"

Some are from well-known artists, others are by virtual unknowns.

The overall aim is to take the pulse of a movement that has sometimes been seen as a dying art form.

But Garrels insisted: "It's far from being dead. It's very much alive. We have another good century ahead of us. Incredible range, richness and diversity."

To demonstrate that abstract art is very much alive, the show opens with contrasting paintings by two European artists of the same age.

One -- "It's not yesterday anymore" (2022) -- is by British painter Cecily Brown's explosion of harsh brushstrokes and colours.

The other -- "Emko" (2023) -- by Germany's Tomma Abts, is small, precise, monochromatic and geometrical.

Each painting is displayed on its own, on a large white wall, to highlight each artist's individuality.

- 'No movement' -

The rooms of the Gagosian gallery are organised according to links between the painters, whether temporal, geographical or stylistic.

Veteran German painter Gerhard Richter's richly variegated "Abstraktes Bild" (2017) is coupled with the minimalist "Rivers (2020-21) by American artist Brice Marden and the organic fluidity of Pat Steir's "Rainbow Waterfall #6".

"They began their serious, mature work and were recognised in the 1960s but have continued to make great painting," said Garrels.

At the other end of the scale, Columbia's Oscar Murillo's "Manifestation" (2020-22) combines conventional oil paint with oil stick, graphite and spray paint on canvas and linen.

Its dramatic thick dark strokes contrast with the lightness and luminosity of "Untitled" (2022) by the young American Ryan Sullivan.

With Sullivan's use of moulded cast urethane resin, fibreglass and epoxy, both have free reign in their use of textures.

Garrels says "there's no movement" in abstract painting.

"It's not like we have abstract expressionism or colour field painting. We have individual artists pursuing their own visions," he added.

For some, the medium is all about the expressiveness of the stroke, while others focus on "quiet" art based on pure, almost homogeneous surfaces, with few tonal nuances.

Many of these artists have friendships that, according to Garrels, are reflected in the dialogue between their works.

American artist Jacqueline Humphries and US-based German artist Charline von Heyl for example share a taste for indirect painting, mediated by screens or other tools.

That gives their work an elusive character that is difficult to take in.

The exhibition mainly features German, American and British artists.

Murillo, who was born in the city of La Paila, has dual Colombian-British nationality. He emigrated to the UK with his family, and trained and now lives in London.

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