«C’is more of a press conference there. Looks like the Academy of Nine.» Thursday, in a basement of Juventus Stadium in Turin, Rudy Garcia, the Lyon coach, was in a kid’s mood twenty-four hours before the eighth-final second leg of the Champions League which would see the Rhone club rally (defeat 1-2 after a 1-0 first leg win in February) one of the most unique adventures ever. Football in the time of the coronavirus: actors bunkerized and masked in a basement. In the stands of the stadium, the journalists appearing on a bust screen in boxes, reminiscent of the vintage game show evoked by Rudy Garcia, which polished the reputations of Roger Pierre, Eve Ruggieri or Jacky.
Asterisk
It is in a partially confined Lisbon, where gatherings are limited to five people in certain neighborhoods in the north of the Portuguese capital and ten in the rest of the region, that the European Football Union (UEFA) will settle from this Wednesday and the entry into contention of PSG and Atalanta Bergamo its Champions League 2019-2020. In mode blitz. Eight quarter-finalists, elimination on a dry game behind closed doors and verdict from August 23, with an asterisk for eternity referring to a footnote: Covid-19. The conditions are unstable, paranoid, nightmarish.
The UEFA protocol governing the tournament is worth seeing. Besides the bursts of tests, the last “The day before the match” with a known result “At least six hours before kick-off” from the meeting, the actors are cut off as much as possible from the rest of the world. All radicalizing in the process – in the fashion “the clubs dreamed it, the coronavirus did it” – a disconnection at work for a long time: corridors where the barge has cleared room, zero autographs, reservation by entire floors in the hotels where the teams are staying, no mixed zone (housing exchanges between the press and the players after the matches), delegations reduced to around sixty people on match nights and additional restrictions on access to the pitch and changing rooms, etc. The rare accredited journalists will not live again the Academy of Nine, more Time X : signature of a document certifying its negativity to the virus at the entrance, signposted route, one place out of four in the stand with a UEFA official who descends in a dive on the offender and airlock allowing the temperature to be taken. If it is over 38 ° C: return to the hotel.
Players, coaches and technical staff will be subject to a slightly lighter protocol. But the details have to be talked about. Paragraph 1.2 of the annex relating to “Special provisions applicable to the qualifying phase and play-offs in the context of Covid-19” predicts the appearance of a swarm of positive cases: “When thirteen players [sur vingt-cinq, dont au moins un gardien, ndlr] or more from the list are available, the match must be played on the scheduled date. “ This leaves a hell of a margin (twelve cases), while a team is not a construction game where the pieces are interchangeable: what about a shortage of defenders or attackers?
Concorde
Certainly difficult to imagine in such a tight schedule, the possibility of a postponement is also open in the texts: the package for lack of players only comes after. He would ratify a form of fiasco. However, no one feels it coming. At UEFA headquarters, we were sometimes surprised by the express concord, all the more remarkable as the evolution of the health situation required many changes of foot between the various stakeholders: from the umbrella body to the broadcasters , especially through clubs, to maneuver. Everyone is looking in the same direction. We must put an end to this infernal 2019-2020 edition of the Champions League: on foot, on horseback or in Sputnik, but we must end it.
And save what can be saved: part of the TV rights that have been discussed step by step for a good month, with results expected this fall. And appearances. In ideological background: activity must restart. And the one that is worn by athletes in full force of age not appearing in any risk category more surely than a lot of others.
Appétit
As for football, David Bettoni, assistant coach of Real Madrid (eliminated Friday by Manchester City, future opponent of Lyon), Zinédine Zidane, explained that he went against preconceived ideas by reducing the preparation of players yet inactive for months to better play on their appetite for post-confinement ball and mental freshness. We will have to invent.
Read also on Libé.fr : “Atalanta Bergamo, hope of a city martyred by Covid.”
Gregory Schneider
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