Messi to Busquets. Then to Messi again. A gentle, cushioned touch of the ball; a look up; a pause, and then a stroked pass to his left precisely into the instep of Sergi Roberto. You’ve seen that sequence hundreds of times, the best footballer in the world setting the tempo of Barcelona’s patient pass-and-move.
But to see it on a bright May Monday in the Barcelona suburb of Sant Joan Despí felt almost as thrilling as in front of 90,000 at Camp Nou.
Barcelona’s captain was participating in a group training drill at the club’s practice campus, the first such session in more than two months. Clean-shaven and evidently focused, Lionel Messi, Sergio Busquets, Sergi Roberto and Gerard Pique, the club’s longest serving senior players, were in the same grouping, performing their ‘rondos’, the drill where they gather in a circle, passes played around and across, with two or three ‘opponents’ trying to intercept.
Ten is the maximum number allowed in any group engaged in collective practice under the safety protocols drawn up by Spain’s La Liga as it prepares for restarting matches next month after the coronavirus-imposed shutdown. The journey to full 11 against 11 will be made via staggered easing of restrictions. But Monday’s shift from individual practice to a fuller, interactive training was greeted as a watershed.
“It felt good to be passing to a teammate, and not to have to play passes against a wall,” said Barcelona’s Ivan Rakitic. “You could see the adrenalin starting to flow.”
Some of the heightened anticipation had clearly carried over from Germany, where a full programme of top division matches took place between Saturday afternoon and Monday evening. The Bundesliga is the pathfinder for all the leading European leagues that intend to complete the suspended 2019/20 season, and although one German weekend can hardly guarantee that 'biosecure football' is now an idea fully tried-and-tested, the momentum has been set, and plans advanced, so long as an acceptably low number of positive results emerge from the coronavirus tests that players and staff will be required to take every week.
Barcelona’s Rakitic has been in touch with Manuel Neuer, the Bayern Munich captain and a former teammate at Schalke, about the Bundesliga’s resumption, and heard optimism. “They are well ahead of us,” he said, acknowledging that the containment of the pandemic in Germany makes conditions there very distinct from Spain, England or Italy, where Covid-19 has cost far more lives than in Germany.
But the leagues in Spain, England, and Italy are all hopeful of staging matches in June. Premier League clubs voted unanimously to follow the Bundesliga lead and, as of Tuesday, players were permitted to practice in small groups at training grounds, although a decision on when full-contact practice will be permitted will only be taken next week. The Premier League had targeted the weekend of June 12 as a possible restart date for matches - to be staged behind-closed-doors, as is the case almost everywhere - but have privately acknowledged that may have to be delayed.
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Juventus' Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo gestures as he leaves in his car after attending training on May 19, 2020 at the club's Continassa training ground in Turin. AFP -
Juventus' Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo arrives in his car to resume training after a quarantine on May 19, 2020 at the club's Continassa training ground in Turin. AFP -
Juventus' Cristiano Ronaldo arrives for a training session at the Continassa training centre in Turin. EPA -
Juventus' Paulo Dybala is seen wearing a protective face mask as he arrives at Juventus Training Center. Reuters -
Juventus fans wearing protective face masks and gloves display shirts with Cristiano Ronaldo's name as players and staff arrive for training at Juventus Training Center. Reuters -
Juventus' Mattia De Sciglio. EPA -
Juventus' vice president Pavel Nedved arrives. EPA -
Juventus' head coach Maurizio Sarri arrives at the club training ground in Turin. EPA -
Juventus' Rodrigo Betancur arrives at Juventus Training Center wearing a protective face mask. Reuters -
Juventus supporters wearing protective face masks wait for the players in front of the Continassa training centre in Turin. EPA -
Juventus coach Maurizio Sarri. Reuters -
Juventus' Bosnian midfielder Miralem Pjanic. AFP -
Juventus' Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon waves as he arrives in his car to attend training. AFP -
Juventus' Colombian midfielder Juan Cuadrado, wearing a face mask, arrives in his car. AFP -
Juventus' Italian forward Federico Bernardeschi waves as he arrives in his car. AFP
Meanwhile, in Serie A, the return of Cristiano Ronaldo to Juventus headquarters for the first time in 72 days, the Portuguese having spent most of the last two months in his native Madeira, was taken as a symbolic sign that Italian football is gearing up for an imminent return to a form of normality. But there are major hurdles still to overcome in agreeing an acceptable medical protocol for full training, and the government in Rome on Monday prohibited any sporting events in Italy until June 14.
Uefa, who hope to stage the remaining fixtures in the Champions League and Europa League in August, are encouraged that the Bundesliga template will act as a spur to domestic leagues, and even that France's Ligue 1, which was declared closed for 2019/20 after the government in Paris banned all team sports until September, might, in conjunction with the French public health authorities, reassess their situation.
France's Ministry for Sport reluctantly supported the Ligue 1 abandonment citing the Uefa recommendation that domestic seasons should be completed by early August at the latest. But, according to Aleksander Ceferin, the Uefa president, in a letter to Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas, "those dates [including the supposed August 3rd 'deadline'] were only recommendations, not official."
Uefa are also studying the implications of possible quarantine laws proposed by governments in Britain and Spain. Should severe restrictions on travel in and out of those countries - and a requirement that visitors should be quarantined for two weeks after arrival - be in force in August, the two-legged home and away structure of the Uefa competitions would need to be revised.
