Dummies instead of the people: Bundesliga's spirit will be raised by cardboard fans

Irina Ziganshina

On Saturday, after a two-month suspension caused by a pandemic, the Bundesliga will resume its matches. The German national championship is the first of five major European leagues that ventured to do so. The French canceled their championship at all. And what will happen to the English Premier League, Italian Serie A and the Spanish championship, apparently, largely depends on the success of the Germans. The new rules adopted in the Bundesliga, the agency writes AP.

The last match of the German championship took place on March 11, when the virus had already begun to spread in Germany. Still poorly imagining danger, Borussia fans from Mönchengladbach gathered at their already closed stadium, where their team defeated Cologne with a score of 2: 1, and the players of their home team came to them to celebrate the victory together.

Now this will not happen. As there will be, for example, and children who bring players to the field. Handshakes with referees and officials attending matches have been canceled. Players on the bench will be wearing masks while observing the distance, and coaches will be allowed to take off their masks only to scream instructions to their players, while they will have to stay at least 1.5 meters away from them. The traditional marking of goals with hugs and kisses is forbidden: players were asked to keep their emotions in check.

And, of course, the stands will be completely empty. In order to somehow smooth out the depressing atmosphere, Sky TV intends to accompany the broadcasts with fan chants and chants recorded during previous matches and superimposed on current ones. Borussia also announced that it will use stands with fans' pictures in the stands at the remaining home matches.

As for real German fans, most of them are not interested - the latest polls by German broadcasters show that interest in the championship is constantly falling. However, the local football leadership insists on resuming, one of the goals of which is to keep some clubs, including Schalke, from financial collapse.

Considering that the growth rate of new cases of COVID-19 in Germany has decreased, Angela Merkel has gone towards sports functionaries, although she made it clear that football does not take first place in her list of priorities.

Munich Bayern, which is now the first with a margin of four points and which has nine games left to play, will go on Sunday to a match with Union Berlin at the last stadium.

Dortmund Borussia, the second in the standings, will receive Schalke on Saturday and Leipzig (third) Freiburg.

However, there is no guarantee that the nine remaining matches will take place. According to Christian Seifert, Executive Director of the German Football League : “We play on a trial basis.” Although the season should end by the end of June, local authorities have the right to interrupt it at any time.

What decision will be made if the games are again suspended or canceled, the League leadership has not yet decided. Most likely, the situation will be determined by the current standings: the top team will be called the champion, and the two lower ones will be transferred to the first league.

All this week, teams have been preparing in quarantine. It has been announced that players, members of the coaching staff and everyone else involved in the league will pass more than 20,000 coronavirus tests. The morale of some players is poor.

So, for example, the Cologne midfielder Birze Verstret criticized the club’s leadership for hiding information about the identities of three football players who showed a positive result for coronavirus.

Union Berlin defender Neven Subotich said the resumption of matches is a “dangerous situation” for all players. And the midfielder of “Karlsruhe” Mark Lorenz believes that the leadership, trying to resume the championship, does not think about the health of the players. “An hour after the start of the match, the players will be completely exhausted,” Lorenz told the Badische Neueste Nachrichten newspaper. - Even the five substitutions that have just been resolved will not help. Fatigue will come, and then serious injuries. ”

In the photo: this will look like the stands of the Tribune “Borussia” from Mönchengladbach