Shaky Spain begin quest against Sweden

Seville, June 13: It was only a week ago that Spain received some bad news that could have jeopardised their participation in the European Championship.

Captain Sergio Busquets tested positive for the Coronavirus and the national team suddenly faced the possibility of a Covid-19 outbreak.

Busquets left the team’s training camp and the rest of the squad had to go into isolation. Everyone had to be tested and retested. Spain coach Luis Enrique had to hastily put together a parallel squad in case more players were infected. Personalised training routines were put into place. The team’s final warm-up match had to be played with an under-21 squad.

Fears increased when a second player, defender Diego Llorente, tested positive a few days later, and Spanish football federation president Luis

Rubiales said more positive results were likely. More players were pulled away from their vacations to join the parallel training bubble.

But normalcy was somehow restored for Spain ahead of their Group ‘E’ opener against Sweden on Monday in Seville.

Llorente’s test result turned out to be a falsepositive. The government rushed in to vaccinate the entire squad. Players were allowed to practice together again after tests kept coming back negative.

Spain will be much closer to full strength when they take on the Swedes at La Cartuja Stadium.

Sweden also had to deal with setbacks because of the Coronavirus. Dejan Kulusevski and Mattias Svanberg tested positive last week and had to go into isolation.

They won’t be available to play on Monday, and neither will Busquets.

Sweden will be without their own veteran Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

The Swedish attack will likely be led by 21-year-old Alexander Isak, who plays for Real Sociedad in the Spanish league.

Meanwhile, Spain’s squad had their first full practice only on Saturday, when Luis Enrique began deciding who will replace Busquets, the only player remaining in the squad that was in Spain’s World Cup-winning team in 2010.

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