I’ve climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and suffering from Covid-19 was even more draining than that RODGERS REVEALS CORONAVIRUS ORDEAL

BRENDAN RODGERS said being in the grip of Covid-19 felt like climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.

Leicester boss Rodgers scaled the 19,341-ft Tanzanian mountain in 2011 while he was in charge of Swansea.

But the Northern Irishman, 47, who prides himself on his fitness, revealed the terror of realising something was horribly wrong.

He sensed all was not right just over a week after lockdown and then wife Charlotte started to experience symptoms as well.

Rodgers said: “I wasn’t well and it was detected that I had the virus. Then my wife had it.”

The former Liverpool and Celtic boss said he realised something was seriously wrong when he was becoming breathless just walking a few yards.

He said it was a feeling he had only experienced once before – when he climbed Africa’s highest mountain to raise money for cancer charities almost a decade earlier.

Rodgers said: “It’s like you can hardly walk 10 yards in front of you and suddenly you are blowing.

“When I was climbing Kilimanjaro, you get to a certain altitude and that’s what it felt like with your breathing.

“It really does knock you. I also had a headache and it’s a headache that is different to anything I’d had before.

“It felt like it was isolated on one side of my head. Your appetite goes, you can’t smell, you can’t taste and you just feel weak.

“I was thinking,

‘Christ, if I don’t have the virus, then what is this? It’s like, ‘Goodness me, if this isn’t it, what is it?’ It’s been tough, but it really makes you appreciate your health.”

Because of the lockdown and suspension of domestic football, Rodgers did not have a chance to tell his players immediately, but made a point of doing so the minute they were all back together.

He added: “I felt it was my duty to mention it to the players.

“Obviously we’ve lost contact to some extent with everything that has been going on, but it was something I