The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Spanish soccer resumes play with no fans in attendance
With virtual crowds, daily matches and lots of testing for the coronavirus, soccer is coming back to Spain. The Spanish league resumes this week more than three months after it was suspended because of the pandemic, becoming the second top league to restart in Europe. The Bundesliga was first. The Premier League and the Italian league should be next in the coming weeks.
The league will kickstart in empty stadiums today with the popular Seville derby between Sevilla and Real Betis, though the season will officially resume Wednesday with the second half of a second-division game between Rayo Vallecano and Albacete, which was halted in December after Rayo fans called a Ukrainian player from Albacete a Nazi.
The title race will resume over the weekend with leader Barcelona visiting Mallorca on Saturday and second-place Real Madrid hosting Eibar on Sunday at its training center because the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium is undergoing renovations for the rest of the season.
Defending champion Barcelona has a two-point lead over Madrid with 11 rounds remaining. The league expects to play matches every day until its conclusion on July 19, and all players and coaches will be tested before every game.
Virtual crowds and chants — similar to those in video games — will replace fans on the television broadcasts. Viewers will have the option of watching the matches with the empty stadiums or with the virtual fans in the stands.
Stadiums will be empty for now, but the league has not ruled out having fans back by the end of the season as Spain continues to successfully fight the pandemic. The government has been gradually lifting the lockdown restrictions put in place in March. The nation was one of the hardest hit by the pandemic, with nearly 28,000 COVID-19 deaths reported.
“I always believed that we would play again, despite of what many people said,” Spanish league president Javier Tebas said. “It was complicated, and our plan was to return when we could. It was difficult but we have succeeded. We spent three weeks saying that this would be impossible, and now we are even considering having fans back in the stands.”
Barcelona may have benefited the most from the stoppage, as it was struggling when the league was suspended.
“The players came back extremely well,” coach Quique Setién said. “The team will be fresher now than it was in March.”
There had been some concern with Lionel Messi because of a minor muscle injury, but Setién said the playmaker is set to compete in Mallorca on Saturday.
Messi is the league’s leading scorer with 19 goals, five more than Real Madrid’s Karim Benzema. The Argentina star is trying to finish as the league’s top scorer for the seventh time, which would be the most all-time.
He will also have a chance to surpass Pelé for the most goals with a single club. Messi has 627, which is 16 fewer than the 643 goals Pelé scored with Brazilian club Santos.