Barca’s season resumes June 13
Barcelona will recommence its bid to defend the Spanish title on Sat. June 13 away to Real Mallorca after a threemonth pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic, while Real Madrid will play host to Eibar on June 14, organizers La Liga announced on Sunday.
The season kick backs into action with a local derby between Sevilla and Real Betis on June 11 and there will be fixtures for the following seven days, with Barca hosting Leganes on June 16 and Real playing at home to Valencia on June 18.
As in the Bundesliga, which earlier in May became the first major European league to start up again after being disrupted by the pandemic, all La Liga matches until the end of the season will take place without spectators.
Real Madrid will play its remaining six home games at the 6,000-capacity Estadio Alfredo di Stefano based at its training ground, a league source confirmed, as the team is currently renovating its Santiago Bernabeu home.
Barca was leading Real by two points after 27 matches when the campaign was postponed in March due to the novel coronavirus outbreak.
Organizers have only released scheduling details for the first two rounds of fixtures although La Liga chief Javier Tebas confirmed that there will be matches every day of the week until the season is completed on July 19.
Tebas also gave details of a planned tribute to those who have died from the pandemic, whereby fans will be encouraged to make audio recordings of themselves applauding the victims, which will then be transmitted in the stadium and broadcast on television in the 20th minute of each match.
GERMAN BUNDESLIGA
England forward Jadon Sancho capped a blistering individual performance with a second-half hat-trick which helped Borussia Dortmund to a 6-1 win at Paderborn on Sunday and kept alive their slim Bundesliga title hopes.
The result left Dortmund second on 60 points from 29 games with five rounds of matches remaining, seven behind champions and league leaders Bayern Munich, while Paderborn remained rooted to the foot of the standings on 19 points.
With prolific 19-year-old Norway striker Erling Haaland sidelined by a knee injury, the visitors missed a string of chances in the first half but Sancho lit up the second half.
GASPERINI CRITICIZED
Valencia has criticized Atalanta coach Gian Piero Gasperini for taking charge of his side’s Champions League match against the Spanish side in March despite suffering from symptoms of the novel coronavirus.
Gasperini told Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport on Sunday that he felt ill on the day before the last-16 second leg match in Valencia on March 10, which was played without spectators as northern Italy was then the epicentre of the virus in Europe.
He also confirmed he has since tested positive from an antibodies test.
Valencia later issued a statement saying they were surprised at Gasperini’s admission he had symptoms with the coronavirus before the match and did not take preventative measures.
“Such actions, if this was the case, would have put at risk numerous people during the trip to — and stay in — Valencia,” added the statement.
“It should be remembered tat this game was held behind closed doors amidst strict safety measures... to prevent the risk of COVID-19 contagion, precisely due to the presence of persons from an area already publicly classified as ‘at risk’. ”
A week after the match, which Atalanta won 4-3 for an 8-4 aggregate victory, Valencia announced that 35% of its squad and staff had tested positive for the virus.
The first leg between the two sides at the San Siro in Milan, attended by more than 40,000 fans, is believed to have led to many infections in Italy and Spain, with Bergamo mayor Giorgio Gori later describing the match as a “biological bomb”.