International Breaks Are The Worst
...the woooooooorrrrrrrrrrrst.
The world continues to ignore the very real - like really real - reality that is COVID-19. I’ve written about it before I started this newsletter, including my own experience which was just utterly awful (and still way better than losing my job, being crippled by debt, being unable to secure or afford treatment, losing my home, losing my loved ones or any one of the countless other outcomes of contracting a deadly, highly communicable virus in the midst of a global pandemic of said same virus). To help combat this, professional football has returned without fans, with testing and isolation protocols and, of course, the cancellation of any of the unnecessary travel and cohabitation required of international football. [puts finger to earpiece] Sorry I’ve just been told international football it totally fine to go ahead unabated.
Anyway, in what I’m sure is a coincidence, Mo Salah was on international duty, received an award, attended his brother’s wedding where he danced a lot, didn’t wear a mask, and shockingly - I SAID SHOCKINGLY - tested positive for the virus.
Thankfully, it does not appear he played football while positive for the virus because that, we can all agree, would be bad. But totally never going to happen because precautions.
And it’s not just the direct cause of getting COVID, but players are being forced to play more matches in a tighter timeframe due to earlier rescheduling. Rather than leaving something on the bone, international football are committed to ripping every tendon from them. In the last week we’ve seen England and Liverpool defender Joe Gomez suffer a potentially season-ending injury (he’s already had the surgery), watched Nathan Ake limp off for Holland and Seamus Coleman missed Ireland’s Wembley loss with a recurrence of his hamstring injury. John Egan? Injured during a match. Marcus Rashford? Injured just before and forced to withdraw from the England squad. Meanwhile Conor Coady and Luka Milivojevic are isolating due to close contacts. Aaron Connolly is out for at least three matches with an ankle knock sustained in training with Ireland. And, for some reason, currently injured Christian Pulisic showed up at USMNT camp to participate despite not being cleared for play and has now returned to Chelsea for additional rehab.
Big thanks to Ben Dinnery for all his fine work keeping us current, even on U21's - and current FPL darlings - Rayan Ait-Nouri and Wesley Fofana, both headed to the trainer’s table!!
Y’all it’s NOT EVEN SATURDAY YET. We have another full week of this bullshit, and it’s only getting worse:
welp,
To conclude:
Fin.