SOCCER IS BACK!
Well, kind of...
The COVID-19 pandemic shut down soccer/football in early March. Beginning in late May, the top flight European leagues have been slowly -- and safely -- re-opening, but with a big catch.
The Bundesliga (the top flight German professional league) re-opened on May 17. They implemented a long list of safety precautions: Players and staff are tested for COVID weekly, their temperatures are taken before they can enter the stadium, substitutes and team personnel wear masks and sit at least six feet apart from each other, and the like. But the biggest change is that the matches are played in empty stadiums. And it's a very strange experience.
One of the first re-opening matches I watched was Bayern Munch vs. Frankfurt, which was played in Bayern's 85,000-seat stadium. Incuding the players, substitutes, team staff, and other officials, there were no more than 100 people there, and the match was played in relative silence. It was eerie. One interesting aspect is that you could clearly hear the ball being kicked, and you could listen as the players and coaches yelled to each other. While I don't speak a word of German, it was still interesting to hear all the interaction.
In more recent matches, they have begun pumping recorded crowd noises into the stadium and digitally projecting fans in the seats. On top of that, there's someone at a control board somewhere, and the fan sounds react to the play on the pitch. At one point in a match a watched this past weekend, a player from the home team took a beautiful shot, and the fan sounds roared in approval. This prompted the announcer to say, "And the virtual crowd goes wild!"
La Liga (Spain) re-opened last weekend, and the English Premier League re-opens today. In both leagues they're contracting the schedules to fit in all the remaining matches. That means that teams will be playing twice a week until late July. That's a lot of soccer!