Mowing the lawn, playing soccer with your dog, turning on the TV. Soccer players around Europe are struggling to fill the “big void” created by the COVID-19 shutdown and many are writing about the unfamiliar experience on social media.
Some have already come to the conclusion “there is nothing to do.”
Real Madrid players have been training at home, where most of them already had facilities and equipment.
Captain Sergio Ramos posted a video on Instagram showing him sprinting on a treadmill.
Marco Asensio, who suffered a knee injury last year, posted a video showing that he was continuing his recovery program in his garden.
However, even for players used to working out, there is a limit.
“I’m here, in my garden, there’s nothing to do,” Real Madrid striker Karim Benzema said in a video on social media where he appeared alongside his dog, earning him a comparison with Will Smith in the movie I Am Legend.
In Italy, Juventus midfielder Douglas Costa filmed himself practicing his dribbling in the back garden, with his dog struggling to fill the role of defender.
Alexis Sanchez, on loan at Inter, has two golden retrievers and a much bigger garden, but he comfortably outplayed them in a video he put up online.
He also posted photographs of himself topless, gathering chopped wood.
Jessica Melena, the wife of Ciro Immobile, posted a cookery video, showing the SS Lazio striker waving a spatula and mixing a cake while she coached him.
Immobile posted a video in which he juggled toys with his feet.
SSC Napoli’s Belgian forward Dries Mertens posted pictures of a work out with a bottle of red wine.
In France, Angers SCO defender Romain Thomas said that his daily routine involved jogging, gardening and watching reality TV, while he has also talked to his teammates.
“We said to each other: ‘Look, it’s a beautiful day, it’s time to mow.’ So I mowed the lawn in the garden, it gives me time to think about something else,” Thomas said.
Former reality TV star Jessie Holmes on Tuesday night cruised to a repeat victory in the Iditarod, the about 1,609km sled dog race in Alaska. Holmes guided his dog team across the finish line in the old Gold Rush town of Nome, a Bering Sea coastal community. The race started on March 8 in Willow, a day after the ceremonial start in Anchorage. The course took dog teams and their mushers over two mountain ranges, along the frozen Yukon River and across the unpredictable Bering Sea ice. Holmes, a former cast member on the National Geographic reality show Life Below Zero, is the
Taiwanese boxer and Olympic gold medalist Lin Yu-ting has been approved to compete in the Asian Boxing Elite Championships, the Chinese Taipei Boxing Association (CTBA) said yesterday. The championships start on Saturday next week in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. At the 2024 Paris Olympics, Lin became entangled in a gender controversy, despite the International Olympic Committee confirming her eligibility to compete as a female boxer. In August last year, World Boxing mandated a new regulation that required all athletes to undergo a polymerase chain reaction. genetic test to determine their sex at birth and their eligibility. Since the introduction of the test, Lin has missed several
The Taoyuan Pauian Pilots on Sunday fell short in their bid for a first East Asia Super League (EASL) title after a 90-81 loss to Japan’s Utsunomiya Brex in Macau. The defeat marked the second straight year the defending P.League+ champions missed out on the EASL crown, but they remain the first team to reach back-to-back championship games in the league’s three-year history. The outcome was largely decided by long-range shooting. The Pilots struggled from beyond the arc, hitting just five of 20 attempts, while the Brex converted 19 three-pointers, shooting 46.3 percent from long range. Seven of the eight Brex players
ONE MORE CHANCE: While North Korea denied Taiwan in Australia, Taiwan, who last played in the World Cup in 1991, could still qualify via inter-confederation playoffs Taiwan yesterday lost 4-0 to a dominant North Korea in the AFC Women’s Asian Cup playoffs, closing off an avenue to qualify for the FIFA Women’s World Cup. Hong Song-ok scored a hat-trick in the match to determine the last of the confederation’s qualifiers from the tournament for next year’s World Cup in Brazil. With their victory over Taiwan, North Korea has qualified for the first time since a doping saga in 2011 led to their long absence from top-tier international tournaments. Angela Beard and Jaclyn Sawicki scored in a six-minute span to help the Philippines secure a World Cup spot with a
RSS