Arnaud Kalimuendo can thank the Covid-19. The young (18) striker from Paris-Saint-Germain (PSG) played, Thursday, September 10, his first official match with the professionals, lost on the lawn of Racing Club de Lens (0-1). The hatching of the last nugget of the Parisian training center was expected. It was precipitated by the health disaster that fell on the workforce of coach Thomas Tuchel after the Champions League final lost on August 23 against Bayern Munich.
A few days of rest and a stay in Ibiza later, the German coach had to deal with the absence of seven holders diagnosed positive for the coronavirus (Keylor Navas, Neymar, Angel Di Maria, Marquinhos, Mauro Icardi, Leandro Paredes, Kylian Mbappé ) and fill with hopes of the academy.
Relaxed medical corset
For the latter, the jump in the deep end is also due to the change of the health protocol imposed by the Professional Football League (LFP). No more threat of postponing a match “If a team has more than three players or supervisors isolated over eight rolling days” ; rule that postponed the entry into contention of PSG this season in Ligue 1. The medical corset has been relaxed since September 4: each club must now justify at least twenty names not reached by virus – including a guard – from a list of thirty sent to the LFP.
“The previous protocol took us to a stranger who frightened everyone, analysis Xavier Thuilot, Managing Director of AS Saint-Etienne. There was a clear risk of arriving in May with clubs that had missed between one and ten games. We couldn’t go on pretending everything was fine. ”
“The risk: not being able to finish”
Since the resumption of August 21, players and followers of Ligue 1 have scored fewer points in the standings than the umpteenth cases of positive players. So many swords of Damocles over the matches before each weekend. The inaugural meeting between Marseille in Saint-Etienne was rescheduled for September 17 after the revelation of four contaminations among Provençals. Strict application of a first protocol which made club managers fear a truncated new season.
“Considering the start of the championship and the postponements, the risk was really not to be able to finish”, assures Jean-Pierre Rivère, president of OGC Nice, satisfied with a regulatory change that he was among the first to demand. “Everyone adapts to the events, observes the businessman. But I think that [la modification] reinforces the possibility of, perhaps, finishing the championship normally. “
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