Football Was Fine in Its Biosecure Bubbles – Now It's Not Looking So Simple

Manchester United’s Paul Pogba (left) has tested positive for coronavirus while Aaron Wan-Bissaka (right) is in quarantine after a holiday in Dubai. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Reuters
Manchester United’s Paul Pogba (left) has tested positive for coronavirus while Aaron Wan-Bissaka (right) is in quarantine after a holiday in Dubai. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Reuters
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Football Was Fine in Its Biosecure Bubbles – Now It's Not Looking So Simple

Manchester United’s Paul Pogba (left) has tested positive for coronavirus while Aaron Wan-Bissaka (right) is in quarantine after a holiday in Dubai. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Reuters
Manchester United’s Paul Pogba (left) has tested positive for coronavirus while Aaron Wan-Bissaka (right) is in quarantine after a holiday in Dubai. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Reuters

Now the pandemic-interrupted 2019-20 season is over and a new one is ready to start, it is easy to believe some sort of normality is around the corner, that football at least has found a way to play through the complications imposed by Covid-19.

By the same token it is easy to forget that just a few months ago the main item of news when there was no football anywhere in sight was the drip feed of test results from the Premier League, which would release weekly figures on how many tests had been carried out and how many positive cases had been confirmed.

The point of all that was to reassure everyone that progress was being made, because once health protocols were put in place the figures were generally encouraging, with only a tiny percentage of positive tests. Compare that with the situation at present when, at several Premier League clubs, leading players are having to self-isolate because of either testing positive or being in contact with known risks.

Paul Pogba and, it is believed, Tanguy Ndombele are among the positives, Chelsea have so many players staying at home they are finding it difficult to put on proper training sessions, and though Raheem Sterling seems to have survived his contact with the now self-isolating Usain Bolt, Aaron Wan-Bissaka must stay at home following a trip to Dubai. It is understood they are not the only clubs affected.

The reason for this explosion is not hard to spot. Players were kept in a tight security bubble as the season was restarted and concluded, since when they have been allowed out on their holidays. Anything can happen once players are on Greek islands or riviera beaches, as Manchester United can readily confirm, but though socializing in poorly ventilated venues or crowded locations may have played their part in putting hitherto protected professionals at risk, the possibility exists that traveling abroad in the first place is still a bad idea at the moment.

Planes and airports are the sort of places where infection can quickly spread through the inevitable close contact. Now players are back with their clubs and returning to more supervised routines the rise in positive cases should be brought under control relatively quickly, yet in the circumstances, it is hard to disagree with Chris Waddle when he questions the wisdom of England flying out for two Nations League matches next week. Waddle thinks the Nations League is the last thing anyone needs at the moment, and no one would shed a tear if it were scrapped.

Gareth Southgate and a few other international managers will doubtless think otherwise, though it would be instructive to discover what the clubs feel about their players leaving the country again a week before the start of the season. Club managers are never that keen on international breaks anyway, but the timing of this one is unhelpful, to say the least. One feels that old-fashioned friendlies against Iceland and Denmark would have been cancelled by now. The Nations League is nominally a competition, but not such a vital or established one that demands health be put at risk.

(The Guardian)



Motorcycling-Double Dakar Winner Sunderland Chasing Round the World Record

Rallying - Dakar Rally - Prologue - Alula to Alula - Alula, Saudi Arabia - January 5, 2024 Red Bull GASGAS Factory's Sam Sunderland in action during the prologue stage REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed/File Photo
Rallying - Dakar Rally - Prologue - Alula to Alula - Alula, Saudi Arabia - January 5, 2024 Red Bull GASGAS Factory's Sam Sunderland in action during the prologue stage REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed/File Photo
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Motorcycling-Double Dakar Winner Sunderland Chasing Round the World Record

Rallying - Dakar Rally - Prologue - Alula to Alula - Alula, Saudi Arabia - January 5, 2024 Red Bull GASGAS Factory's Sam Sunderland in action during the prologue stage REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed/File Photo
Rallying - Dakar Rally - Prologue - Alula to Alula - Alula, Saudi Arabia - January 5, 2024 Red Bull GASGAS Factory's Sam Sunderland in action during the prologue stage REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed/File Photo

Double Dakar Rally motorcycle champion Sam Sunderland is gearing up to ride around the world in 19 days, a record bid that the Briton expects to be mentally more challenging than anything he has done before.

The bid, launched on Thursday, targets a record of 19 days, eight hours and 25 minutes set in 2002 by Kevin and Julia Sanders for the fastest circumnavigation of the globe by motorcycle.

To beat the feat, which is no longer recognised by Guinness World Records because of the dangers involved, the 36-year-old will have to ride 1,000 miles every day and on public roads across Europe, Türkiye and into the Middle East, Reuters reported.

A flight will take him on to the Australian outback, New Zealand and the Americas. From there, he and the Triumph Tiger 1200 go to Morocco and loop back through Europe to Britain.

What could possibly go wrong?

"I don't think you can ride around the world and cover that many miles a day without having a few hiccups along the way," Sunderland told Reuters with a grin.

"When I try and compare it to the Dakar it's going to be probably, in some sense, tougher. Not physically but mentally.

"In the Dakar you've got a heap of adrenaline, you're super focused, things are changing quite often which makes you have to react. And this is like: 'Right, those are your miles for the day, get them done'. It's more like a mental fatigue."

 

ONE DIRECTION

 

The target time excludes ocean crossings but the journey, starting in September, must go one way around the world and start and finish at the same location on the same machine.

Two antipodal points must be reached on a journey through more than 15 countries and 13 time zones. The Dakar rally covers 5,000 miles over two weeks.

"I was trying to put it into perspective for my mum the other day, and my mum lives in Poole in the south of England, and I was like 'Mum, it's like you driving up to Scotland and perhaps halfway back every day for 19 days'," said Sunderland.

"I'm on the bike for around 17 hours (a day). I set off at 5 a.m. and arrive around 10, 11 p.m. most nights. So definitely later into the day you feel that sort of mental fatigue setting in, and to stay focused and stimulated is not that easy.

"But at least I don't have dunes and mountains to deal with and other riders in the dust, and hopefully not getting lost either."

"I need to behave, let's say, I need to follow the rules of the road and be a good boy with it," said Sunderland, who announced his retirement from professional racing last year.

Sunderland will have a support crew of six travelling behind by car, for security and assistance, but the Red Bull-backed rider expects to be well ahead.

He also hopes his bid will have a positive effect.

"In the news today, it's all sort of doom and gloom in the world, with all the wars going on," he said. "And I think it's quite nice to show people that you can still get out there and experience the world for what it really is."