Rome (AFP)
The maintenance of the shock planned for Sunday evening between Juventus Turin and Naples seemed compromised after the impossibility of the Neapolitan players to join Turin on Saturday evening because of the two cases of Covid-2019 recorded in their workforce.
The Naples players were unable to take their flight as planned, by decision of the local health authorities, according to the media and a spokesperson for the club.
"For the moment, we are not leaving, that's for sure. The rest is up to the Football League to decide," the spokesperson told AFP.
When asked, the League was unable to say when a decision would be taken.
After Polish midfielder Piotr Zielinski on Friday, Napoli announced on Saturday that a second player had tested positive for Covid-19: his Macedonian midfielder Eljif Elmas.
A staff member is also positive.
Napoli have been subjected to three rounds of tests since the announcement on Monday of the emergence of grouped cases at Genoa, its last opponent.
The Ligurian club now have seventeen positive players, eleven of whom played - and lost 6-0 - last Sunday against Napoli.
- At least 13 players -
Despite this reinforced surveillance and multiple tests, the main fear was that players who tested negative until Saturday could still be contagious on Sunday evening if the disease broke out in the meantime.
Juventus itself is not spared: players and staff were put in isolation on Saturday evening, a procedure which does not prevent them from training or playing but prohibits contact with the outside, after two cases of Covid-19 within the bianconero club.
These two positive tests do not concern players or "members of the technical or medical staff", Juve said.
These positive cases in Napoli and Juventus do not, in theory, allow to postpone the match of Sunday evening, according to the new framework adopted by the Italian League: it endorsed Thursday the rules of the UEFA providing that a match can take place from the moment a team has 13 healthy players, including a goalkeeper.
According to this protocol, a team which is not able to present the required number of players loses the match on the green carpet 3-0.
The only possible exemption: if a club houses an active outbreak of Covid-19 with more than ten new positive cases in a week, it can request a postponement, but only once in the season.
This was the case for Genoa, whose match scheduled for Saturday against Torino was postponed, but not that of Napoli.
- Juve want to play -
Saturday evening, after the announcement that the Neapolitans could not leave as planned, Juventus has also shown its willingness to stick to this regulation: the Italian champion assured in a statement that his players would be well on the pitch Sunday evening at 8:45 p.m. (6:45 p.m. GMT), at the time set for kick-off, "as scheduled in the Serie A schedule".
"I do not think there will be any difficulties to play. The League has set very specific rules," Juventus coach Andrea Pirlo said in the afternoon.
"We will be ready, this situation has not disturbed us," he added.
Prepared in this strange atmosphere, this shock opposes two candidates for the first places in Serie A.
The Neapolitans must test their ambitions of reconquest after a mixed season against the defending champion.
Juventus, she must give meaning to the "construction" initiated by Andrea Pirlo, who is living his first season as a coach.
The initial promises against Sampdoria (3-0) followed a mixed performance in Rome (2-2), saved by a double from Cristiano Ronaldo.
© 2020 AFP