Madrid (AFP)

La Liga is back! After three months of forced arrest, Lionel Messi, Karim Benzema and other stars of Spanish football replay from Thursday, under high health vigilance in a country very bereaved by coronavirus ... but relieved to find the football.

FC Barcelona on Saturday in Mallorca, Real Madrid on Sunday against Eibar: the stars of the two great Spanish players, in the fight for the title eleven days before the end, find the lawns this weekend in stadiums behind closed doors and following a strict medical protocol.

After 91 days of paralysis (football was stopped on March 12 in Spain), the footballers hope to give new meaning to the sporting stakes of this end of the season: Real and their coach Zinedine Zidane, who had been placed in quarantine at the start of the epidemic, hope to regain first place in Liga at Barça de Messi and Antoine Griezmann, first with two points ahead.

The two months spent in confinement at least allowed the injured to be treated: the Belgian Eden Hazard (Real Madrid), recovered from a fractured right ankle, and the Uruguayan Luis Suarez (Barcelona), operated on the right meniscus on January 12, will find the lawn at the best time.

They have already found their partners during a recovery spread over five weeks, supposed to avoid any risk of contagion: first during individual sessions, then in small groups, and with the full group since early June.

- "On tip-toes" -

The third major European championship to resume competition after Germany and Portugal, Spain is in turn preparing to discover the most confusing aspects of football in the days of the coronavirus.

The players will play in stadiums closed to the public, a framework that looks particularly strange for the Andalusian derby between Seville FC and Betis, which will kick off the resumption of La Liga on Thursday evening (20:00 GMT). This poster, among the hottest in Spain in normal times, will be very silent this time.

For its part, Barça will welcome its opponents in the echoes of the immense Camp Nou (the largest stadium in Europe with 99,354 seats).

As for Real Madrid, deprived of its Santiago-Bernabeu stadium under construction, it will play its home matches in the small training stadium Alfredo Di Stéfano (6,000 seats), built in the great expanses of Valdebebas, a recent northeast district from Madrid.

"Next week, the team will reappear between the silence of the stands and the discretion of Valdebebas. As if he came back in the battle for the title on tiptoe. It is not his nature," summed up the Argentinian Jorge Valdano, ex-Real Madrid player and respected voice of football in Spain, Saturday in the daily El Pais.

- Relief -

The Spanish are however relieved by this resumption of football, the first step towards the beginning of a return to normalcy, while the country has been one of the hardest hit in the world by the pandemic.

Spain has successfully brought the virus under control in recent weeks, but is one of the most affected countries with more than 27,000 confirmed deaths, according to figures released Sunday.

Only a few isolated voices, like the Eibar team or the Valencian defender Gabriel Paulista

invoked their "fear" of resuming competition, relaunched mainly to preserve the clubs' television rights receipts.

This is why the boss of the Professional League (LaLiga) Javier Tebas ardently wanted this recovery, granted by the government of Pedro Sanchez who made a popular concession there in times of crisis, in an almost general consensus.

In Spain, this restart concerns a key economic sector, which represents 1.37% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), according to a LaLiga report dating from 2019.

The shortfall, estimated at one billion euros if the championship does not resume, will be limited to 303.4 million euros. And Spanish supporters will be able to see their stars at work.

The program for the 28th day of the Spanish Championship (GMT hours):

Thursday:

(8 p.m.) Sevilla FC - Betis Sevilla

Friday:

(5.30 p.m.) Granada - Getafe

(8:00 p.m.) Valence CF - Levante

Saturday:

(12h00) Espanyol Barcelona - Alaves

(3:00 p.m.) Celta Vigo - Villarreal

(5:30 p.m.) Leganes - Valladolid

(8 p.m.) Mallorca - FC Barcelona

Sunday:

(12:00 p.m.) Athletic Bilbao - Atlético Madrid

(5:30 p.m.) Real Madrid - Eibar

(8:00 p.m.) Real Sociedad - Osasuna

© 2020 AFP