What will Ligue 1 look like if it resumes in June?

• A hasty judgment can lead to equating the forced confinement of footballers to the summer break that they are used to leading each end of the season for four to five weeks depending on the goodwill of their employers.
• A small majority of professional players from UNFP, the ultra-majority union in French football, said it did not want to resume in season.
• If the championship resumes in June, it will be behind closed doors throughout the summer, initially.

If UEFA, the great helmsman of European football, for the first time opened the door to a stop of the championships to date to avoid sinking into the wall at the bottom of the balls, the time is rather optimism on the side of the LFP, which met its executive committee this Friday to talk deconfinement, strawberry jam and health protocol. French football is working hard to present a concrete plan to the government, hoping to complete the L1 and L2 in June July. 20 minutes sums up the schmilblick for you.

Resume, yes, but with what physical preparation?

A hasty judgment can lead to equating the forced confinement of footballers to the summer break that they are used to leading each end of the season for four to five weeks depending on the goodwill of their employers. Basically, it would be as usual a little earlier in the year, not enough to make a formation. Nothing to do, however, retorts Xavier Frezza, a physical trainer who works with around twenty professional players in agreement with their clubs (Ben Yedder, Batshuayi, Mukiele).

Professional Footballer @ Jvmakengo17 getting in his agility training with Xavier Frezza & the # VertiMaxRaptor. # Football #soccer #footballplayer #soccerplayer #agilitytraining #ToulouseFC #FFF #VertiMax #VertiMaxSoccer @ToulouseFC @XF_coaching @FFF pic.twit1/1

“It is not comparable because there there is also a loss of bearings. Two months without touching a balloon, at this level, it's enormous. The terrain, the calls, the contacts, the environment… all that cannot be recovered like that ”. Especially since the resumption of training in uncertain conditions, from May 11, it will also take into account disparate form states. At OM, to cite a telling example, all the players were invited to perform indoor exercises in order to maintain a high level of cardiovascular sitting. Except that due to disparities in living conditions, between those who do not have a garden, children to be looked after, or insufficient equipment (apartment bikes, treadmills), none had of reports to the staff.

“For someone who has trained well, in two or three weeks it won't be too bad. For those who have not worked too hard physically, I'm curious to see what level they will come back to, it will be a real catamaran. The gap between the two groups will be the hardest to manage ”.

The exercises should be the same for everyone. Jogging, cycling trips, then increased workloads so that players can increase their intensity in record time.

"In three weeks, it could do it. They may be ready to play. But there is to be ready to play once a week, with five days of recovery after a match, and to be ready to play every three days for a month and a half, without real recovery, with transport, travel… This n is not the same thing. The constraints are enormous, because behind it will be necessary to play twice a week almost every week. I am very scared for some players. "

The co-president of the UNFP wants to renounce Ligue 1 2019-20 via @ 20minutesSport https://t.co/4Fw1kqHVjK

Imagine, in fact, that they usually have seven weeks to ramp up, with friendly matches to get used to the field, then a month of very light competition with three games in August. There, it would be necessary to chain two months of dingos, then switch back to a full season in stride with a Euro at the end. Suffice to say that the players could fall like flies, the association of doctors of the pros clubs having already warned that the risk of muscular injury would be multiplied by six (!) From the second match of recovery.

“There is work to be in shape (run fast, run long), and next to injury prevention work, explains Xavier Frezza. This means ensuring muscle balance, working the muscles that suffer a lot (adductors, ischiosis). You have to juggle all that, the intensive cardio sessions and do the muscle building job otherwise some muscles will let go ”.

Like many of his colleagues, the one who allowed Benjamin Mendy to return in time to compete in the 2018 World Cup, evokes the risks of a poor quality show, with players unable to multiply high intensity races in the long term, when they are not injured, and coaches cautious because the workforce can not ensure its share of usual pressing. “My personal opinion, without knowing all the parameters either, is that we should take the option of ending the season at the end of the year, as I saw that a few proposed it. That would allow a little more to pass the epidemic, because there the players will resume in not easy conditions, with heavy sanitary protocols. And they will have to replay very early, without optimal physical preparation ”.

Resume, yes, but under what sanitary conditions?

We come to the major concern raised by the actors themselves, since a short majority of professional players indicated in a questionnaire sent by the UNFP, the ultra-majority union in French football, that it did not want not resume in season. Without risking to evoke the metaphor of cannon fodder sent to the forehead without pants, an official of the medical sector of an L1 club wonders off about the relevance of a return to the field:

“Respecting the barrier gestures in training will already be complicated, but then in a match it is impossible to keep a distance of one meter between the players. I am waiting to see what is proposed but the pros are not guinea pigs, they do not want to infect their family without their knowledge ”.

Emmanuel Orhant, the head of the FFF medical commission, and Eric Rolland, former PSG doctor and representative of doctors on the LFP board of directors, were due to hand over to the League this Friday the health and medical protocol for resuming training, a few weeks after a first version sent to clubs, encouraging the medical cell to practice a biological, cardiac and psychological assessment on the entire workforce, in addition to limiting access to training grounds and taking the daily temperature of all persons authorized to enter it.

The LFP takes the floor, notably with the development of a health and medical protocol for the resumption of training. pic.twitter.com/L4XQ2qhUS2

This time, the focus should be on the issue of testing. According to Le Parisien , the LFP executive office has their hands on the order button: 50,000 tests are ready to be purchased and redistributed fairly between the clubs. The objective? Ensure that all players are negative and ensure that they remain negative by repeating the tests before and after each match, at a minimum. A provision which risks making some teeth cringe while Olivier Véran officially recognized that France did not have enough tests available to deal with those who did not declare any symptoms of the disease.

"I have read that there is a significant share of false negatives for PCR tests," worries our L1 doctor. And then the players will go home in the evening, find their children who went to school in the morning, to do well they would have to be tested every day. At the very least, that represents several hundred tests per club per week. I don't know if it's sustainable over the long term. ”

Or you have to make sure that the players stay in a vacuum. In Spain, after a series of tests conducted from April 21, the Liga teams would resume training in three stages. First individually, then in small groups, and finally complete, provided that the players are quarantined together for the duration of the championship! In Germany, according to Spiegel magazine , the Federal Ministry of Labor has drawn up safety directives, recommending that players wear a mask which "would not slip during sprints, head shots and duels", and which should be changed every 15 minutes!

The LFP wants to invest in 50,000 tests before the takeover #ASSE https://t.co/iiqlCGsL2O pic.twitter.com/SJwh01XEW1

Recommendations which one wonders how they could be adopted by Neymar, Mbappé, and the others. "The mask, I don't believe it for a second," emphasizes our specialist. And quarantine, frankly, it's unbearable. Especially since you would have to travel during away games, sleep in a hotel where people could be healthy carriers ... If only one player tests positive everything collapses.

Resume, yes, but with whom in the stands?

This is undoubtedly the only condition accepted by all the players, despite the heartbreak it means for the supporters and for the players themselves. If the championship resumes in June, it will be behind closed doors throughout the summer, initially. Emmanuel Macron said that large-scale sporting or cultural gatherings could not be held before mid-July, at least. If Ligue 1 has a little crazy hope of filling its stadiums in the fall, like the organizers of the Tour de France and Roland-Garros, the closed door guarantees at least to end the season without blurring anyone and to collect the amount of TV rights for the moment retained by the two financiers of French football, beIN Sport and Canal +.

Le Tour de France will take place on the planned route, with no changes, from Nice to Paris, from Saturday 29th August to Sunday 20th September.
For more information ➡️ https://t.co/Ik9vmcp7sN#TDF2020 pic.twitter.com/0HSJLLYnXs

Until the declaration of the President of the Republic and the decision to confine the country, the Ministry of Sports had declared its preference to maintain the sports calendar at all costs. In this period, the camera can become our doctrine for organizing competitions, "declared Roxana Maracineanu on March 9. The said doctrine has not changed in the meantime, and it is even an essential prerequisite for Matignon to give the green light to the recovery. It remains to be determined who will have the right to enter the L1 stadiums on match days. If we refer to the last full-scale test, the 8th final return of the Champions League between PSG and Dortmund, less than 400 people were able to witness the Parisian victory at the Parc des Princes. In details ?

• A dozen VIPs on each side
• UEFA officials (delegates and referees)
• Security personnel
• Catering staff
• The staffs of the two teams
• Teams from the five rights-holding TV channels

The specifications put in place by the Bundesliga could once again enlighten the decision-makers of French football. The Germans target less than 300 people for each match. The physiotherapists and the assistants would take their place in the stands rather than on the bench, the number of ball gatherers would be reduced to a minimum, as would the cohort of journalists and officials usually authorized to follow the meetings in the stands.

But since we were talking about PSG-Dortmund, it will also be necessary to settle the thorny question of supporters gathering in front of the stadium, especially during big matches, at random for an OM-PSG still scheduled on the calendar. Interrogated by RMC, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner seems to be banking on the civic spirit of a population now well aware of the dangers of the Covid-19 epidemic.

"There was a failure to mobilize supporters on a closed match in Paris just before confinement," he admitted. I am convinced that if all the players in sport made this decision (behind closed doors), on the basis of health discussions, the supporters will play the game. I do not believe that the supporters are fools and that they want to get involved at risk. I am in favor of trusting people. "

It will be up to the clubs, too, to be imaginative in offering the possibility to their subscribers to participate in the recovery in their own way, even if the ultras of the L1 clubs have already expressed their opposition to a resumption of the championships behind closed doors. In Germany, we always come back to it, fans can have their cardboard replica made to occupy a place in the gallery, at least visually. And we are counting on the start-up nation to offer us an overpriced app that will insult your favorite player from your sofa as if you were in a corner.

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• PSG
• Soccer
• OL
• Coronavirus
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• League 1
• Roxana Maracineanu
• OM