Spanish newspapers have already sketched the horror scenario: 0: 3 at the green table at the start of the European Football Championship.
No goal, no point, and no game against Sweden at all.
The Corona case of Captain Sergio Busquets has deeply worried the European champions of 2008 and 2012 as well as the world champions of 2010, the actual dress rehearsal on this Tuesday is canceled.
Instead of the senior national team, the U21s will play against Lithuania.
And even defending champion Portugal, group opponent of the German national soccer team, is feeling the consequences of the positive results. The sports newspaper "As" even reported an alleged quarantine. Neither UEFA nor the Portuguese association confirmed this on Monday. The continental federation referred to the communication of the Spaniards to Busquets from late Sunday evening, to the exemptions through which players can be renamed and one of the hygiene protocols. The Portuguese association indicated that the players around superstar Cristiano Ronaldo would return after a day off on Monday.
Last Friday, Spain and Portugal played a friendly in Madrid.
Busquets, who led the team as captain instead of the non-nominated Spanish record national player Sergio Ramos, had played a good hour at 0-0.
Go to the next PCR test
The Portuguese gathered again at the Cidade de Futebol in Oeiras in the west of Lisbon to train in the late afternoon and prepare for the final test match before the start of the European Championship against Israel this Wednesday.
In the north-west of Madrid, on the other hand, the motto was: go to the next PCR test.
According to the association, the training was initially carried out in a personalized manner; details of the exact procedure were not available.
Busquets' closest contacts were isolated like the FC Barcelona professional himself.
According to "Mundo Deportivo", the 32-year-old midfielder was back home on Monday.
According to the report, he shouldn't show any symptoms.
He will be absent against Sweden on Monday in Seville (9 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the 2021 European Football Championship, on ZDF and MagentaTV), and a deployment on Saturday next week in Andalusia against Poland also seems practically impossible.
That leaves the last group game against Slovakia on June 23.
The new captain should now be Jordi Alba.
"Spanish nightmare", wrote the Swedish newspaper "Aftonbladet" immediately on Monday.
According to captain Janne Andersson, the Corona case does not change anything in the Scandinavians' preparation for the first opponent, as he assured according to "Fotbollskanalen".
To what extent the Portuguese, in addition to worries about their own possible positive results after the encounters with Busquets on the field on Friday evening, will be impaired in their preparation, initially remained somewhat unclear.
A spokesman for the German Press Agency announced on Monday when asked that any information regarding medical questions would be sent through the official channels.
In any case, this European Championship finals, which was postponed by a year due to the corona pandemic of 2020, will take place in a separate bubble with strict safety and hygiene concepts. If there are one or more positive Corona findings, you can play as long as a team can provide 13 players, including a goalkeeper, who are negative. For this purpose, players can also be appointed, for them others have to be deleted from the original roster.