Manuel Neuer looked as perplexed as it was annoyed when the ball kept coming up in Mönchengladbach at the end of October. He was in the goal of the historic 0: 5 in the DFB-Pokal, and because the national goalkeeper is known as an extraordinarily ambitious athlete, you can well imagine that he would have loved to take part if the revenge this Friday at the beginning of the second half of the Bundesliga season pending: Bayern against Gladbach in Munich. According to the current status, Neuer is likely to follow this game from the Maldives, in domestic isolation after a positive corona test on vacation.
As things stand at the moment, that needs to be emphasized again in connection with upcoming football games. As of now, the game will take place on Friday. There are now four players on both sides who tested positive: Neuer, Kingsley Coman, Corentin Tolisso and Omar Richards in Munich, Mamadou Doucouré, Joe Scally, Denis Zakaria and Keanan Bennetts in Gladbach. At FC Bayern, the entire squad will be tested again this Monday morning, before coach Julian Nagelsmann brings the team together for training for the first time in the new year in the afternoon.
Lionel Messi was also infected with the corona virus
The coronavirus determines the processes everywhere in European football. Not only in England, where the game between Southampton and Newcastle was canceled on Sunday, Jürgen Klopp is in domestic isolation and Liverpool FC are missing three professionals for the top game against Chelsea, to name just the latest examples. The specialist magazine kicker has a “Corona ticker“Established on its homepage: Seven positive tests at AS Monaco, five at Paris Saint-Germain (including Lionel Messi). And since the Bundesliga clubs are resuming training these days, there are now the corresponding reports from Germany: three infected people at Hertha BSC , four at VfB Stuttgart, five at Werder Bremen.
FC Bayern, which was affected by the pandemic in many ways in 2021, had issued a confident report on its own behalf shortly before the turn of the year: “All players, coaches and staff members who were already able to do so received the booster vaccination The rest of them have recovered status or have been vaccinated, “said team doctor Roland Schmidt in a statement on Thursday. Between the lines this meant, among other things, that Michael Cuisance also received his first vaccination. The Frenchman was one of the Bavarian quintet that received quarantine measures in November. After that, only the first vaccinations of Serge Gnabry and Jamal Musiala and the corona infections of Joshua Kimmich and Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting had become known.
Leaving FC Bayern: Michael Cuisance (right) is said to be about to move to Italy.
(Photo: Xinhua / imago)
Cuisance, 22, will, according to the signs, leave FC Bayern in the current winter transfer period anyway. the image already reports on a move to FC Venice for allegedly around four million euros, a confirmation was still pending on Sunday.
In the announcement from Thursday, FC Bayern also informed that in view of the current pandemic situation, testing “much more closely” and “intensifying all hygiene measures”: wearing masks, distance rules, reducing contact. “With the hygiene concept adapted to the current situation and the expanded test strategy, we want to reduce the risk of a corona infection as much as possible. We will also pay attention to a reduction in close contact situations away from the football field,” team doctor Schmidt was quoted as saying. On New Year’s Eve, the club informed about the positive tests in the quartet around Neuer, and assistant coach Dino Toppmöller was also infected. The training start originally planned for January 2nd has been postponed to January 3rd. Test in the morning and train in the afternoon.
Neuer reports mild symptoms
And so FC Bayern is once again the case study that explains the current pandemic measures. Whether the infections are those with the more contagious Omicron variant is likely to be a decisive question, the association does not disclose this. Omikron would mean that the quarantine would last 14 days in any case. For Neuer, however, earlier self-testing should not be possible anyway: In an Instagram post on Saturday, he reported mild symptoms, according to the rules in Germany, termination of isolation is only possible after seven days if the course is symptom-free. It was said on Sunday – as of now – that Neuer will spend the isolation at the holiday resort and will not be brought to Munich in a private plane like Thomas Müller, who was infected in Qatar in February 2021. According to a statement from FC Bayern, Coman spent his vacation in Dubai, Tolisso in France. “They are all fine,” said the club.
There are currently no thoughts of postponing the game in the Bundesliga, at least publicly expressed, despite the numerous positive tests. According to the DFL game rules, a club would have to demonstrate that there are no more than 15 eligible footballers available to it. And even for the Bayern goal, in which someone other than Neuer is only in the extreme exceptional case, there is a replacement: Sven Ulreich, who fell out at 5-0 in Gladbach in October with a torn knee ligament, is currently healthy.