Sports: Barca's heading back to train as La-Liga's heads restart

Barcelona's Spanish coach Quique Setien wears a face mask as he attends a preparation session at the Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper in Sant Joan Despi on 8 May 2020 as Spain prepares to relax its strict lock-down steps to deter the spread of COVID-19.

The Spanish Government proposed a programme for professional footballers, which initially required them to practice individually, with a limit of six players on the field..

Barcelona returned to training on Friday, after the champions of La Liga allowed their stars to join their facilities to brace for a potential restart of football in Spain.

Lionel Messi and company took the fields at the Joan Gamper training center for individual sessions, where the players came alone in the kit and took the three pitches without going through the change rooms. As well as doing their routines, they were also subjected to tests to see what effect two months of coronavirus quarantine has had on their bodies.

“Finally we are getting back to normal. We hope to carry on and that soon we can get back to enjoying what we like to do most,” Arturo Vidal told sports daily Marca.

Sevilla, Villarreal, Osasuna and Leganes also returned to training, while Real Madrid  who were two points behind league leaders, Barca, when play stopped in mid-March  will likely start again on Monday should their players pass virus tests carried out on Wednesday.

That would mark almost two months since Real had been placed in quarantine following a positive test for a member of the club’s basketball team.

According to Spanish newspapers, none of Real's players have had signs of the flu, but Zinedine Zidane would have to do without Serb attacker Luka Jovic after Real revealed on Friday that he had fractured his right heel.

Footballers in Spain resumed training following last week's announcement of a government plan to end quarantine for professional players. Individual training sessions are the first step to what La Liga hopes will be a return to action in June that will complete the 2019-20 season behind closed doors.

The first aspect of a four-phase de-escalation programme allows a maximum of six players on the pitch at any one time. La Liga’s programme will then permit training in small groups before a return to larger team sessions.

In the fourth and final phase, in early June, the government has said outside events can go ahead when attended by fewer than 400 people.

League president Javier Tebas has said, “it is not an option” to cancel the season given the economic fallout, estimating it would cost clubs around a billion euros ($1.08 billion).

On Thursday, Leganese coach Javier Aguirre said that La Liga would resume on June 20th and end on July 26th, although the league's bosses refused to confirm his claim that they had told him the dates.

"La Liga just told me formally, and I'm very happy about that, because we've arranged training sessions already," Aguirre said to Marca Claro.