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FOOTBALL
Qualification for the World Cup of the national soccer team means that 26 players and leaders will once again be completely locked up for ten days, without the possibility of meeting family and friends.
– This will be something new. I’ll handle it, says Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Players and leaders of the men’s team met on Monday.
All were quickly and directly screened for the coronavirus and were trapped in the famous national team bubble.
– This is as good as it can be from an infection-proof perspective, says national team doctor Anders Valentin to Sportbladet.
– Rapid tests are good and reliable. Then we also do PCR tests according to UEFA protocol on Tuesdays, Fridays and Mondays, two days before matches.
Staff stay away
The national football team only receives between training sessions and the players hotel in central Stockholm.
The team cannot go out or meet anyone other than other players and leaders.
– Basically, we have no contact with anyone outside our bubble, no one. The closest thing is the remote press conference. The hotel staff have mouth guards and keep their distance. They are not the dining room when we eat. They take care of everything afterwards, says Valentin.
Photo: Jonas Ekströmer / TT
Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
For the return of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, this is the first time that he has entered this kind of strict and prolonged team isolation to avoid corona infection.
Every day, Zlatan lives in Milan, the family in Stockholm.
On Monday, the AC Milan star tearfully told how difficult it had been to part with the crying son Vincent when father Zlatan left for the national team hotel.
– I haven’t been in that bubble. I have been in a bubble in Milan and there we have had free rein since we have been allowed to go out, to and from training. This will be something new, says Ibrahimovic and continues:
– I’m a professional, I’ll do this.
I saw the family through the glass
In the fall, Albin Ekdal recounted how difficult it was not being able to meet his pregnant wife and the couple’s daughter in the League of Nations. Instead, he had to greet them on the other side of a window pane.
Both Ekdal and Ibrahimovic have had a covid infection and have antibodies, but that doesn’t help.
Players and leaders can not meet family cards with mouth guards and outdoors?
– No, unfortunately not. Then it will be a difficult demarcation. We drive the same, everyone is in the bubble. The rules are really tough, says Anders Valentin.
Are they too harsh?
– No, that’s the only way. If you want to be 100 per cent, it must be even more difficult, but it doesn’t work to quarantine all leaders and players two or three weeks before we play.
Is it a mental strain to live in these bubbles?
– When we met in the fall, I was a little worried about how this would turn out. But I was very surprised at how well it turned out. Everyone likes the situation, says Valentin.
– You are not alone in the cell, you are there with the people you like.
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Sportbladet – Allsvenskan
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