Paris (AFP) – Football fans in England and Italy received the news they had been waiting for on Thursday after the Premier League and Serie A got restart dates for their suspended seasons.
England’s top flight gave itself a provisional date of June 17 less than an hour before Italy’s Sport Minister announced that the country’s elite league could restart on June 20.
They will join the already-restarted German Bundesliga and Spain’s La Liga in trying to finish their seasons, but how do the leagues shape up in the coronavirus era?
German Bundesliga
— The first of the major leagues to retake the field, with only three rounds of matches played since the mid-May restart Bayern Munich already looked certainties to win their eighth straight league title.
Hansi Flick’s side are seven points clear after beating title rivals Borussia Dortmund at an all-but empty Signal Iduna Park, the third post-lockdown win in a row and one that reasserts their supremacy.
RB Leipzig, Borussia Moenchengladbach and Bayer Leverkusen will fight it out for the other two Champions League places.
The league has given fans a look at what other returning top divisions will look like once back in action, with silent stadiums and strict medical protocols that enforce social distancing and make players on the substitutes bench wear face masks.
Similar measures are expected to be adopted by the other ‘Big Five’, with Spain, Italy and England all hit especially hard by the virus.
English Premier League
— Liverpool’s bid to win their first league title in three decades was given a huge boost on Thursday when the Premier League announced a provisional restart date of June 17.
Jurgen Klopp’s side need just two wins to seal a title that looked a certainty before the coronavirus shut down global sport, having built a 25-point lead over reigning champions Manchester City by March.
However celebrations will be mooted, with no fans in the stands and the pandemic preventing the wild partying that such a victory would have otherwise provoked.
With nine matches remaining for most clubs, Manchester United, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Sheffield United are all eyeing Chelsea in fourth, while four points separate second-from-bottom Aston Villa and Brighton in 15th.
Italian Serie A
— Vincenzo Spadafora’s announcement of a June 20 restart should bring an end to months of bickering between the abrasive sports minister and Italy’s football authorities, and could yet see the resolution to one of the most exciting title races in years.
from World Soccer Talk https://ift.tt/3daGGug
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