Connect with us

International Football

COVID-19 CHAOS LOOMS OVER WORLD CUP QUALIFIERS

blank

Published

on

blank

Next week’s World Cup qualifying games in Europe and beyond are set to be heavily affected by clubs refusing to release players for international duty, Covid-19 quarantines and travel restrictions.

Inter Milan announced on Thursday (March 18) that all of their players will be pulled out of international duty after two more positive Covid-19 cases at the club.

German Bundesliga clubs are unlikely to release Austrian players for their country’s qualifier in Scotland on March 25 although the game is scheduled to go ahead with the visitors fielding a weakened side.

French Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 clubs will not release foreign players called up for their national sides if the teams are playing outside the European Union (EU) due to the strict Covid-19 quarantine rules, the French professional league (LFP) said.

Fifa has relaxed its normal rules, which oblige clubs to release players for international duty, if there are travel restrictions to or from a location or if the player would be affected by quarantine rules at either their home base or the hosting city.

Inter’s ban on players leaving means Belgium’s Romelu Lukaku and Denmark’s Christian Eriksen will remain in Milan as well as the club’s Italy players ahead of the country’s matches against Northern Ireland, Bulgaria and Lithuania.

Advertisement

RB Leipzig coach Julian Nagelsmann said on Wednesday that his club would be stopping some of their players travelling.

“There is still no final list. We are looking for individual solutions for all of our selected players. But we won’t send any players to high-risk areas, or areas where there is a mutation of the virus, if it will force them to enter quarantine upon their return.”

Bayern Munich coach Hansi Flick said Austria defender David Alaba would not be released for the Scotland game and said it was unclear whether striker Robert Lewandowski would be released for games in Hungary and England and at home to Andorra.

“Alaba won’t be at the first game in Scotland. For Lewandowski we’re waiting again to see what the authorities say. We still have a few days left,” he said.

Borussia Dortmund’s 17-year-old midfielder Jude Bellingham was named on Thursday in the England squad to face San Marino, Albania and Poland, but he is unlikely to be allowed to join up due to Germany’s Covid-19 travel restrictions.

Advertisement

“We left him in the squad but at this moment it looks like quarantine rules in Germany will rule him out,” said England manager Gareth Southgate.

“We are still investigating what is possible and we wanted to name him in the squad.”

Full squad

However, France manager Didier Deschamps said he will have a full squad for their game at home to Ukraine and away to Kazakhstan and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“All players must come into our bubble in Clairefontaine (France’s training base). We have agreements with all the governments in the countries where French players are so that they can be available right now (for France) and also when they return to their clubs,” he told reporters on Thursday.

As well as the European games, qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup are being held in Asia and the Concacaf reigion covering North and Central America and the Caribbean.

Advertisement

African countries are anticipating a major haemorrhage of their key players as they go into the crucial last two rounds of Africa Cup of Nations qualifying.

Ordinarily, up to 400 players would be expected to travel from Europe to represent their home countries but Fifa’s edict means most teams will be considerably weakened for key ties.

As well as French clubs, those from Belgium, Germany, Norway, Russia and Slovakia have also refused call-ups, officials and coaches have told Reuters, and many more are expected to follow in the coming days.

“It is a bad decision, first of all, to allow clubs to refuse call-ups and then to even go ahead with the qualifiers,” said Gambia Belgian coach Tom Saintfiet, who has lost four players already and fears more will not be allowed to travel with his team’s qualification on the line.

“This quarantine is just a pretext to prevent players from coming to play for their country. Fifa should never have touched on the relationship between clubs and national teams,” he said.

Advertisement

“If today we prevent the players from coming for this round of qualifiers, what will happen tomorrow for the Africa Cup of Nations finals? It’s not going to end there.”

-Reuters

Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

Continue Reading
Advertisement

International Football

Former Brazil coach Tite taking break to take care of mental, physical health

blank

Published

on

blank
Brasileiro Championship - Gremio v Flamengo - Arena do Gremio, Porto Alegre, Brazil - September 22, 2024 Flamengo coach Tite REUTERS/Diego Vara/File Photo

Former Brazil coach Tite said he is taking an indefinite career break in order to take care of his mental and physical health.

The 63-year-old, who led Brazil to the 2019 Copa America title, was hospitalised due to a heart issue last August. He was sacked by Flamengo the following month and had most recently been linked with the Corinthians job.

“I realised that there are times when you have to understand that, as a human being, I can be vulnerable and admitting that will certainly make me stronger,” Tite said in a statement posted on his son Matheus Bachi’s Instagram on Tuesday.

“I’m passionate about what I do and I’ll continue to be so, but after talking to my family and observing the signals my body was giving off, I decided that the best thing to do now is to take a break from my career to look after myself for as long as it takes.

“As has become public, there was a conversation in progress with Corinthians, but it will have to be paralysed by a difficult but necessary decision.”

Advertisement

Tite, who stepped down as Brazil coach after their quarter-final exit from the 2022 World Cup, has previously coached a string of Brazilian sides including Gremio, Atletico Mineiro and Palmeiras.

-Reuters

 Join the Sports Village Square channel on WhatsApp: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Vaz7mEIGk1FxU8YIXb0H

Advertisement
Continue Reading

International Football

Brazil sack coach Dorival after humiliating loss to Argentina

blank

Published

on

blank
World Cup - South American Qualifiers - Argentina v Brazil - Estadio Mas Monumental, Buenos Aires, Argentina - March 25, 2025 Brazil coach Dorival Junior is seen before the match REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian/File Photo

Brazil have sacked head coach Dorival Jr, the country’s football confederation (CBF) said on Friday after the five-time world champions were thrashed 4-1 away to fierce rivals Argentina in a humiliating qualifying loss in Buenos Aires.

The 62-year-old was appointed in January 2024 after the team spent a year under two caretaker coaches as the Brazilian FA were unable to lure Italian Carlo Ancelotti from Real Madrid.

“The Brazilian Football Confederation informs that coach Dorival Jr is no longer in charge of the Brazilian national team,” the confederation said in a statement.

“The management thanks (Dorival) and wishes him success in continuing his career … the CBF will work to find his replacement,” it added.

Advertisement

Dorival was handed the job after his success with Flamengo in 2022 where he won the Copa Libertadores and Brazilian Cup, a trophy he lifted again the next year with Sao Paulo.

However, he never seemed to get to grips with the national team job and failed to earn the trust of Brazil’s demanding fans after winning only seven of his 16 games in charge.

Sources told Reuters the CBF was not confident in Dorival’s work, considering there had been little to no progress since a lacklustre Copa America campaign when Brazil were knocked out in the quarter-finals by Uruguay last year.

Still, the CBF was willing to wait and see until the 2026 World Cup qualifiers against Ecuador and Paraguay in June to reassess the situation following the end of the European season and the Club World Cup in the U.S. in June and July.

But after Brazil slumped to their heaviest-ever loss in a qualifier when they were thrashed by Argentina this week, CBF president Ednaldo Rodrigues decided to pull the trigger.

Advertisement

IDEAL CANDIDATE

Sources told Reuters Ancelotti was still the ideal candidate but he is under contract with Real until July 2026 and there is no indication he would leave the European and Spanish champions.

Brazilian media have reported that Al Hilal’s Portuguese coach Jorge Jesus is the favourite to replace Dorival.

Brazil have been in unfamiliar territory for over two years since crashing out of the 2022 World Cup against Croatia on penalties in the quarter-finals, a heartbreaking elimination that led to the exit of long-time manager Tite.

Their humbling defeat in Buenos Aires was the latest of a series of negative records Brazil have set under caretakers Ramon Menezes and Fernando Diniz and with Dorival in charge. They had never conceded four goals in a World Cup qualifier.

Advertisement

Brazil are in the midst of their worst-ever World Cup qualifying campaign. They are fourth in the South American standings with 21 points, a point above sixth-placed Colombia who currently occupy the final direct qualifying berth.

Never have Brazil lost so many games, conceded so many goals or set so many negative records in the qualifying competition. They have lost five of their 14 games and conceded 16 goals.

Brazil’s 1-0 defeat by Argentina in the Maracana late in 2023 was their first-ever qualifying loss on home soil.

They also lost to Colombia for the first time, saw the end of their unbeaten run against Uruguay stretching back over two decades and were defeated by Morocco and Senegal, having never previously lost to an African nation.

-Reuters

Advertisement

 Follow the Sports Village Square channel on WhatsApp: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Vaz7mEIGk1FxU8YIXb0H

Continue Reading

International Football

England’s German manager Tuchel will not sing the English anthem in his first game

blank

Published

on

blank

England manager Thomas Tuchel said he would have to “earn the right” to sing the national anthem, God Save the King, after announcing his 26-man squad on Friday ahead of the team’s World Cup qualifiers.

Tuchel, who was appointed as Gareth Southgate’s successor in October and named his first squad to face Albania and Latvia this month, said he would not sing the anthem in his first games in charge.

“It means a lot to me, I can assure you, but I can feel that because it is so meaningful and it is so emotional and it is so powerful, the national anthem, that I have to earn my right to sing it,” the 51-year-old German told a news conference.

Former caretaker manager Lee Carsley was criticised last year for not singing the anthem during his tenure.

However, Tuchel added that while he is proud to be in charge of the team and knows the words to the anthem, he plans to earn the right with results.

Advertisement

“Maybe I have to dive more into the culture and earn my right from you, from the players, from the supporters, so everyone feels like ‘he should sing it now, he’s one of our own, he’s the English manager, he should sing it’,” he said.

-Reuters

Follow the Sports Village Square channel on WhatsApp: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Vaz7mEIGk1FxU8YIXb0H

Continue Reading

Most Viewed