[SPORT] The confession of Gasperini, Atalanta coach: "The night before the game in Valencia I had Covid-19"

[YaKuZa--BoSs]

The Italian coach assures in an interview with La Gazzetta that he traveled already ill to Spain and that he came to fear for his life

 

 

On March 10, with the coronavirus storm unleashed for weeks in Italy and about to finally explode in Spain, Valencia and Atalanta jumped onto the lawn of a Mestalla without an audience. A second leg match of the last 16 of the Champions League (3-4) that should never have been played. The Covid-19 traveled within some of the protagonists on the grass and, also, on the bench. Two and a half months later, in an interview with La Gazzetta, Gian Piero Gasperini (62 years old), Atalanta coach, has confessed that already the night before the duel, he was already sick with coronavirus.

And that that Monday March 9, the Atalanta expedition landed in Valencia as if nothing had happened. Conveying a sense of normality that, in reality, after knowing the Italian coach's version, was not such. "The day before the game in Valencia I felt bad. The afternoon of the game was even worse. On the bench I did not have a good face. They never did PCR, although the serological analysis confirmed that I had the disease," he now reveals in an interview.

"The next two nights in Zingonia I slept very little. I didn't have a fever, but it was a disaster, as if I had had a fever of 40. Every two minutes an ambulance passed by. A hospital was nearby. It seemed to be in a war. At night I thought: if I go in there, what will happen to me? I can't leave now, I have a lot of things to do. I said it jokingly, but I really thought about it ", Gasperini is sincere.

The coach, who today prepares his players for the return of Serie A, recounts some of his symptoms. "I had lost my taste, but I didn't know I had the virus. So serological tests taken a couple of weeks ago confirmed. I had Covid-19."

And, having overcome the disease, he only thinks about forgetting that the nightmare is healing. For that, the return of soccer will also help. Gasperini is one of those who thinks that it is better for football to return to start overcoming this bad dream. "Some people think that going back to the countryside is immoral after what has happened and at the risk of it happening again. But it is the only way to return to normality. The pain suffered by Bergamo will allow Atalanta to help the city, respecting everyone's pain. I don't like two things about the restart: playing without fans and the five substitutions, "he concludes.