Barcelona trained on Friday for the first time in nearly two months as the team held their first individual session as part of the league’s four-phase plan to return to action after measures to halt the coronavirus were eased.
Barca tested all their players for Covid-19 on Wednesday and captain Lionel Messi was among those seen out on the Joan Gamper training complex conducting individual dribbling and running exercises.
All players trained with the exception of Ousmane Dembele, who is recovering from a hamstring injury and is not registered to play for the rest of the season due to Barca signing Martin Braithwaite in February.
Players will start training in small groups in the next two weeks and progress to full training before resuming matches, which, Leganes coach Javier Aguirre has said, will resume on June 20 despite league bosses refusing to confirm his claim.
Aguirre said on Thursday he had been told officially of the plan to restart the championship.
EPL fate
Britain’s culture secretary Oliver Dowden warned on Friday that the Premier League does not yet have the “green light” to resume but restated the government’s hope that the season can be completed.
Premier League clubs are due to meet on Monday to discuss the latest plans for ‘Project Restart’ — a day after an expected minor easing of coronavirus lockdown measures.
“They’ve not been given the green light,” Dowden told BBC Radio on Friday. “If we can get a plan that works then I’d like us to be able to go ahead with it because I think it would be good for the nation, it would be good for football as a whole.”
Inter gearing up
Inter Milan’s entire first-team squad have given negative results in testing for the coronavirus, the Serie A club said on Friday as they prepared to resume training.
Sampdoria said previously they had found three new positive cases; Fiorentina reported six positive tests — three players and three back-up staff — and Torino one.
”FC Internazionale Milan announces that all the medical tests the first team underwent were negative,” the club said in a statement.
