Coming up to the last four crucial matches of the Asian Round of 40 in the World Qualifiers, there is worrying news about one of the teams our national soccer team will be playing against - the Maldives:
Of the 33 players on the latest Maldives national team training roster, a player has already been diagnosed with the new coronavirus infection
The epidemic situation in the Maldives continues to worsen, and in response to the policy of restricting outdoor activities, the players have had to turn indoors for physical exercise. For this reason, the hotel has purposely vacated the ballroom so that the players can train with a ball. According to the plan, the Maldives team will fly to Dubai before traveling to Shanghai at the end of the month along with teams from the Philippines and Syria to transfer to Suzhou for the Top 40 tournament.
Maldives Epidemic Critical
Recently, as the epidemic in India continues to intensify, the Maldives has become a "place of refuge" for many Indian tycoons and Bollywood stars.
CNN reports that a number of Bollywood stars have opted to leave India and vacation in the Maldives since the second wave of the Indian outbreak peaked in mid-March. These include budding movie star Alia Bhatt, among others.
With the spread of the epidemic in India and neighboring countries, the Maldives has also suffered the worst wave of the epidemic since its outbreak. The latest data from the Maldives government's health department shows that from 18:00 pm on May 19th to 18:00 pm on May 20th, there were 691 new cases of new coronavirus infections in the Maldives, and together with the 1,503 cases confirmed by previous tests, the cumulative number of new cases on that day amounted to 2,194 cases. Among them, there were 1,698 new cases in Male' region.
As of May 22, the country, with a population of less than 550,000, had accumulated more than 52,000 confirmed cases and 120 deaths.
The news of the Maldives players contracting the new crown was revealed by the Dutch head coach of the Maldives team, Martin Koopman, in an interview with the local media, "We are staying in a very beautiful local hotel in the Maldives. The team can only stay fit indoors. The match (Top 40) will still go on as normal, but the conditions here are very bad. Some of our team members have been infected with the new coronavirus."
Rivals can only train indoors in hotels due to the epidemic
Maldives head coach Koopman further said, "The Maldives Football Association has done everything possible to try and create good conditions and atmosphere for the team to prepare for the match, but the team has not been able to go to the training ground for five weeks. You can imagine the condition of the players now. After this, we will only be able to travel to the training ground upon our arrival in China. As a team, as a collective, we have been working hard, but this situation really can't continue. Now, some of the players have had to be dropped and our coaching staff has been trying to find a solution to the problem. But from the point of view of preparing for the World and Asian Cup qualifiers, this preparation is just too unsatisfactory."
As can be seen from the video released by Maldives Football Association (MFA) President Bassam, due to the restriction of outdoor activities in the Maldives, the players had to train physically indoors and for this reason the hotel deliberately vacated the banquet hall to facilitate ball activities for the players. As for the technical and tactical training, it could not take place.
It is worth mentioning that the Chinese Football Association (CFA) has prepared a winning bonus of 12 million yuan for the four matches of the national football team in order to motivate the players to fight for victory. One of the bonus distribution programs is to get 2 million for beating the Maldives ......
Currently, the Maldives' preparation situation is that the team assembled on May 13th, and almost no training has taken place in the last 3 days. Meanwhile, the team is planning to come to China in late May, and the team's travel route may be to Dubai, UAE for a connecting flight first, which means the team's preparation is basically at a standstill.
