Edu Bedia is the captain and emblem of FC Goa, an Indian club that is making history. The Cantabrian footballer, who started his career at Racing de Santander, has been playing since 2017 in the first team in the country that disputes the Asian Champions after being champion of the Super League last year. The day before yesterday, in the preview of the last day of the continental competition, Bedia was in the concentration hotel having breakfast. Suddenly, received a warning from the sports director: he had the possibility, together with five people from the 'staff', to leave India faced with the threat of a total shutdown due to the voracity of the virus, which is killing more than three thousand people in a single day. And he did the same. Edu Bedia has spoken with AS and has related his frantic hours through four different airports to get home.
The state of Goa, a tourist area in the Asian country, closed for four days, but it could be many more. Flights were to be suspended imminently, but the institution facilitated their return home 'in extremis'. “We returned to Madrid to avoid being stranded for many weeks, given the panorama. We were four players, the coach (Juan Ferrando) and the physical trainer. All Spanish except one Australian player, who could not enter his country and came with us. He has been to the embassy. Anyway, a mess, “says Bedia. The return from Goa to the capital of Spain was an odyssey. From the Indian state they flew to New Delhi and from there to Paris before boarding a new plane to Madrid. Of course, Bedia decided to go to Santander later. 35 hours of flight and four planes. Yesterday, finally, he got home and was able to see his team play online. The Indian team fell 0-2 against Al-Wahda, although nothing was played anymore because it was eliminated.
The FC Goa footballers, as Bedia explains, lived at the hotel. “We lived in a bubble. We did not live with the local population. We were informed of what was happening in the country through the news. The situation a few months ago was apparently normal. There was excessive relaxation and people celebrated parties, weddings … Now the second wave has arrived and the country is very bad“, he narrates with concern. The secrecy of the team was total:”We do PCR every two days. It was from the hotel to the stadium and from the stadium to the hotel“.
Now, after finishing the career in the Asian Champions, Bedia plans to be at home until next season begins in September, although the uncertainty in this situation is inevitable. He explained how his experience has been in this pandemic year: “I have to say that the Super League has been a success. Apart from doing PCR every two days, the hotel staff who attended us were inside that bubble. The competition paid them to be there with us. “Of course, his concern for the socio-sanitary state of the country is latent:” I hope this disaster ends as soon as possible.
In New Delhi, the capital of the country with more than 21 million inhabitants, there are no more free ICU (Intensive Care Unit) beds and not only that, but they are rejecting patients because they cannot serve a larger population, to the point where hospitals are running out of oxygen. The images of cremated bodies in Indian geography have been around the world.