Eibar have suspended training while the state of alarm for the coronavirus lasts to avoid contagions in its staff, according to the Gipuzcoan First Division club reported on Monday. The Barça footballers, who were to resume work a day later, on Tuesday, will have to stay at home, where they will exercise on their own. Players will receive individualized training plans designed by the professionals of the Barça club.
Eibar has created a monitoring committee in the face of this exceptional situation due to the health crisis caused by COVID-19, and will assess the evolution of events, to make the appropriate decisions at all times. In this way, the eibarresa entity joins the recommendations of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), which advised the clubs to cancel group training, to avoid spreading the disease.
The Barça coach, José Luis Mendilibar, and the rest of his coaching staff, had initially planned – before the government decreed a state of alarm – that training would resume on Tuesday, March 17. In principle, Eibar was going to work this week 4 days in Ipurua behind closed doors, from Tuesday to Friday. Now, this planning has been canceled by the coronavirus.
Normally Eibar exercises in Atxabalpe (Mondragón), but it was going to change the setting because the Atxabalpe facilities offer fewer possibilities to the Barça squad, which has more space in Ipurua, where soccer players in the changing rooms. However, since there is a risk of contagion, because in training there are clashes between the players, in the end the components of the squad will be exercised separately at their homes.
Eibar-Real Sociedad, behind closed doors.
The epidemic already conditioned Eibar's work last week. Thus, last Tuesday, March 10, Eibar-Real Sociedad (1-2) became the first match played behind closed doors in the Spanish league for the coronavirus. It was a meeting of the 24th day, which was suspended on February 16 due to air pollution due to the fire in a landfill in Zaldibar. The postponed duel between the two Gipuzkoan teams from Primera took place 3 weeks after the scheduled date.
Later, on Friday, March 13, Real Madrid-Eibar must have played at the Santiago Bernabéu. But the day before, LaLiga (LFP) agreed to suspend the next two league days in the First Division. As for the Barça area, the two games that are postponed are Real Madrid-Eibar, and Eibar-Athletic Club, which had been set for Saturday, March 21. Thus, the Barca coach, unable to play last Friday against Real Madrid, gave his men four days off: Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.
Measures against coronavirus
Last week, the Eibar entity already took a series of measures against the coronavirus, such as closed-door training. Likewise, he suspended the training sessions for the youth teams, except for the first team, and the subsidiary (CD Vitoria, from the Third Division). Although this situation only lasted a day, since on Friday the Barça subsidiary also stopped working in a group.
Last Thursday, Eibar also decided to lower the blind of its official store, and of the office of attention to partners and shareholders. Furthermore, most of its workers started working from their homes.