A bit of home advantage will be lost without fans, feels Garcia
Kolkata, June 8 (IANS) Former Spain and Barcelona midfielder Luis Garcia feels clubs will lose home advantage with no fans cheering for them in the stadiums when the Spanish LaLiga resumes on June 11 amid the COVID-19 crisis.
“Honestly I think they will lose a bit because it will not be the same, where you can hear the crowd and push their home team. Also, I think there will be a little change because of no crowd and the team will not be free with their style of game so it has to be little changed,” Garcia told reporters in quotes shared by LaLiga.
“And yes, it’s going to be little changed and weird for players especially it is going to be little different,” added the LaLiga ambassador who also played for Indian Super League (ISL) franchise ATK back in 2014.
Asked if the situation will affect the transfer market, he said: “Yes of course, at the end, the economy has faced a blow as the clubs haven’t received money from the different places and it should be thankful to LaLiga that at the moment we are back into action and are economically safe.
“But it’s true that probably in the future we won’t be able to see this type of hundreds of millions of transfer for a player, also the talent and the quality of the players are going to be at the top. And yes we are going to see again 1 – 2 transfer but not the massive transfer anymore in the coming future.”
Garcia also heaped praise on young Barcelona midfielder Frankie de Jong.
“As soon as he arrived in Barcelona, he worked hard and played his first match of the season at a very high level. The only thing probably people are worried about is that his position keeps changing in the Barcelona team as the coach makes him do some change in the way he plays.
“In the previous team he was doing an amazing job as he had lots of freedom but in Barcelona probably they play with different roles where you have to be very tactical and as I said he is doing great and he is one of those who wants to be the key player in the next 5 to 10 years. For the Barcelona team, at this age he is already getting goals for the team.”
On his advice to players for the restart of the league, he said: “As all are professionals but for the team the first match is going to be difficult because of the heat.
“Even though most of the games start quite late in the night so that’s going to be an advantage.
“After 2-3 weeks it will be little difficult to adapt in some situations as there will be no friendly games because of less time but first couple of games of course will be played very carefully and all the measures will be taken to prevent injuries because if anyone gets injured he will lose the next couple of seasons and most important all safety measure that LaLiga has said needs to be taken because of the Covid-19 and also once you are on the pitch you should be 100% careful while playing.”
LaLiga has confirmed dates for the first two rounds of fixtures after the restart following a break of more than two months due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The season will return to action on June 11 with a local derby between Sevilla and Real Betis and there will be fixtures for the following seven days, with Barcelona hosting Leganes on June 16 and Real Madrid playing at home to Valencia on June 18.
–IANS
dm/bbh
