Welcome Back Bundesliga!
The German football league, Bundesliga, is the first sport league to resume play amid the Covid-19 crisis worldwide. Other leagues may follow quickly as fans around the world tuned it to watch the first game since March 11 featuring Borussia Dortmund against Schalke 04.
Haaland scores first
The teenage sensation from Norway was the first goal scorer, at the 29th minute, of this new era without the crowd. Indeed, the Signal Iduna Park was missing his yellow wall. This is going to be a similar eyesight for the rest of the season and probably deeper into the year 2020.
Safety is first concern and until a vaccine is found, it is very improbable to see fans back in the stadium across Europe and the rest of the world. The pandemic has infected over 4.5 millions people worldwide and over 300,000 lost their lives.
Borussia Dortmund in control
The yellow team added a goal right before the half and then put the game to bed right after the break with a third goal (3-0) just three minutes in the second half. The final score 4-0 showed the determination from the home team to resume the season in a high note.
Coach Favre on the game and environment:
“We didn’t know where we stood after that long break. I can only compliment the team, they did an outstanding job. We highly deserved the victory and to win the game by that margin; that much is very clear.
It’s very satisfying. It was a good performance from us. The result is deserved. We’re all very satisfied. You don’t know where you stand before the first game. That’s the case for every team.”
The manager went on: “I’m very satisfied with the result, especially with the way we went about it. We were all starting from square one. Nobody knew where we stood. We didn’t have an opportunity to train in this format for very long.
On top of that, we still had one or two players out injured. The team deserves a big compliment. It felt strange – for the lads too, you could see that from their goal celebrations. They went over to the South Stand after the match to give a round of applause for all of our supporters who were watching on television”.
