Diogo Jota admits that it will be ‘impossible’ for footballers, including he and his Wolves teammates, to be expected to hit the ground running once football resumes. Fitness and motivation are challenges that all elite professionals are having to overcome from within the confines of their own homes, but they’ll all need that training camp prior to the remaining games being played – if that’s considered safe to do so.
Diogo Jota said “The target is to stay at home as much as possible and try to stay fit because we know the competition can start and we need to be ready. When it starts, it’ll be like a pre-season for the players because when you don’t play it’s impossible to be as fit as you were. Anything can happen because it’ll be like a new season. Although some leagues can end right away, others can start sooner,” Jota added. “I know almost every country in the world has the Premier League as one of the leagues to watch so it is major that we can finish the season. Obviously health is first and when everything is ready to go we can finish the season. If it is a choice between not finishing the season and finishing behind closed doors, obviously we would choose to finish behind closed doors, but everyone wants the fans in the stadium…maybe we need to go step by step and the first step is to play behind closed doors.”
The lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic has now lasted more than six weeks, and there remains a stretch of time ahead before there is any hope that sport in the UK and beyond may return – when it does, it won’t be in what is deemed a normal environment. Once it does, Jota remains confident that the Premier League can be completed at some stage. As he points out, it’s the most watched division of football around the globe and for that reason alone it’s imperative that the governing bodies find ways of concluding the campaign – even if that is without the presence of thousands of dedicated supporters in the stands.
