https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/may/06/bundesliga-set-for-go-ahead-to-resume-season-in-second-half-of-may

Bundesliga gets go-ahead to resume season in second half of May

Guardian sport
Published on
Wed 6 May 2020 09.15 EDT

The Bundesliga has the go-ahead to resume in the second half of May after a meeting involving the the chancellor, Angela Merkel, and state premiers.

The league (DFL) will choose a restart date for games in the first and second divisions, with 16 May the earliest possible resumption, and matches will be held behind closed doors. The league is to hold a meeting via video link on Thursday with the 36 clubs in the top two tiers.

Clubs in Germany have been training for around a month amid Covid-19 testing and the league (DFL) has been keen to finish the season by the end of June, when contracts expire. Players will continue to be tested and teams will have to spend time in quarantine before games can restart.

The push to resume has not been universally welcomed. The DFL said on Monday there had been 10 positive tests for coronavirus among 36 clubs in the Bundesliga and second division, adding that 1,724 tests were carried out over two rounds among players and staff. Cologne last Friday reported three positive cases.

This week Salomon Kalou has been suspended “with immediate effect” by his club Hertha Berlin after posting a video on Facebook of him breaking physical distancing rules with his teammates.

and by all accounts they have a surplus of testing and PPE available.

we should probably assume places like germany and south korea know what they are doing since their respective health care systems (and populations) have handled this about as well as a highly-populated country can. south korea especially.

>we should probably assume places like germany and south korea
>know what they are doing since their respective health care
>systems (and populations) have handled this about as well as a
>highly-populated country can. south korea especially.


https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-2000-bars-shut-in-seoul-as-18-new-covid-19-cases-linked-to-one-man-11985686



More than 2,100 nightclubs, hostess bars and discos in South Korea's capital have been shut after 18 new coronavirus cases - with all but one linked to a 29-year-old man.

He visited three clubs in Seoul's Itaewon district last Saturday before testing positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday.


The man did not wear a mask inside the venues, according to Jeong Eun-kyeong, director of the Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

A drive-thru station in Seoul, South Korea
Image:
A comprehensive testing regime in South Korea has been widely praised
Visitor lists showed the three premises had more than 1,500 customers combined on Saturday.

Officials have urged people who visited the Itaewon clubs - reportedly including King Club, Trunk Club and Club Queen - between 29 April and 6 May to have screening tests and refrain from going outside to prevent additional transmissions.

All nightclubs and hostess bars in the country have been advised to close for a month.

Last weekend, people went back to entertainment venues after the government relaxed some social distancing guidelines.


A few hours later, Seoul mayor Park Won-soon confirmed there were another 16 cases in the city - taking the total linked to clubbers to 40.

They included 27 in Seoul, 12 in neighbouring Incheon and Gyeonggi province towns, and one in the southern port city of Busan.

Schools were supposed to begin reopening next week, but they may not now amid fears of a resurgence as South Korea has had more than 10 daily cases for the first time in five days.

Officials say it is too early to confirm whether school openings will be postponed, but added they will monitor the spread of the virus and review information about the new cases.

South Korea, which has been widely praised for its comprehensive testing regime during the pandemic, has reported more than 10,800 cases overall and 256 deaths from the virus.

Its professional football began its new season on Friday behind closed doors, following baseball's opening games on Tuesday.

but even then...

Gonna be interesting how player's unions everywhere handle this

*skatin' the rings of saturn*


..and miles to go before i sleep...

And they are doing it just to finish the 9 games that are left in the season.

Good luck

there are a lot of forces at stake here, basically Merkel isn't really down with deconfining this quick (in general, sports is a small potato) but is under a lot of pressure from regional leaders, who have a lot of power in Germany, so she's letting them make this decision, and hinting that it's on them if there's a relapse.

Real talk tho, I'll take any live futbol. Throw me some Fortuna Dusseldorf v SC Paderborn and I'll watch that shit like it's WC '86

Apparently, he was beating his meat while outside looking through the woman's flat.

And his actions were not influenced by the lock down rules of Covid. He has done this before

https://www.espn.com/soccer/angers/story/4092713/angers-midfielder-el-melali-apologises-after-arrest-for-public-masturbation


He could have just purchased a hooker.....

This ain't got shit to do with fuck

It’s soccer related...so I just took it that this is may’s Soccer thread.

Setting aside the right/wrong of it.

I’m just feindin for a live sports fix. Really hope all goes well.

Really interested to see how the level of play is impacted, if at all. Not the rust, but set pieces and corners, etc. will there be a slight flinch when things are bunched up?

Steven Goff
@SoccerInsider
Bundesliga TV next weekend:
Sat

9:30 ET: Dortmund vs. Schalke FS1
9:30: Leipzig vs. Freiburg FS2
9:30: Augsburg vs. Wolfsburg Fox Soc+
12:30: Frankfurt vs. Gladbach FS1

Sun
9:30: Cologne vs. Mainz FS1
Noon: Union Berlin vs. Bayern Munich

Mon
2:30: Bremen vs. Leverkusen FS2

One of the german teams has to be quarantined for 14 days, because of two new Covid-19 cases that has occurred in their organization.

France shut down all of sports until fall or winter. Why? They are a civilized country that's why, and they are willing to take the hit now, so that their citizens are safe.


The Bundesliga is supposed to kick off in 2 weeks, and already they have new covid cases, and not one player has stepped on the pitch. Now, what do you think will happen once players are sweating and breathing on each other on the pitch?

All because people have forgotten how to be human beings......and don't know what to do with themselves once non-essential activities have been suspended.


The same thing just happened to UFC. People can't sit still or be patient for at least 6 months?


https://www.espn.com/soccer/german-bundesliga/story/4093404/bundesliga-2-side-dynamo-dresden-ordered-to-quarantine-squad-ahead-of-restart

it's because literally zero people outside of france care about ligue 1. and there are no lucrative TV deals at stake.

>France shut down all of sports until fall or winter. Why? They
>are a civilized country that's why, and they are willing to
>take the hit now, so that their citizens are safe.
>

it's easier to shut down a league that doesn't draw high viewership numbers and lucrative TV deals. ask the eredivisie.

la liga and the premiere league (probably) won't shut down because there is too much money at stake. same with the bundesliga.

This is not true. The prime minister shut it down ,not the governing body of France football.The federation, league, and teams wanted to play to make money, because a lot of those teams will be facing bankruptcy by not playing. So all of France football was shocked when he shut down everything until fall.

This was a government order. It would be like the nba moving forward to reopen to make money, but then trump steps in and shuts them down. French teams were all set to come back and just needed a sign off from the prime minister ...he said no.

Teams are going to lose a shit load of money, but the government stated that it will pay up to 90 percent of the revenue that teams will lose out on.......This may help the smaller clubs, but the top teams are going to miss out on huge TV money.

www.nytimes.com/2020/04/29/sports/soccer/coronavirus-france-soccer-shutdown.amp.html


There are two hypotheses,” he said. “The first one, that the Germans, the Spanish, Italians and English start and they play and finish their championships, get money for TV — and everyone will say, ‘The French, they are completely stupid.’

“Or you have a problem in those countries, the virus comes back and some teams, they cannot play because of virus, and it’s a big mess and people will say, ‘The French were right, we made a mistake.’”

That’s clearly putting citizens first.

yes the PM did announce the cancellation of pro sports until September unilaterally, but it's led to mixed reactions from clubs. The vocal ones (Lyon, Lille) were unhappy but not necessarily because of the money they'd make from playing the rest of the games as much as being left out of Champions League football next year. On the other side you have a Rennes who's quite content, or Marseille who wouldn't have to gain much from attempting to play 10 games in a very uncertain public health context. Not to mention hosting games behind closed doors while respecting appropriate safety measures presents a mass of logistical headaches and costs, while providing 0 additional income. So the government made its decision based on a sense of risk-aversion, which has little to do with being civilized and more with avoiding risk for a topic that matters little culturally (the cancellation was mentioned in one sentence within a 90min speech to Congress). It's hard to see anything fundamentally wrong with their decision, but many around football remarked it was a bit odd they announced it so early instead of taking a more cautious approach, leaving options on the table.

La Liga has 5 new cases on their hand, and they still want to move forward?

With players playing on top of each other, I just don't see anyway for this to be successful.

think I might go for Leverkussen, I have fond memories of watching my first pro soccer game there back in Junior High

fun to watch, plus I kinda enjoy the ire they draw in Germany for forging their own patch

because fuck bayern

j/k they're a riot to watch. Plus they remind me of PSG's last official game, those were the time

they're right there in the mix at the top of the table.

the title fight should be legit entertainment.

everything is great when its a track meet, but theyre so mercurial

You have to wonder if this will put a premium on teams with the most talent, as Haaland and Hazard are proving today

>You have to wonder if this will put a premium on teams with
>the most talent, as Haaland and Hazard are proving today

sucks that reyna got hurt pre game, I was really looking forward to watching him for the first time.

I was looking fwd to watching how Todibo (France U21, on loan from Barca), he started well with a crucial clearance and some trips upfield, but only lasted one half. I wonder if the 5 subs rule, while good for player management, will make play less fluid

I’ve been aware of him for a few years now, but have generally been disinterested. I guess it was unconscious bias. He looks the part of a big, burly, efficient German poacher. And really didn’t care to look too closely.

But this year I’ve actually watched several RB games and, wow. He’s the complete package. The pace, creativity, engine. He’s a great 10/9 hybrid, just a complete forward. Not Really like looking forward to seeing him in P/L

he may find life a little less interesting after swapping Nkunku and Sabitzer for Hendo and Wijnaldum

Year after year. Can’t imagine why someone would want to join their XI.

keep pretending they arent out of champions league because they werent thoroughly controlled by Thomas Partey and Saul Niguez, and that it wasnt portended by being thoroughly controlled by Allan and Fabian Ruiz

it's winning and scoring.

what on earth are you on about?

that's Simeone's game plan and they're phenomenal at it.

-----------
you think we playing chess, but i'm playing mad-making. Basaglia

Not every game is epic or the highest quality, but so far is filling the glaring hole for me personally.

if you'd told me last year I'd be hype for a Friday afternoon Berlin derby... Or that I'd give Fox cash money for the Matchpass for that matter

Sancho come on (nasty turn on the counter for the 2nd goal). Hopefully he's fit to start in a few days.

Should have been a penal on boateng for extending his arm, but that aside, Bayern clearly had the better chances

if he gets halfway decent at putting balls in he'll be the best at manning a flank since Dani Alves

and hell they might just move him up the pitch all together. the guy is dynamite

speaking of unfair: pretty crazy how bayern came from having an aging ribery and robben like 5 years ago to these guys plus Coman on the other side

i noticed that too vs Dortmund

cuz, shoulda been a penalty on Bayern.

just stating facts. i have no dog in the fight.

makes it all the more puzzling, cos yeah, that was a pen

whoever's on the 1s and 2s is doing a great job

whistles for time wasting lol

fans booing the assistant ref for a correct offsides call is colloquial and part of the culture, I guess, but not an aspect that absolutely needed to come back this quick

but I like the idea

cuz, if i closed my eyes i would swore there were 10s of thousands of people there.

also, i was wondering it was ONE recording from a previous derby? was it clips from multiple games, and if so how was it pieces together? was any of it being looped? etc.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/missing-the-excitement-of-a-sports-stadium-crowd-in-japan-theres-an-app-for-that/2020/05/27/879cd7ec-9fe5-11ea-be06-af5514ee0385_story.html

By
Simon Denyer
May 27, 2020 at 1:32 a.m. PDT
TOKYO — With sports resuming around the world in empty stadiums, organizers are faced with a new dilemma: how to re-create the excitement and atmosphere of a regular match day without the passion and crowd noise generated by thousands of fans.

Japan may have the answer with a “Remote Cheerer” app that will allow housebound fans to root for — or heckle — their teams from the comfort of their couches.

The cheers and jeers will then be broadcast into the stadiums through loudspeakers during matches, bringing a little dose of their adulation and frustration back to the players.

It is an experiment that will be closely watched in other countries. U.S. baseball, football and hockey leagues are already making plans behind closed doors to resume in coming months and are wrestling with the problem of how to make games seem meaningful without fans in attendance.

AD
Facing potentially bleak financial picture, NFL is counting on fans in the stands

German top-flight soccer has already resumed, and the Bundesliga has been experimenting with artificial crowd noise during live broadcasts. ESPN’s Korean baseball broadcasts have also used some light crowd noise, while Fox is reportedly planning to do the same for its NFL telecasts in the fall. Still, reviews of artificial crowd noise have been mixed.

But Japan’s app goes much further, allowing soccer fans to choose a range of reactions — from cheer, chant, clap or shout to groan and boo — with a simple tap of their smartphones. Personal messages can also be recorded, and all the noise will then reverberate around the stadium.

While Bundesliga players do not hear the artificial crowd noise, which is reserved for television viewers, players in Japanese soccer’s J-League will be motivated in real time by the reactions of their fans.

AD
Japanese soccer is expected to resume later this month or early next after a gap of four months, while the professional baseball league is scheduled to resume on July 19. Fans of both sports will be barred from the stadiums because of concerns about the coronavirus.

Yamaha Corp., which has developed the app, recently tested the system at a 50,000-capacity stadium in Shizuoka, in a friendly soccer match between Jubilo Iwata and Shimizu S-Pulse.

“At one point during the system field test, I closed my eyes and it felt like the cheering fans were right there in the stadium with me,” said Keisuke Matsubayashi, an official with the stadium company, according to Reuters. “This system had the potential to cheer players on even in a stadium of this size.”

Whether the system catches on remains to be seen, but it’s certainly a better idea than one tried out by a South Korean soccer team this month.

AD
FC Seoul was fined about $80,000 after its attempt to add a little atmosphere to one of its games backfired spectacularly. The club was forced to apologize after putting dozens of sex dolls in empty seats at a closed-door match.

South Korean soccer’s governing body said it accepted the club’s claim that it did not know the mannequins were sex toys. But it said the club should have used common sense, adding that the incident had “deeply humiliated and hurt women fans.”

let's get creative with this shit

the actual german yells of the players and the bench echoing. the stuff you catch from the mics on the sideline clearly when players are near them, the raw sound of all ball contact.

but when watching a game it sounds like people playing sports in a high school gym and reminds me everything is weird right now. I'll probably just get used to it though.

its super jarring and distracting to hear boisterous chanting from empty seats

https://www.espn.com/soccer/german-bundesliga/story/4102971/german-bundesliga-broadcasts-where-the-crowd-noise-feed-comes-from-and-how-they-made-it

Tom Hamilton
Senior Writer

One of the jarring experiences of watching the Bundesliga is seeing the action happen in front of empty stands. The referee's decisions escape the fury of a crowd. You can hear the players communicating with each other and make out what they are saying. And when the ball hits a post, there's this eerie, booming noise.

The sounds are similar to a training game. You hear every kick, scuffle and the precise moment the ball hits the net. They are noises synonymous with football and ones we hear playing with our mates in the park, but not at the highest level where this is usually drowned out by the passionate fan support.


So when the Bundesliga returned, one of Germany's broadcasters, Sky Deutschland, devised a plan to convey the familiarity of atmosphere to all of us forced to watch from home. Some media markets would get the choice of a "no crowd" feed, which carried the ambient noise from the players and coaches, and a "crowd noise" feed that would aim to imitate the atmosphere of a packed stadium. In the U.S., fans experienced the artificial crowd noise.


Replicating an atmosphere of fans in a behind-closed-doors match is hard -- Dortmund's stadium routinely sells out its 81,365-capacity seating -- and there is no one solution. As other sports plot their comeback after being postponed because of the coronavirus, the Danish SuperLiga is brought fans into the stadium via Zoom, while Borussia Monchengladbach offered supporters the chance to have a cardboard cutout version of themselves in the stand.

So how did Sky Deutschland do it? And will their methods work in different sports? We spoke to Alessandro Reitano, Sky Deutschland's SVP sports production, to find out their process.

ESPN: How does the process work to offer viewers fan noise?

First of all, we're really pleased to know us introducing the sound option has been so well-received worldwide.

For us, it was clear that we want to provide fans with extra options as part of our live broadcasts in order to deliver the best possible experience during this very special situation. The main underlying principle has always been to be respectful to the fans. Like all fans, we miss the support in the stadiums, which cannot be replaced in any way. This is the reason why we decided to put the actual stadium sound on as the basic audio setting and offer an additional second audio track with "stadium atmosphere" for customers.


What we're doing is creating, for every team or match which is played, playing or will be played, a basic audio carpet from . We then created specific audio samples to run over the top.

So, for instance, Dortmund vs. Bayern on Tuesday: we took the basic audio carpet from the last match they played against each other. And let's say what we do then is we have a basic crowd noise of fans, chanting and everything, and we will deliver exactly this part to the outside broadcast (OB) van on-site. Our audio engineer in the OB van is mixing the authentic sound, which is happening at the stadium, together with this audio carpet. We get this feed into our broadcasting center in Unterföhring, near Munich, and now comes the tricky last bit.

We created audio samples for specific scenes: penalties, fouls, decisions from VAR and how people would react. We created samples from the dedicated fans and there is one guy, a Sky sound producer, who is watching the match live. Their job is to insert a specific sample if an action happens.

Let's say, for instance, there's a foul or a penalty, and we have special samples of how fans would react to that, we play it live into the audio mix. That gives a better result than any other way, we feel, at the moment. The whole audio operation is done with up to 10 people across a weekend.


The Bundesliga has been trying out alternative audio feeds for big matches, offering the chances to hear authentic crowd noise despite the game taking place in an empty stadium.
There must be a lot of pressure on the producer, who is manually adding the fan reaction. What happens if they press the wrong button?

There is a lot of responsibility. From our point of view, when we started this project, we said, "OK, we have to do it right with all the respect to the fans." So the sound producers we choose are fans of football and frequently visit stadiums. They're familiar with the fan culture, of how fans react, and they anticipate the actions before they happen. They're doing an awesome job; I think you have to listen really carefully to find any faults.

Do they work off soundboards?

They have a soundboard, a sample machine with specific samples stored on the engine, and they have a couple of buttons in front of them with specific actions ready to play.

There was so much work put in beforehand; it took the guys a lot of time to create the right samples from the right fan groups. You're sensitive to what songs they're singing, and the random yelling. They had to work so hard to get the right samples: they watched tons of matches to get the right samples, and this was all done in the past two weeks.

You take a 90-minute "carpet" of audio: what happens when events, like a goal being scored in the original audio, don't marry with what's happening live on the pitch?

This is a grey zone as you obviously can't predict live sport. You can expect, but never predict. This is where the manual aspect comes in, and the producers can overrule the original audio with a different sample. That's why it's not 100% accurate.

What's happening inside the stadium is not like the NFL, where you have all the parabolic mics and the miked-up players. Now, for the first time you can hear the players shouting, screaming and talking to each other. What we're doing is trying to find the balance between the authentic sound, enhanced with the crowd noise, on top with specific audio samples. It's about finding that right balance.

You cannot anticipate a full 90-minute match, but you can create the best possible audio experience. We are improving from matchday to matchday. We don't know how long games will happen without fans, so we use the time to improve constantly.


What have been the biggest challenges?

There's a lot of pressure to anticipate the game and what happens next. As I said before, it's all about being respectful to the unique fan culture in the stadiums. We're very sensitive to that. There is no technological solution here: it can't be solved by artificial intelligence, but so far we've only had good feedback.

Did you take inspiration from video games that use authentic crowd noise? They include fans booing the referee, along with jeering or cheering long passages of passing.

Absolutely. It was funny as the first time we came together as a team, we said "everyone has to watch a match on FIFA 20." This was to get the right tone, right atmosphere and to put us in a good mood. Of course, we couldn't have the audio samples from EA Sports, so we had to create our own. This was in our first meeting, which was back in mid-April, but yes, EA Sports was the benchmark.

There were reports the NFL and NBA are considering using fan audio on their broadcasts. Do you feel this model could be used in other sports?

I truly believe yes, it's possible, and everyone should consider it. The key is to respect the individual fan culture of the specific sports. And if you offer a good solution, it will be appreciatively received.

https://twitter.com/telefootball/status/1266000347895672832?s=21

Telegraph Football
@TeleFootball
·
27m
Exclusive: Premier League will restart on June 17 with Aston Villa at home to Sheffield United and Manchester City hosting Arsenal.

isolated training has barely started

In them in the next 2 years. They will continue to add to it. But I can see them winning it all in late 21 or 22. Lewa has at least 2 more years before falling off I think; no other key players to worry about. Need to move on from Meuller, but they can maintain or upgrade there. Neur maybe, but he’ll probably go till 40 and be fine.

dude is serving up distribution to all comers lol

there was talk McKenna (Schalke) might be fined for his Floyd armband yesterday, hopefully the Bundesliga does the right thing

but there's no one in soccer I trust more than this brain trust so...

It will be interesting to see how we deploy him. He is our best striker purchase on paper since Diego Costa. We are also going after Chilwill, who is a good young fullback, but I still have my question marks about him. But he would definitely be an upgrade from Emerson and Alonso.

I only dread that Frank is going to try to implement the 4-4-2 even more with Tammy and Werner.

behind a single striker

Chelsea gives up a goal, he is flipping formations. Or chelsea loses one game he is flipping formations.

Our main issue last season was there was no set formation that he went with.

dropping players because of one bad game or changing the formation....

Hopefully he has matured as a manager.