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If the recent international break taught us one thing, it’s that herding entire squads of footballers on to airplanes and shuttling them to different locations around the world to play matches during a plague is in no way feckless or irresponsible. After all, it’s not like the Republic O’Ireland or
Scotland had their teams decimated for Covid-related reasons, while the virus seemed to account for as many withdrawals and absences from various other nations’ line-ups as the usual more common-or-garden niggles and knacks. Covid saw to it that the Czech Republic had to maroon half their squad on a Mediterranean island with enough food and water to last them a fortnight and
Ukraine were forced to bring a 45-year-old goalkeeper out of retirement, while even
Cristiano Ronaldo proved susceptible. He remains in quarantine – a period of splendid self-isolation with nobody for company but his own reflection in the mirror, a state of affairs one suspects isn’t a hugely radical departure from normality.