Champions League: Atletico Madrid cancel training amid COVID-19 outbreak
Two players infected but La Liga side cleared to fly to Lisbon a day late
Champions League quarter-finalists Atletico Madrid have cancelled their final training session ahead of their trip to Lisbon for the ‘Final Eight’ tournament after it emerged two members of the squad tested positive for COVID-19.
Atletico were due to travel to the Portuguese capital on Monday but the spokesman said all plans had been put on hold until they learnt the results of the latest tests players and staff underwent on Monday.
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On Monday, Atletico Madrid named the players as Angel Correa and Sime Vrsaljko but added that the rest of the squad has been cleared to make the trip to Portugal for the Champions League quarter-finals.
The new negative results came as a relief for the Spanish club - and UEFA - just two days before the start of the final stage of Europe's top club competition. An outbreak within one of the clubs in the final eight could have hurt Uefa's hopes of successfully finishing the tournament amid the pandemic.
The entire Atletico squad was re-tested and on Monday the results came back negative for everyone else set to travel to Lisbon.
Correa was a regular starter for Atletico and led the team in assists this season, while Vrsaljko had not been playing recently as he recovered from injury. Neither player showed symptoms for COVID-19 and both would remain isolated at their homes in Spain.
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Atletico said 21 first-team players and four from youth-squad members would make the trip for Thursday's match against Leipzig. The team will travel on Tuesday, a day after previously scheduled.
The last eight is set to begin in Lisbon on Wednesday amid tight health safety protocols to prevent a coronavirus outbreak from derailing the competition's finale. The semi-finals and August 23 final will also be played in Lisbon.
Other clubs involved in the quarter-finals have not reported any positive tests among their players recently.
The other one-game series feature Atalanta v Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday, Barcelona v Bayern Munich on Friday and Manchester City v Lyon on Saturday.