Barcelona right-back Sergi Roberto spoke to the media today to share the feelings he has on the return to activity.
This week, the activity has returned to the Ciudad Deportiva Joan Gamper. Barcelona’s first team has returned to training although with LaLiga protocols that they must follow. Among other things, the sessions should be individual. Sergi Roberto spoke to the press today and the club shared his interview.
The Catalan defender spoke of his physical shape after almost two months without activity but doing the exercises that the technical staff sent to the players. He also mentioned his feelings of his first week of going back to work.
“I’m physically and mentally good. I’ve tried to train as much as possible at home. The fitness coaches told us what work we had to do at home each day. We didn’t know when this would start again so we had to be at 100% for the return. “
“The first week has gone very well. We were all looking forward to getting back to work. I think all my team-mates are the same. We have spent a lot of time at home so we’re getting back into the feeling of being with the ball on the pitch. ”
However, during training, the social distance must be respected as one of the restart protocols, which makes the sessions very different since the players cannot train as a group.
“We still can’t all be together because we are divided into groups in different pitches and they’re more individual sessions. I hope it goes well and everyone respects the measures and that we can soon be in bigger groups so we can all be together, which is what we want, ”Roberto explained.
“We mainly do circuit training in different stations. We can’t work with our team-mates so they’re individual exercises, some with the ball and some without,” the defender described briefly the training sessions.
Social distance during training is not the only safety measure that must be followed and Sergi Roberto also talks about it.
“We have to arrive for training already in our kit. We can’t go in the dressing room or anything. We just put on our boots and each player comes 5 minutes after the next so there’s no contact. Then each player has their part of the pitch. So we go there and warm-up, always keeping a distance from other players,” he said.
“When we finish it’s the same. We go and change our boots, put on our shoes and go home in the same clothes that we wore for training. We have to shower at home and the next day it’s the same again.”
Each step is one step closer to the return of the competition and football in stadiums, Germany has already taken the first step with the unusual return of the Bundesliga that had a great impact on the differences made with all the measures and protocols applied, one of them and perhaps the most visible is to play in empty stadiums. When the competition returns it is a fact that it will be behind closed doors.
“It’s going to be strange to play in front of an empty stadium. Football isn’t the same without fans. We play for ourselves but also for the fans, for the people in the stadium enjoying our games. But we know that although they can’t be in the stadium they’ll be cheering us on from home. We’ll be playing at 100% so that our fans at home feel happy in such difficult times, ”expressed Sergi Roberto.
To end the interview, Sergi Roberto wanted to spread a message of gratitude to all the health workers and people who do their best to get out of this situation as soon as possible.
“Especially thanks to all the health workers. Thank you for always being there on the frontline. They’re the people in the most danger because they are in contact with affected people. And thank you for getting affected people back to normal, and not ill. And also thanks to everyone who has been respecting the measures so that we can quickly get back to normal. It’s very important for everyone to be aware of what is happening and to respect the measures. “
