Thursday July 12, 8:30 am. Players from Toronto FC and DC United warm up on the lawn at ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando before their scheduled match kicks off at 9am. But a few minutes later, the two teams are sent back to the locker room to everyone’s surprise. We learn that one of the DC players has tested positive for the coronavirus.
The MLS has chosen to relaunch its season stopped in March with a large closed-door tournament from July 8 to August 11 on the grounds of Disney World. But Florida and Orange County, where the matches take place, have become the new epicenter of Covid-19. The “Sunshine State” recorded 15,000 new cases in the day of July 12 alone, a sad record in the United States. “I don’t feel reassured”, explains Nicolas Benezet, attacking midfielder from Colorado Rapids. “We know that the virus is here, somewhere, and that we can catch it at any time”. The 1,300 or so players, coaches and staff members are located in two hotels in the same resort, the Swan and Dolphin Resort. Each team has a floor with the bedrooms and a common game room. “It’s very strict, you can’t see anyone and you can’t go out. We only go downstairs for meals ”, says Florian Valot, midfielder of the New York Red Bulls.
Players and club staff had to pass several tests before arriving in Orlando. They were tested again on arrival and continue to be tested every other day during the tournament. Insufficient since no less than ten FC Dallas players tested positive between June 28 and July 6. A scenario that was repeated three days later in the workforce of Nashville SC, which had nine positive players. The accumulation of cases forced the league and its “commissioner” Don Garber to exclude both teams from the tournament. The affected players have been quarantined at another hotel. “I put on a mask and gloves as soon as I leave my room. Of course, it’s not reassuring to see what happened with Nashville and Dallas. But on the other hand, we are finally playing football again and that’s it ”, nuance Adrien Regattin, the Franco-Moroccan winger of FC Cincinnati. “You can’t blame the league. Overall, it’s very well organized and we feel safe ”, estimates Aurélien Collin. For the Philadelphia defender, the departure of contaminations at Nashville SC and FC Dallas is mainly due to the negligence of a few players. “I will not give names but I think some of them arrived in Orlando with the disease since they were not living in confinement at all and were going out lately.”
Orlando’s hot and humid climate is not helping the players either, whose matches are held in scorching temperatures (30 degrees or more) despite kickoffs scheduled for 9am, 8pm and 10:30 pm. In spite of everything, we saw matches of good quality and with a lot of commitment during the first week of competition. “We couldn’t wait to get back to the pitch after four months without playing”, loose Paul Marie, 25-year-old San Jose Earthquakes midfielder. “I think the ‘World Cup’ format of the tournament helps too. We first play three group matches that count for the regular season, then knockout matches. It gives even more intense and tense confrontations than in the league ”. The majority of the competition is broadcast on ESPN. The American channel achieved good audience results with an average of 489,000 viewers over the first four matches, a 27% increase over last year at the same period.
This tournament, entitled “MLS is Back Tournament”, is also the engagement tournament. About a hundred players entered the field in the lead-up to the opening game between Miami and Orlando on July 8. Dressed in “Silence is Violence” t-shirts, they knelt down to an eight-minute and 46-second silence, the amount of time George Floyd was held down by a white policeman in Minneapolis on May 25, provoking his silence. dead. Other MLS players have also planned to make their voices heard individually in Orlando, such as Jeremy Ebobisse. The American striker (born in Paris) of the Portland Timbers co-founded the Black Players Coalition on June 19, an association of players of color that aims to fight against racism and discrimination within the league. “I think we will have plenty of time during a month of competition to mark the occasion, to take the opportunity of the tournament to be heard and to extend the reach of our organization, and we will achieve that”, he explained on June 29. Thierry Henry had also promised action in Orlando. And the Impact Montreal coach kept his word by kneeling on his sidelines for eight minutes and 46 seconds at the start of the game against New England on July 9. “Beyond the tribute, it was important for me to show my support for the Black Lives Matter movement”, he commented in a press conference after the meeting.
