Positive side of COVID

It’s now been almost a year since the Corona came into our lives. The virus changed our lives, changed the way we communicate with people and changed the game we love. But I always try to be positive, so let’s see some of the aspects in which the COVID crisis made football better. 1) Transfer fees. In the recent years the transfer market went crazy. Lately clubs pay ridiculous amount of money even for average players. Even mid-table clubs pay such money which could buy you one of the world’s best players couple of years ago. It’s still early to say, because it’s been only two transfer windows, but what Financial Fair Play couldn’t succeed in COVID might. Yes, teams like Chelsea and Manchester City still spent a lot of money on transfers, but Chelsea were banned for the last 2 transfer windows and we all know that City’s money aren’t coming from the fans and are endless. With all the uncertainty about the virus and when the fans will be able to travel freely and visit football games, maybe the transfer market will calm a bit. Or even next summer we will see the next 150+ million transfer? 2) Football on TV. For us the fans this is a dream come true. New kick off times, games all the time. With the lack of fans on the stands, televisions changed the schedule of the national championships across Europe. What’s a nightmare for the players is a blessing for us. We have top flight football seven days a week and on the weekends you can start watching Premier League around lunch time and finish around midnight. 8 hours of football! Beer manufacturers might reach Elon Musk’s fortune soon. 3) Unpredictability. Since the beginning of the Premier league season 83 of the games finished with victories for the home team. 51 of the games were a draw. And in 100 of the total 234 played games the away team won, which is 43% of all games. Unprecedented! With the empty stadiums there is no such thing as “home team advantage” anymore. We see a lot of surprises every game week. The phrase “Everyone can beat everyone” in the Premier league is topical more than ever. And the empty stands play their role in this. Hey, we even saw Liverpool’s record of 68 home games in the league shattered by Burnley, then the reds lost from Brighton and Man City at Anfield. 4) Vocal players. With the empty stands we now can feel closer to the pitch than ever. We can hear the conversations between players. Manager’s instructions to the players can’t be hidden from the cameras. It’s a new dimension of the game we couldn’t experience when the stadiums were full and the fans were singing. It’s not much, but we have to focus on the good things around us. And in the times of a global pandemic that stopped most aspects of our lives it might be hard but we got to focus on the bright side of everything. Positive thoughts! Negative tests!