We were at high risk until they suspended the Serie A, confesses Diego Godin

We were at high risk until they suspended the Serie A, confesses Diego Godin

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Inter Milan star Diego Godin has opened up about his time in Italy after the outbreak of coronavirus and admitted that everyone was at risk until they halted the season. Football in Italy was the first to be suspended after the outbreak of the virus with few countries affected as badly as Italy.

Both Italy's Sports Minister Vincenzo Spadafora and Italian Footballers' Association’s president Damiano Tommasi called for the Serie A season to suspended in early March with the decision later confirmed by Italian prime minister Guiseppe Conte. However, it reportedly came a day too late with three Juventus players testing positive in the days since, including Paulo Dybala, and it saw Inter Milan quarantined.

That was because the two sides faced each other in one of the last football matches to be played in Europe. However, in an interview, Inter Milan star Diego Godin went on to admit that he had an inkling that more than one player at Juventus had the virus and it’s why the Nerazzurri side was quarantined. He also added that the entire league was at risk until the moment the season was suspended with the Serie A looking at different ways to try and continue playing football.

"We continued to practice and play for several weeks behind closed doors until Juve's positive test, so they quarantined the Juve players and us. That's where the season stopped. Surely, there were other players in that match who may have already been infected, and that's why they quarantined us,” Godin told ESPN.

"We were at risk until the final moments. We were being pulled in different directions to see if we could continue playing until the situation became untenable. The health system collapsed. There are no beds in ICU to tend to so many people in critical condition. People with other ailments simply weren't tended to. There is no place for them, or enough medical professionals."

The 34-year-old also went onto admit that nobody took the virus seriously at the start with things only becoming serious after it landed in Italy. Things in Italy have become very serious, with the death toll reportedly going past 12,000 on Tuesday and Godin went on to add that while they were told to take precautions, there was no real action taken by anyone in in government.

"It wasn't a big deal at the beginning. Everybody thought it was China's problem and that it wouldn't transmit to other countries. Measures were enacted very, very slowly. We were told to take precautions, but at the government level, there were no drastic actions taken that would have prevented what was possibly to come,” he added.

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