Villarreal re-works preseason schedule after new COVID 19 positive

While not confirming exactly who the person is, Villarreal has announced that someone in contact with the first team has tested positive for COVID-19. As a result, the preseason matches that were supposed to begin on Saturday have been postponed.

Players have returned to individual training, which I presume will continue for a couple days as more testing happens to make sure the spread is contained. We were scheduled to play Cartagena in a preseason match on Saturday, but instead that is now the day when the squad will arrive at the hotel facility for their preseason matches. The match with Cartagena will be played on Sunday.

This situation provided a good opportunity to see how media around this sort of thing tends to work. Sport tweeted out that Villarreal confirmed a new coronavirus case and canceled their preseason camp, but of course when you click on the article they mostly just quote the official statement (linked in the opening sentence of this article). Of course canceling things and going to individual training for a day or two so that we can play a preseason match one day later have dramatically different connotations and implications for the upcoming season, but I guess they suppose you are more likely to click their article if they use scary words like “cancel”. The press release does talk about having to ‘postpone’ things, but not cancel.

Sensationalism in news, even (or especially) surrounding football is nothing new, but it is perhaps something to be aware of, watch your sources closely as they know this virus is on everyone’s mind and try to take advantage of it. Everything is fine for now, and the club seems to be handling the situation well.