Milan goalkeeper Asmir Begovic has explained how it feels living in a “deserted” city during the Coronavirus outbreak and hopes that football eventually can “bring joy back to the people”.
Bournemouth loanee Begovic moved to the fashion capital in January to replace Pepe Reina as the back-up to Gianluigi Donnarumma, and he explains how life has been turned upside down in Milan during the last month.
Milan goalkeeper Asmir Begovic has explained how it feels living in a “deserted” city during the Coronavirus outbreak and hopes that football eventually can “bring joy back to the people”.
Bournemouth loanee Begovic moved to the fashion capital in January to replace Pepe Reina as the back-up to Gianluigi Donnarumma, and he explains how life has been turned upside down in Milan during the last month.
Before Serie A matches were suspended, Lombardy was one of the first ‘red zones’ in Italy and carried out matches behind closed doors. But it quickly escalated to a complete lockdown for the whole country to fight against the rapid spread of the Coronavirus.
“It’s a total lockdown, Begovic told Daily Mirror. “The streets are deserted. The only thing open are supermarkets.
“You can get a little bit of food and then it’s straight back to your home. It’s crazy.
“It’s a big city, I live in the city and you think it’s a movie. People have said it’s like a movie scene and it really is. I’ve never seen anything like it before. I’m not sure people understand how bad it is here.
“It has hit Italy very hard. What the reason for that is I don’t know – maybe the medicine side of things.
“But it has hit the country hard. You feel for the country, with a lot of deaths and people being infected. It’s devastating and heart-breaking for the people.
“Now you see other clubs, fellow players getting it and it feels like a nightmare and you can only hope that everything goes back to normal as soon as possible.
Seven players have tested positive for the Coronavirus, but Milan have not reported any cases of the virus.
“It was one thing after the next. It was literally happening daily, things developed so quickly from games being on, to games behind closed doors and then games are off,” Begovic added. “There was a debate as to whether we should play at all.
“We played behind closed doors, which wasn’t a great experience at all.
“Then the next day we were in, then we were off, and everything was shut down. It happened so quickly. This has been the climax.
“Then you’re in lockdown. The whole city in lockdown, no restaurants past 17:00 GMT and now everything’s closed. It literally happened so quickly, one step after another.
The Bosnian goalkeeper has revealed that the players are waiting for updates and are scheduled to be back next week, but it’s still uncertain to whether it will go on.
“It’s just a waiting game at the moment. We’re not training now,” he said. “We’re not due back until 23rd at the moment but that looks as if it might get changed and extended.
“No-one has tested positive at Milan. Now they’ve sent us away and said: ‘We’ll see you when we see you’.
“Those are the measures that people have to take, they are the orders and we obey them and that’s it.
“It’s so strange not being able to train. You try to do other things but there’s only so much Netflix you can watch.
“I try to keep busy, I’m trying to record some podcasts, keep myself ticking over and to not get down too much and patiently wait for normality to resume.
Begovic hopes that football will be the source of “joy” during the emergency and wants to use the “power” football has to “bring “people together”.
“Football has such an important voice,” he said. “Sport in general has such power in our world today.
“It can really bring people together. It can cause issues too. But in difficult times like this, football can really use its power to have a really positive spin.
“It can bring joy back to the people. It’s a way of life, people love football and it’s a really good way of being able to use that power and strength in a really positive way.”