Atalanta wingback Robin Gosens has revealed that “we underestimated” the Coronavirus but now live in a “ghost town” in Bergamo.
La Dea continued to participate in the Champions League and qualified for the quarter-finals after beating Valencia 8-4 on aggregate.
But after the historic night at the Mestalla, it all stopped and Gosens has claimed that they now live in “fear”.
Atalanta wingback Robin Gosens has revealed that “we underestimated” the Coronavirus but now live in a “ghost town” in Bergamo.
La Dea continued to participate in the Champions League and qualified for the quarter-finals after beating Valencia 8-4 on aggregate.
But after the historic night at the Mestalla, it all stopped and Gosens has claimed that they now live in “fear”.
“I don’t understand one thing: why did they let us play behind closed doors but then there were all the fans crowded outside in the European cities of the Champions League? It doesn’t make sense,” he told La Gazetta dello Sport.
“I felt the fear when they explained that Lombardy was the centre of everything, that nowhere else in Europe had that many cases. That day I told myself: ‘OK, previously it was in Wuhan, so far away, and now it’s here. Now we are in danger’.
“There’s not only fear in the neighbouring regions, but precisely in Bergamo, which is a ghost town today.
“They told me about the paces of Eco di Bergamo full of obituaries. That’s a frightening thing. It was then I told myself: ‘Me and Rabea, my fiancée, we must speak. Maybe it’s the case that she returns to Germany’. But she wanted to stay with me and together we decided she would stay.”
Juventus defender Daniele Rugani was the first case discovered in Serie A and Gosens revealed that it made the players uncertain about when they will be able to return to play.
Since the news about Rugani, several other players have tested positive for the COVID-19.
“On the day of his infection, we all though: ‘and now who knows when we will return to play’. I though about the quarantine, for him, for his teammates, his opponents. I thought that we are all in the same boat.
“And in fact, from today, I’m also in self-isolation. But nothing has changed. In practice, I was already on Wednesday. I’m as worried as I have been for days, neither more nor less.”
Atalanta played their last match behind closed doors against Valencia in the last 16 of the Champions League and Gosens reveals that they didn’t take the virus seriously.
“We knew that it was 99 per cent sure that we would have at least played in the Champions League, so we tried to train well, to work hard.
“But it was not easy to concentrate. We repeated continuously the things we had put on the pitch and how we had written the story, we would have given at least a smile to our people. We would have made the city happy for at least two hours.
“We all underestimated it [the COVID-19], I was the first. I told myself that it was at best a flu. I went out, went to the restaurants, met my friends.
“We didn’t know about this enemy and the capacity of it. We understood it only when there were already many cases.
“When they explained the meaning of those two words: red zone. After a bit of superficiality, your [Italy’s] best things emerged. The courage, solidarity, the identity of the people. The love of life and gratitude. Reading about people who step out on their balconies and applaud doctors and nurses, it moved me.
UEFA are arranging a conference call tomorrow and the meeting could be decisive for the outcome of Serie A and the Champions League in the current 2019-20 season, and Gosens has revealed that they are curious about how it will resume.
“I wonder what they will do, what will be the solution that could satisfy everyone,” he added. “I really don’t know how it will end.
“In this period of quarantine, I have much more time with my fiancée, to study and to prepare some psychology exams, to read the books that remained there, waiting to be opened.
“I also train a little bit at home, even if it’s very strange. It’s not strange to do it at home, it’s strange to do it without known when I will need it.”