"The forty thousand fans of Atalanta-Valencia were infected"

The mayor of Bergamo, Giorgio Gori has confirmed that Atalanta-Valencia in the Champions League spread the coronavirus almost without limit: “At that time we did not know what was happening. The first patient in Italy was on February 23. If the virus was already circulating, the forty thousand fans who went to the San Siro stadium were infected. No one knew that the virus was already circulating among us. Many watched the game in groups and there were many contacts that night. The virus passed from one to the other ”, he assured. He says that soccer could infect more people, but it was not ground zero: "The game was not everything because the spark was really in the Alzano Lombardo hospital, with a patient with unrecognized pneumonia and who infected patients, doctors and nurses. That is the focus of the outbreak ”,

In Valencia there have already been positives, in Atalante, goalkeeper Marco Sportiello has tested positive for coronavirus, although he is "asymptomatic", making him the first case of COVID-19 infected by the Italian team. "We hereby inform that the local health authorities have communicated to the club today the positive for COVID-19 of the player Marco Sportiello," states the statement from the entity of Bergamo. In addition, he reports that the goalkeeper is "currently asymptomatic".

"The preventive quarantine to which Marco and all members of the first team have been subjected will end on March 27," explains the club.

Sportiello was the starting goalkeeper for Atalanta in the second leg of the Champions League round of 16 against Valencia (3-4), which was played on March 10 at the Mestalla stadium and ended with the classification from transalpine to the next round. In the first leg, the holder in the Italian goal was Pierluigi Gollini. This same Tuesday, Atalanta captain Alejandro 'Papu' Gómez described as “terrible” that they had to play the round-trip matches of the eighths of the 'Champions' against Valencia CF, especially the second match when in Italy they already It was “all rotten” and Spain was beginning to fully experience the coronavirus problem.