Manchester City and Real Madrid are continuing to prepare for their Champions League showdown next Friday despite one player at the Spanish club testing positive for Covid-19.
News that Mariano Diaz, a fringe player for Los Blancos, was isolating at home after the positive result on Monday highlighted the fragile state that still exists in the game and world owing to the pandemic; Real Madrid already needed special exemption to travel over for the game after the UK government announced at the weekend that anyone arriving from Spain would have to quarantine for 14 days.
UEFA and the UK government could yet get involved on whether the game can go ahead, but for the moment both clubs are acting as if the last-16 clash will be able to be played as expected.
After some time off to celebrating winning La Liga, Real Madrid are understood to be “training as usual” with all the players that did not receive a positive test on their return from their break. City are also expecting the game to still go ahead despite the sudden development.
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