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It feels like this posts has had about 2,500 lede sentences with nothing more than each one of them being deleted and this thing being blown to pieces again.
Then again, I guess in times like these, with so much uncertainty and so much to be happening even though so much of our lives have been put on hold, it’s OK for one’s mind to be more than just a little all over the place as each day seems to bring its own unique uncertainty, its own unique set of challenges to suddenly overcome and, maybe more than ever before, the fact that we very well have to accept the unique as the new normal.
It’s hard to find the ability to put something together like this during these current times. Even though I live in Oregon and there are far fewer coronavirus cases here than the state to my north (Washington) and the state to my south that I called home for all but two years of my life (California), there’s so much different in my life now compared to a week ago, compared to a month ago, compared to the last time we were able to fully enjoy a game of calcio together here and watch Juventus show Inter who’s boss ... again.
These days, my time on the internet isn’t being used to run this blog the way we all want it to. The BWRAO crew has talked a lot over the past week and month, and none of it has really been anything we’ve really wanted to talk about.
The news about Daniele Rugani being positive for coronavirus happened five minutes after I sat down at my desk at work.
The news that UEFA postponed the second leg of Juventus’ Champions League Round of 16 matchup against Lyon happened right before I woke up that next morning.
There’s been a lot of figuring out what to do here, but it’s also been simply making sure everybody is OK since we’re spread out throughout the United States and, like a certain man who writes the grab bag, in Mexico.
Over the last few weeks, it feels like the only news we write about here or any other of our SBN Italia blogs — and the whole damn footballing world for that matter — is news we really don’t want to write about. Or, news we shouldn’t be writing about when you compare it to what is normal business around these parts.
The world is always going to be a little unpredictable because that’s just how it is.
But this ... this is like something unpredictable being put on steroids combined with everything else you can throw in there to make it seem superhuman and indestructible.
This is the official definition of a waiting game. We don’t know for how long. We don’t know if Juventus’ next game probably won’t be in April with the way things are looking. It might be in May, June or, hell, August or September.
And it’s the fact that there’s a complete feeling of uncertainty is what makes this so incredibly weird and has us in uncharted territory.
This isn’t like an international break where you know that the current-day lack of football is going to be gone come the next weekend. This isn’t like the summer months when we have mindless and endless transfer rumors to talk about and that’s it. With the last week’s announcement from Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte that all sporting clubs in the country — including, obviously, Serie A — won’t even be able to train until the middle of the month, we head into more of a complete land of the unknown, something that makes this point in any season just something we have rarely seen before.
Honestly, I don’t know what to do.
Maybe you do. But I don’t.
Some folks have asked me what BWRAO will do now that there’s no actual games to cover first April 3 and now another few weeks after that. (And, let’s be honest, that’s probably a really, really, really hopeful date at this point.) I didn’t know how to answer it because so much of the world right now has been thrown for a complete loop (and then some) that “normal service” doesn’t apply here for the immediate future and probably a few weeks after that.
So much has been thrown into flux that it’s impossible to even come close to predicting what will happen next. The coronavirus outbreak in Italy has been so widespread that the country that even the numbers coming down a little bit doesn’t mean the end is in sight.
Even if Serie A comes back, say next month nothing about what will take place from then on out during the current season will be normal. The schedule will be even more disjointed than before. And that’s even before you thrown into the fact that the Champions League is completely unknown at this point.
I mean, can you imagine, with everything that has happened over the last two months in Italy, seeing games happening in a month? What about two months?
The sports world is empty these days — and that’s even with the Belarusian Premier League holding games this weekend. Suddenly, our weekends are free and we would trade quite a lot to have that change.
Or, sometimes you just feel like this:
When you run a site for a team in Serie A and there are no games to cover now. pic.twitter.com/s7PqxJmXli
— BWRAO (@JuventusNation) March 9, 2020
We’ve officially entered the land of the unknown. Who knows if Travolta will be with us, so I guess when Juventus’ next Serie A fixture will be isn’t the only thing that is a guessing game at this point.
In the meantime, let’s look out for each other even while we’re staying home and not really seeing anybody other than the ones we live with. (Or, in my case, my cat.) Because right now, that’s all we’ve got.