Luis Enrique spoke to the media on Thursday afternoon for the first time following a tumultuous week for La Roja. The Asturian spoke, according to Marca, about the positive covid-19 tests returned by Sergio Busquets and Diego Llorente and analysed Spain’s chances at Euro 2020 the day before the tournament got underway.
The Spanish squad will be vaccinated tomorrow after the scares of this week, which saw an U21 squad coached by Luis de las Fuentes beat Lithuania 4-0 in a senior friendly as the entire team was unable to play following the two positives.
A shadow squad of 17 players has also been prepared in case the first team can’t contest their opener with Sweden this coming Monday. Luis Enrique, who’s been through some tough personal moments involving the tragic loss of his daughter since taking over as Spanish boss, assured it was nothing he couldn’t handle, however. “To be honest, for me it’s child play compared to some of the things I’ve had to go through,” he said.
Regarding the team itself, he remained clear-thinking and confident. “Today is the eleventh day of the concentration,” he said. “I want to express the situation we’re in. Since the beginning we’ve complied with the all the protocols, even a little stricter than those imposed by UEFA. We have the dream of doing something great here at Euro 2020, and the co-existence [between the players] has been perfect.
“The concentration has changed since Sunday and that first positive; it caught us by surprise. We were in a bubble complying with all the protocols, but that day everything fell apart a little. You start to question many things. But the medical services have acted and we now have an even more demanding protocol; we train individually, with all the complexity that entails. The attitude of the players deserves praise.”
