Supporters are very important in encouraging the player or putting pressure on the referee

Football and empty stands

photo_camera REUTERS/VINCENT WEST - Overview of empty seats with covers and Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane. 20 September 2020

Antonio Núñez lives retired from football in Huelva. On his way through professional sport he played for the elite. Stadiums like the Santiago Bernabéu when he was wearing white or the Anfield stadium when he was European champion with Liverpool.  

"You get more out of your own crowd than your opponent does. I personally have not felt that the public is so hostile as that yours is more or less on your side. It is the real strength" he says when he has to explain what it is like for the footballer to have a crowd in the stadiums.  

Echo football 

Football is back in June. The stands were empty for the players. The magic of television blurred the stands and set the mood for the games for those at home. But this was not experienced by the players who faced their matches with the echo of their coaches and teammates in the background.  

Djokovic has left an image for history. His blow to a linesman at the US Open cost him a ban from the prestigious tournament, a fine and the big question of why he did such a thing. Analyzing the action one can conclude that the blow was unintentional. You can see it in the gesture, the reaction and the apology. They seem sincere. Although the Serb was losing concentration at times. His rival, the Spaniard Pablo Carreño, had worked well on the match and managed to score good points and make demands on the world number one. Djokovic had already thrown a ball to the fence previously and his glances to the stands where his coach was was constant because his tennis was not good. Would he have done it with an audience? 

Gradas vacias en el partido entre el Valencia y el Levante , el  13 de septiembre de 2020
The importance of the audience. 

The football we have seen in recent months has not had any fans in the stands. Nor has there been talk of the encouragement of the public cheering on their team or taking them on a flying leash to win their games. It seems that the footballers have competed as usual and only experienced strange situations to celebrate a goal when they looked at an empty stand. Promotions, relegations, beatings, European finals... everything has happened in the most absolute emptiness. And the footballer has not suffered, has he?  

Before football came back without an audience, many said that the stands forced them to keep their concentration. Thousands of eyes on a play did not give rise to mistakes or to be thinking about something else. Everything seems to have passed in the most absolute (new) normality. The professionals had not raised their voices, but the audience is more important than we think.  

No support 

Francisco Solano Romero is the director of the Postgraduate degree in Sports Psychology and Coaching from the Universitat Abat Oliba CEU. "In the case of the player, he will not have pressure, but neither will he have support", he concludes from the most scientific point of view when he talks about the emptiness of the stands. These are words that Núñez endorses when he recalls what it was like to play with and without an audience, "it affects the player's state of mind. I have not competed in the pandemic, but I have played in empty stadiums and, more than concentrating, what you notice is the state of mind, the impulse of your public... when you have no public you feel more in a training than competing".  

The pressure of the public. The hell in which some stadiums are converted by the fans. That has disappeared and will take time to return. Dr. Solano points out that "the main change is that this constant process of communication between fans and players will not take place. It was an atmospheric pressure that in sport conditioned what happened on the field and that influenced players, coaches, referees".  
 

Partido de fútbol de la Liga española entre la Real Sociedad y el Real Madrid en el estadio Anoeta de San Sebastián, España, el domingo 20 de septiembre de 2020

That audience which is no longer present was a part of the game. They did not train with the team, but on certain occasions they received the appropriate instructions from their idols during the week. Crowded reception hours before the game, whistling to the rival, pressure on the referee ... everything that a fan can give. Antonio Núñez made his debut with Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabéu in September 2003 in front of almost 65,000 spectators. He won 7-2 against Valladolid. Queiroz replaced him with Figo in the 64th minute. It is true that there were matches with spectators, for example with Castilla, but nothing comparable. When you see yourself in a Bernabeu with so many people you begin to notice that there is another new factor that influences when it comes to playing".   

Positive factors  

However, there are also positive factors for the player. Francisco Solano says that "it improves the management of the team's internal communication. There will be more cohesion and better internal relations between the components of the team". For Núñez it is a question of decibels: "in the field you hear both the chants and the protests in general. I played on the sidelines and spent a lot of time in the stands. I listened to the people closest to me. The insults from your opponent, your own audience cheering you on... but most of the time you hear a general noise". 

Partido Sevilla vs Betis en el Ramón Sanchez Pizjuan el 11 de junio de 2020
The VAR, the referees and the public. 

The VAR has not silenced the arbitration protest. Complaining about the performance of the referees is a national sport in Spain. No matter whether technology has come to their rescue, it is also a cause for complaint. But those stands lacking feverish spectators pointing again and again at the referees, unable to see their own mistake... are no longer there. "The absence of the public will eliminate this usual pressure on the referee and will be the most beneficial," says Dr. Solano.  

Pre and post match habits in COVID-19 times are beginning to pose a problem. Old school coaches have already raised their voices.  In this new season the protocols of LaLiga are even stricter and that leaves images like the talk of the Osasuna coach to his players on the Carranza grass, the improvised changing rooms in the Zorrilla's stands or watching the sportsmen arrive in the stadium all dressed up and leave without taking a shower. These rules will take their toll sooner or later because footballers are extremely diligent with their post-match treatments. Waiting to arrive at the hotel to take a shower or get a massage alters your recovery.  

"The League no longer tells you only what you have to do, but how you have to do it: trips, concentrations, food, transfers to the fields...", denounced publicly Sergio Sánchez, Valladolid's coach. He adds that "they have failed to have that detail of talking with us, the protagonists of this sport, to establish situations or to see whether this Protocol's proposals are right or wrong". 

We must remember that players and coaching staff of both teams are free of coronavirus according to the previous tests but the image is important for LaLiga and for sport in general. For a security person to tell Cristiano Ronaldo that he should put his mask on in the stands shows the level of sensitivity that exists in the game.  

Sport in times of coronavirus. New habits that come to stay and others that must be banished as soon as the virus is gone. Sport has changed. Competing for the show to reach the public at home is the only thing that matters. But the fan factor is still important.  
 

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