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coronavirus

Football teams who can't play games because of coronavirus are playing games of noughts and crosses and Connect Four instead

Picture:
Picture:
iStock/Getty Images/ Twitter

The outbreak and spread of coronavirus has forced sports across to the board to temporarily suspend their seasons and prevent mass gatherings in stadiums.

Across the globe sports that require physical contact like basketball, ice hockey and wrestling have been completely suspended indefinitely, while football leagues have had to postpone matches across all competitions.

In England, the football league has been suspended until early April in fear that the virus could spread between fans and players. Indeed, several footballers and managers have already tested positive. Training sessions have also been postponed by many teams.

With this in mind, football teams, or at least the people who run their social media accounts have been left stumped as to what they can post, especially at 3 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon.

Take for instance Southampton, who were supposed to be playing Norwich City on Saturday. Rather than completely forget that the fixture was supposed to be taking place, they instead offered the Canaries a game of noughts and crosses instead.

However, it quickly emerged that Norwich were not interested in taking part as things got to half-time and there was no activity from the Norfolk team whatsoever

In an unprecedented turn of events, Manchester City offered to play instead of Norwich and the game was on.

To say things were intense would be a bit of an understatement.

Even VAR was called upon.

But, when it was all said and done it was a point-a-piece for the two sides.

Southampton did take the time to remind everyone to wash their hands as much as possible, which is the most important thing right now.

It wasn't just City and Southampton who were having fun. In an international affair, Germany's Bayer Leverkusen took on Hull City of the Championship in a virtual game of Connect 4.

What followed was actually a huge back-and-forth tactical battle between the two sides that even included an action replay.

At one point, Hull called for an offside but the pleas were ignored by the officials. Controversial stuff.

Fatigue soon began to set in on both sides, who had perhaps underestimated just how close the battle would be.

Eventually, the Tigers succeeded, securing the four in the row they needed for the win.

These two epic encounters even got coverage on Match of the Day.

Back in the Premier League, Watford saw how their match with Leicester City would have played out...in a simulation on the Football Manager video game.

Sometimes, you just have to love the internet.

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