With football almost universally suspended across the globe due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Portuguese footballers and coaches throughout the sport are attempting to remain focused on maintaining fitness and keeping themselves safe during lockdown.
Veteran Seleção full-back João Pereira, currently in Turkey with high-flying Trabzonspor, took an interview with zerozero earlier this month and spoke about how he is managing the unprecedented lifestyle change and the impact of the current events.
The 36-year-old has been with the club on the northeastern coast of Turkey for three years, having left Sporting for Trabzonspor in January 2017. This season has seen the team nicknamed ‘The Black Sea Storm’ enjoy their best season in many years, with Trabzonspor currently topping the Super Lig after 26 rounds of action.
Yet it has been a month since Pereira’s men played their last game: a 1-1 home draw against nearest challengers Istanbul Basaksehir. Since then, with the league suspended indefinitely, Pereira and his wife have been quarantining at home with their baby son while the country looks to bring the situation under control by enforcing the common social restrictions seen across the world.
“The quarantine has led to me to starting to eat breakfast with the family,” Pereira told zerozero, looking at a positive aspect of the situation. “I usually train in the morning and don’t always have that possibility. I have the opportunity to start the day watching my son have breakfast which is unusual. We can get the kitchen dirty right away!
“After that we’ll take a walk outside as I don’t want my son inside all the time. When my son has his nap I am on the PlayStation or watch shows with my wife. I also train here and my wife joins me – she’ll be a better player than me! The fitness coach sends us videos of what to do and we do two workouts a day.”
Retirement insight
As a senior member of the squad with some 18 years as a professional, Pereira gave an intriguing insight into the mindset of a player his age, while admitting there is an inevitable concern for family back home in Portugal. Pereira was speaking at the beginning of April, much earlier into lockdown in his homeland.
“I started playing football at the age of six and since six I have been used to leaving home to go to training, going to the dressing room. I am 36 years old now and thinking about the end of my career. Not for tomorrow, but I’m already thinking about it. And so now I am experiencing things that I may experience when that time comes. Not having contact with teammates, facilities, playing – it’s a bit confusing. I miss the training.
“It’s complicated as we foreigners have our parents, grandparents, cousins and the rest of our family far away and have no chance to be near them. The news comes every day from Portugal and of course we worry. I’m concerned for my son, who is only one, and for my parents as they are 71 and 69 and it’s complicated at their age.
Portugal acted quickly
“I try to remind my parents to leave the house as little as possible and to be careful. Although my father is a bit stubborn. My mother on the other hand does not leave the house and is always hammering him to be careful. From what I have heard I think that the Portuguese Government took preventive measures faster than in Italy and Spain, for example. But then you also have the smart people who decided to go to the beach in quarantine.”
Asked what he was looking forward to about the end of lockdown when restrictions are lifted, Pereira admitted that his child’s development is of the upmost concern. “Here in Turkey there are many things for young people and children,” he says. “We used to take Gabriel to the park to be with other children. We think it’s important for children to be with other children, even if they speak a different language. It’s one of the things we miss most, taking him out to be with other children.
“[Training alone] is not the same. It’s not the same intensity. It’s one thing to be competing with your teammates, but it’s another to be doing it alone. On top of that [as a team] we were in a good moment. We were in first place, we hadn’t lost in a long time and then all this happened.
“Trabzonspor hasn’t been champions in many years. But there are more important things than football right now…”
via ZeroZero.pt
