Players of Bundesliga soccer club Schalke 04 exercise in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, Thursday, May 14, 2020. Credit: AP/Martin Meissner
Arne Richter knows emotions will be running high against a backdrop of fear and hope amidst a deadly pandemic sweeping the world for the first time in more than a century.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Richter, a sportswriter, said from Berlin, where he is preparing to cover his first soccer game since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic shut down sports around the globe. “It’s really weird and a bit frightening at the same time. But from my point of view, it’s more dangerous to go shopping in the supermarket than to go to one of these matches.