Serie A set to resume on 20 June and asdfhsdfljherljhasdljfhljdfgpq

Italian Minister of Sport Vincenzo Spadafora announced today that, assuming coronavirus infection levels continue to fall as expected, Serie A will resume on 20 June 2020 after a 104-day layoff. The Coppa Italia semifinals will be played a week earlier on 13 June 2020.

The format seems likely to be twice-weekly matches that will wrap the season up by the beginning of August. The medical precautions will remain stringent: if any player tests positive, the entire squad will be quarantined for 14 days. It remains unclear how that will affect the resumption of the season, as any team having to miss two weeks would stretch matches out considerably further into the summer.

The nature of the transfer window also remains uncertain and will certainly result in another few rounds of frenzied meetings between clubs, players, agents, and associations. The likelihood of players picking up injuries is pretty high, too, as they haven’t had much time to regain fitness—Zlatan Ibrahimović is likely only the first of many—and playing two times a week in the punishing heat of the Italian summer puts players at serious risk of dehydration, even with the new substitution rules that could help protect them.

Even with so much uncertainty, though, we’ve got this (barring any unforeseen circumstances): Fiorentina will host Brescia on Saturday, 20 June 2020, or Sunday, 21 June 2020. Everything is terrible and nothing will be the same, but it’s really nice to have the Viola back in some capacity.