Which would make sense. Inter Milano's player Romelu Lukaku was saying about a month ago that the vast majority of his teammates (23 out of 25) had already gotten the virus in January, and that for the Inter - Cagliari match (which was played on January 26th) one of his teammates had to be substituted off after only 25 minutes because he couldn't run anymore.

For whatever reasons Inter's officials didn't like his comments and reprimanded him, but it seems like Lukaku was closer to the truth than many would have liked to admit a month ago.

Perhaps because he was making baseless claims about his teammates and tainting the reputation of the club. He should at least know that players being taken down by cold or flu is not unusual in football.

2014 Seven players are struck by 'flu symptoms': https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/germany/109...

2017 Wenger fighting to contain outbreak: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-4296828/N...

Feb 2019 'Man flu'[0] sweeps through League Two club: https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/47239534

March 2019 'epidemic' with eight players: https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/8709002/poland-flu-e...

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_flu

One could think so, of course, but then how does one explain the fact that when testing really started in Italy (end of February - actually early March for footballers, after the Juve - Inter match played on March 9th) not one football player from Inter tested positive, even though they were in what was even by then the center of the pandemic in Italy, Milano?

By contrast two Juve players (Dybala and Matuidi) tested positive immediately after March 9th, plus some other players from Firenze and Genoa. One of the only reasonable explanations would be that most (if not all) Internazionale players had already gotten the virus by then and had managed to get rid of it.

And I've heard of that "tainted" argument and for the life of me I couldn't understand it, being sick (or having been sick) doesn't taint anyone. It somehow reminds me of the infamous #milanononsiferma hashtag used by Milano's mayor (among others) at the end of February, people who were thinking that ignoring actual real stuff for fear of not "tainting" the city (in the mayor's case) would somehow make things better.