For Alba Berlin, the time of suffering is over for now. After a forced break of around two weeks due to several corona cases, the Berliners can start playing again.
On Tuesday (8.30 p.m.) the Bundesliga team will play Armani Milan in the Euroleague. “We’re really looking forward to finally getting back on the field, even if it’s going to be a challenge because Milan are one of the best teams in Europe,” said captain Luke Sikma.
At the beginning of January there were eleven corona cases in the team and support staff of the Berliners. Most of them have now recovered from their infection. Only for Jonas Mattisseck, Johannes Thiemann and Malte Delow will the game come too early after their infection. “They will probably be missing, even if we don’t know for sure yet,” said sporting director Himar Ojeda.
The interruption caused by Corona came at the wrong time for the Berliners. Because the German champions had previously won a run and five competitive games in a row. “That’s why we hope to quickly find the good rhythm that we had in the last few games,” said Sikma. So far, the team has hardly been able to train together. The first units only started on Saturday.
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That’s why expectations aren’t very high. “We have to work our way back step by step and make sure nobody gets hurt,” said Ojeda.
Caution is the primary goal of the Berliners, because in the next few weeks Alba has to integrate five catch-up games into the already tight schedule. “We will probably have games every two days. These will be very difficult weeks for us,” said Ojeda.
The encounter in Milan is already a catch-up game. The game had to be postponed at the end of January. In this case, however, because of Corona cases among the Italians.
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