The news broke on Friday that Renan Lodi had tested positive for coronavirus and had been sent into quarantine. It wasn’t a surprise in itself as LaLiga had predicted that 30 players would test positive — and the league has since confirmed that five players have coronavirus after the first round of tests.

What did surprise was that nine Atlético Madrid players who were tested are carrying antibodies of the virus. That essentially means they all had coronavirus at some point in the last couple of months.

What it means for Atlético’s training plans

Atlético started training on Saturday with team physician Óscar Celada watching over everything to ensure that players were keeping away from each other.

“We are not used to training apart,” Thomas Partey said. “But we will get used to it.

“We are used to being on holidays, training and playing with our friends” Thomas continued. “But in this case, we were at home. It was difficult, but with the situation we were in, we got used to it. We kept training as we could.”

Atlético players trained in various different groups. The first to make their way onto the field was Santiago Arias, José Giménez, Mario Hermoso, Felipe Monteiro, Stefan Saviç and Šime Vrsaljko. They were followed by Koke, Saúl, Thomas, Diego Costa, Héctor Herrera and Álvaro Morata. After the first two groups finished, the goalkeepers trained.

It was all physical work as the players are eased back into action, and the sessions lasted an hour and 15 minutes for each group.

Lodi was the only player not to train following his positive test result.