Rome Wasn't Built in a Day, Chapter 18;

The final chapter of this series takes us up to the present day. Well, the present day of May 2023.

So, the final chapter of this then. I hope you enjoyed it. For those who are somehow interested, here’s the introduction, from when I first decided to start putting these up in February. Thanks for reading it, those who did. Things are a lot better, now.

18. The greatest famine in history

On the 11th March 2020, Atletico Madrid beat Liverpool 3-2 in the second leg of their Champions League at Anfield to complete a 4-2 aggregate win. It was a disappointing result for the home team, who’d won the trophy the year before by beating Tottenham Hotspur 2-0 in the final, but it didn’t turn out to be the biggest story to come out of that evening.

The tremors had been heard since the beginning of the year, when matches and tournaments started to be cancelled across first China, then Hong Kong, Japan, Korea Republic. Inexorably it spread west, but most people living there hadn’t even realised this. Serie A came to a halt on the 9th March. Three days later, La Liga and the Segunda Division in Spain were postponed for two weeks. France, Italy and Germany followed suit. Various European club matches were played behind closed doors.

Meanwhile in England, the Premier League match between Manchester City and Arsenal was postponed after a number of Arsenal players had close contact with the Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis, who had subsequently tested positive. Head coach Mikel Arteta followed a few days later. Another postponement.