Europe

Real Madrid's Santiago Bernabeu stadium will be used as a makeshift storage facility as Spain faces an uphill battle against the coronavirus, the club announced on Thursday in conjunction with the country's Superior Sports Council. 

Spain is second only to Italy in numbers of deaths due to the virus, with the toll passing 4,000 on Thursday. Over 56,000 people have so far tested positive for the coronavirus in the country. The lockdown in Spain is expected to be extended once the initial 15-day measure is completed this weekend. 

Current contracts for players and coaches should be extended until the end of the delayed domestic soccer seasons, according to an internal FIFA document presented to its Coronavirus Working Group. The confidential document, seen by Reuters, also recommends allowing transfer windows to be changed in accordance with new season dates and urges clubs and players to work together to find solutions to salary payments during stoppages. 

Having spent over 15 years in England playing professionally with Watford, Aston Villa and Manchester United, Ashley Young now sits in the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in northern Italy. Young recently took the time to share with his Twitter followers what the situation looks like and to offer helpful advice.

Hi everyone, just wanted to share my thoughts given I'm currently living in Italy, the epicentre of the virus.

Barcelona forward Lionel Messi and Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola have each donated $1.08 million towards the fight against coronavirus. Argentina international Messi’s donation will be split between Hospital Clinic in Barcelona and another medical center in his home country, according to a report in MARCA. 

Often times, when people hear the name Peter Crouch the first thing they think of is the striker's height. With a 6'7" frame, Crouch towered over defenders and made winning aerial duels look easy. But to think only of his skill as a target man is to do a disservice to a very talented player.

Cristiano Ronaldo and football agent Jorge Mendes joined forces on Tuesday to donate lifesaving equipment to Portuguese hospitals struggling to treat patients with coronavirus. The two will donate equipment for two wards at Lisbon's Santa Maria hospital, providing the wards with 10 beds each, ventilators, heart monitors, infusion pumps and syringes, the hospital said in a statement. 

Players have accepted that playing games in closed stadiums might be the only way to complete the English domestic league season, Bobby Barnes, deputy chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA), has said. 

One of the great joys (unless you’re Juventus president Andrea Agnelli) of European competition is the annual group of overachievers that disrupts the established rule while playing some of the best football on the planet. In recent seasons, the leading examples have been Ajax (2018-19), Roma (2017-18) and Monaco (2016-17). 

This year, that title belongs to Atalanta, the team with Italy's 12th-highest wage bill. 

This season's Champions League, Europa League and women's Champions League finals scheduled for May have been formally postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic, European soccer's governing body UEFA said on Tuesday.

All three competitions are currently suspended along with almost every European domestic league because of the coronavirus while UEFA last week postponed the Euro 2020 tournament until next year. 

After a long time away from home, Mark Uth is thriving again in Cologne.

In the summer of 2018, Uth moved to Schalke from Hoffenheim, where a series of injuries saw him unable to maintain any sort of form. FC Köln manager Markus Gisdol, who worked with Uth for six months at Hoffenheim, decided to bring him to 15th-placed Köln on loan in January. Since his return to his boyhood club, no Schalke player has scored as many goals or provided as many assists as Uth (four apiece).