Ireland head into a crunch U21 European Championships qualifier against Italy tomorrow without a number of their most important players.
Adam Idah, Aaron Connolly, Dara O'Shea, Jason Knight, Jayson Molumby, and Caoimhin Kellher are all unavailable after called up to Stephen Kenny's senior side. Troy Parrott is also out due to injury. It certainly isn't ideal for Jim Crawford.
However, their opponents in a far worse position.
The Italy U21 squad has been ravaged by Covid-19 over the last week or so. Their fixture against Iceland was postponed last weekend after two players and a member of staff tested positive for the virus after landing in the country.
They returned to Italy with the hope of fulfilling the fixture against Ireland, but three more players have now tested positive, with a total of seven confirmed cases.
Italian rules will result in other players in the squad being deemed as close contacts to infected players, meaning they will be unable to participate in tomorrow's game.
That has resulted in the Italian Football Federation confirming that they will field their U20 side for the game against Ireland. The U20 side have been in a training camp since last week.
In a statement, they said:
Given the positive cases of COVID-19 that have emerged in recent days, in the awareness that we have always operated in full compliance with the regulations in force and the protocols drawn up by UEFA and the FIGC, the Federation, as a precaution and a sense of responsibility, has established that it will be the National Under-20 team who plays the match against the Republic of Ireland at 17.00 at the Arena Garibaldi-Romeo Anconetani Stadium in Pisa.
While this is an unfortunate situation for Italy, it does give Ireland qualification hopes a potential boost.
A win in this game would move them six points ahead of the Italians at the top of the group, albeit having played a game more.
A second-placed finish in the group could even be enough to qualify for the tournament in Hungary and Slovenia next year, with the five best runner-ups from the nine groups also reaching the finals.
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