Netherlands Battle Flu Outbreak Before 2022 World Cup Match Versus U.S.

The Netherlands football team has been facing a nasty opponent leading up to theirround-of-16 matchup against the U.S. men’s national team (USMNT) this Saturday at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. This nasty opponent is very small, much smaller than a soccer ball. But it could have big consequences for the favored Dutch side or rather against the favored Dutch side. According to the Dutch team’s manager Louis van Gaal, several of his 26 players have been dealing with flu symptoms, although he wouldn’t specify how many players. Reporting for ESPN, Tom Hamilton quoted van Gaal as saying the following about the influenza virus, “If it goes around in the group, it is worrying.”

Yeah, “worrying” is not a great word for the Dutch team before their winner-advances-and-loser-goes-home match versus the USMNT, scheduled to begin at 10 am U.S. Eastern Time on December 3. December 3 happens to be Let’s Hug Day too. But hugging isn’t a great thing to do when you have the flu. In fact, it’s better to keep people apart in general when the flu is spreading like an Elon Musk tweet. Therefore, rather than go through their usual 11-vs-11 practice two days prior to the match, the Netherlands just kept to a rather light practice. Aside from midfielders Frenkie de Jong and Marten de Roon mentioning a scratchy throat and upper respiratory symptoms, respectively, earlier this week, the team hasn’t revealed who specifically has been sick or how sick they’ve been. So it’s unclear how many Dutch players the flu will knockout from their knockout game against the U.S.

The USMNT reached the knock-out stage of the World Cup by finishing second in Group B, after a victory over Iran and ties against Wales and England. This has certainly been a better World Cup for the USMNT than the 2018 World Cup in Russia, for which the U.S. failed to quality. The Netherlands failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup as well. But, unlike the USMNT, the Dutch side has historically been a World Cup powerhouse, considered by many to be the most successful national team to never win the World Cup. They’ve appeared in three World Cup finals, the latest being the 2010 World Cup in South Africa where they lost 1-0 to Spain in the championship match. In the current World Cup, the Dutch team finished atop Group A, following wins over Qatar and Ecuador and a draw against Senegal.

Having the flu is not fun, unless you enjoy being kicked in the proverbial balls with symptoms that can be quite debilitating. The flu virus typically doesn’t affect your actual balls. Instead, the most common symptoms are a fever, coughing, sneezing, body aches, chills, headaches, lack of energy, a runny nose, nausea, and vomiting. These symptoms can really “soccer” it to you, leaving you with that just-want-to-lie-in bed feeling and tend to appear with a few days of catching the virus. Typically symptoms last from four to seven days, although some symptoms such as a cough and feeling run down could persist for weeks.

In some cases, the flu can land you in the hospital or even kill you, especially if you are a young child, older adult, or otherwise have a weaker immune system. Most healthy young adults do end up surviving the flu but every now and then you hear of a health young adult tragically passing away from the flu.

That’s why it’s a good idea to get the flu vaccine each year. It’s got a good safety record and doesn’t turn you into a 5G transmitter, a refrigerator door, or whatever anti-vaccination propaganda may try to make you believe. It’s also a good idea to keep washing your hands thoroughly and frequently because you tend to touch yourself, a lot. Each time you wash your hands, don’t just wave at the running faucet with jazz hands. Instead, make sure that you lather up with soap and warm water for at least 20 seconds, which is about how long it takes to sing to the first chorus of the Divinyls song, “I Touch Myself.” Keep surfaces and high-touch objects like your gigantic statue of Cristiano Ronaldo regularly disinfected. If someone has flu-like symptoms, try to stay at least six feet away, which is one Lewandowski since Polish football star Robert Lewandowski is about six feet tall.

And, yes, wearing a face mask while indoors in crowded locations can help prevent the flu as well. But these days it may seem difficult to mention the words “face mask” without someone throwing another “f” word in your face, right? After all, some politicians, personalities, and anonymous social media accounts have politicized the “f” out of face masks during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Netherlands hasn’t been the only football team to struggle with such flu-ish symptoms at the ongoing World Cup in Qatar. The Brazilian team seems to have struggled with such symptoms in the group stage as well. Following Brazil’s 1-0 victory over Switzerland, one of their players, Antony, blamed the air conditioning system inside Qatar’s World Cup stadiums after he and others were left filling sick, according to Omar Garrick reporting for The Athletic. Now, air conditioning symptoms alone aren’t going to give you the flu. You have to either inhale the influenza virus or rub the virus into your eyes, nose, or mouth.

Regardless, it looks like the World Cup may have gone viral, but not in a good way.