Christian Eriksen warned by police for breaching lockdown rules and forced to live at Inter Milan’s training ground
CHRISTIAN ERIKSEN has revealed how coronavirus has turned his Italian dream into a nightmare.
The Dane left Tottenham for Inter Milan in a £16.9million transfer in January.
But his move has been ruined by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has hit Italy hard with 215,858 cases and 29,958 deaths – the second highest in Europe.
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Eriksen, having not had time to find a home in the Italian capital, has been forced to live in lockdown at Inter’s training complex where he revealed he’s been left feeling so dejected he even considered asking to sleep on team-mates Ashley Young and Romelu Lukaku’s sofas.
If that was not bad enough, Eriksen says when he did venture out to get some shopping he ended up receiving a warning from police for breaking the country’s strict stay-at-home guidelines.
To make matters worse, he has not even touched a football in almost two months and has been reduced to running around a car park in a bid to keep fit.
It was not how he thought it would be when he left Spurs for Inter in the last transfer window.
But he was not even able to find a place to live before coronavirus struck Italy plunging it into a terrifying lockdown.
Eriksen said: “I thought of talking to Romelu Lukaku and Ashley Young, but they already had families to look after, and 14 days sleeping on someone’s sofa is too long.
“Instead, I ended up staying at the club’s training structure with a chef and five members of staff who chose to quarantine themselves in order to protect their families.”
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The former Spurs star also revealed how he had a run-in with the law enforcement when he went out to shop.
He said: “The police stopped me and in my rather bad Italian I had to explain what I was doing, where I was going and why I was out of the house.
“I’ve never had so much free time and you can’t even really go shopping. We can’t complain, as it’s far more difficult for many others, but it is so different to the life we are accustomed to.”
The crisis has made moving to a new club in a different country even more difficult for Eriksen.
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He added: “We do follow the training schedule sent by the club and their diet plans too, but you have to make do.
“I’ve been running around the parking lot basement and calculated I can run 35 metres, then have to take a turn and run 35 metres back.
“I haven’t touched the ball in seven weeks. It’s been the longest period without football in my life and I really am starting to miss it.”