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The Luxembourg national team were dealt with the risk of postponing their Euro 2016 qualifier against Belarus after 16 of their squad members picked up a stomach bug courtesy a bad meal they had at their team hotel in Minsk.
The players spent hours in the bathroom and complained about stomachaches after having a meal of spaghetti bolognese, which forced the Luxembourg Football Federation to get in touch with the UEFA to speak about the possibility of rearranging the game.
The Federation’s spokesman Marc Diederich had confirmed the news when he spoke about the issue with the press a couple of days ago, stating that only four players were fit out of the squad of 20 players.
"Sixteen of my 20 players have food poisoning," Diedrich said, as quoted on the official UEFA website. "Some of the coaching staff also have similar problems.”
“Luckily we brought two doctors to Belarus as one of them was out for the whole of Monday with food poisoning. The players felt sick all night and started to turn to the doctors at 4.00am."
The next game set to go ahead as scheduled
The condition of the players wasn’t bad enough to demand hospital treatment as the doctors managed to treat them with the help of medicines, allowing them to get back to the Borisov Arena for a training session on the evening of the same day they were treated.
"Some are a little bit ill still, but they try to train, see what their body does. It seems like they could play if something else doesn't happen again in the night,” said Diedrich, in a statement to the press on the day before the match.
While Diedrich had earlier claimed that the Luxembourg Football Federation were in ‘close contact’ with the UEFA regarding potentially calling off the game, another spokesman confirmed that the game would indeed take place. The European Football Association body also admitted this with an official statement to the Associated Press, as quoted on ESPN.
"We are aware of this issue. As it stands, the game will go ahead as scheduled."
The Luxembourg players contracted the food poisoning just a day after they celebrated a rare win in competitive football. The minnows beat Macedonia 1-0 but are already out of contention for next year’s tournament in France, after picking up just four points from seven games to leave them in fifth spot in their group.
A similar incident took place in 2006, when 10 Tottenham Hotspur players picked up food poisoning before their final match of the season against West Ham. The Spurs lost the game 2-1, which allowed their biggest rivals Arsenal to leapfrog them to fourth place and secure a lucrative Champions League spot for another year.
