14 May 2020

England and Houston Dash player Rachel Daly on NWSL training under 'strict' lockdown rules

England and Houston Dash footballer Rachel Daly has said training rules in lockdown for the National Women's Soccer League is ‘strict’.

The NWSL was supposed to begin its season on April 18 but due to the pandemic it was suspended indefinitely. However, it has now been ruled players can start to train individually outdoors, depending on state laws.

Daly told The Telegraph: "There's loads of really strict rules, if we kick the ball off our side of the field [Dash are training with one player alone in one half of the pitch] a field marshall has to go and get it, we can't. 

"It definitely eats into the time, it's frustrating, but we've got it better than some people."

And while the league's official ruling about no team training runs out on Friday, meaning they could begin training in groups from the weekend, Daly believes it won't happen due to unfair advantage.

"I think they'll postpone that. I don't think they can allow us to do that and then all the other clubs for example not be able to, because they'll think we're getting an upper hand. I hope they don't change it, because I'd love to go into full training, but we'll see.

"New Jersey, Washington state, they're all struggling. They're like, four weeks behind us. So we can't start group training until they can open up and do individual training, I guess it's just not fair for them."

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